Music / contemporary jazz
Review: Mark Lockheart’s Dreamers, Bristol Beacon
This was bound to be something of a surprise. Ever since emerging as a key saxophone player in the 80s Loose Tubes generation Mark Lockheart’s career has demonstrated a capacity for embracing a diversity of new ideas and directions, ranging from the elegant Perfect Houseplants and the in-your-face grooves of Polar Bear. Along the way he’s equally distinguished himself both as a large scale composer and an able session sideman with Radiohead among others. Throughout, however, his well-tempered style and creamy toned voice on tenor and soprano sax have remained a distinguishing constant. Now here he was coming in a shroud of mystery with a new band of characterful players and a set of unreleased tunes – what would it sound like?
Dreamers: Elliot Galvin (keys) and Tom Herbert (bass) (pic: Tony Benjamin)
It opened with tinkling electronica from Elliott Galvin‘s keyboard rig and weaving FX bass guitar courtesy of Tom Herbert’s impressive rank of pedals that (eventually) framed Lockheart’s melodic sax, Dave Smith’s drums coalescing into an easy beat. The number – Weird Weather – became a collective workout, electronic textures evolving, rhythms subtly shifting until a tidy coda wound things up. That warm-up piece set the template for the band’s approach – well-organised composition allowing for collective improvisation within quite tight boundaries with no ostentatious soloing as such. The Indian-inspired Jagdish followed, its raga-like two-bar riff elaborated for keys and bass with almost baroque ornamentation while Smith’s complex drumming evoked the many fingers of a tabla player. The piece shifted suddenly into drum and bass territory, the drumming tightening and driving as a freer section allowed all four players to explore the piece and yet come to a kind of tranquility for the ending.
Dreamers: Tom Herbert, Elliot Galvin, Dave Smith and Mark Lockheart (pic: Tony Benjamin)
For a new project there was already a fine sense of trust between the players who seemed relaxed in the music they made, whether playing the fragmentary neo-bossa Bits of the Heart, the Kraftwerk-inspired motorik Dreamers or the post-Punk directness of Mingle Tingle. Clearly there was a great range to their versatile sound, which also encompassed the exuberant Gangster Rat’s snappy poppish rhythms, with Galvin’s nimble fingers wreaking havoc with his gizmos and Smith going for it in a duel with Herbert’s uberfast funk-punk basslines. It deserved a mosh pit, really, even as it melted down into blissful confusion, and it left a sense of fun hanging in the air.
is needed now More than ever
Mark Lockheart’s Dreamers (pic: Tony Benjamin)
The composer/saxophonist may have led the melodic shape of most pieces but Lockheart rarely claimed the kind of spotlight many bandleaders allow themselves – though his conjuring of the incessant interrogation of a child’s voice on Nature versus Nurture was a particularly highpoint. By choosing these highly creative players and taking this disciplined approach to improvisation Dreamers is all about shared musicianship and you needed to pay a lot of attention to all four to catch the full story. That said, there was a lightness of touch and sense of fun in everything that was really enjoyable and betokens well for a fledgling project just spreading its very promising wings.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
