Music / Jazz
Review: Monk Liberation Front, Bristol Beacon Foyer
For a jazz project to last eighteen years there has to be something good at the core of it. Jazz musicians are generally restless souls, always generating new ideas and finding new collaborators, so to stick with the one idea and work with the same person there has to be both musical and interpersonal simpatico. When saxophonist Toni Kofi and pianist Jonathan Gee decided, in 2003, to apply themselves to the music of pianist/composer supreme Thelonious Monk it’s unlikely they envisaged that they would still be exploring that repertoire in 2022 but here they were, with bass player Ben Hazelton and drummer Rod Youngs, doing just that and providing great musical entertainment.
Monk Liberation Front: Jonathahn Gee (piano), Tony Kofi (sax), Ben Hazelton (bass) (pic: Tony Benjamin)
Widely acknowledged as one of the 20th century’s great composers (in any genre) Monk’s music is an ever-changing mix of delicious melodies, fractured rhythms, complicated harmony and unexpected structures. The genius bit is that it all hangs together in a way that is both surprising and enjoyable at the same time. The challenge for the players is to somehow get on top of it all without losing that element of fun and the Monk Liberation Front’s success in achieving that made them a joy to be with. Obviously much hung on pianist Gee’s ability to catch the Monk voice in his playing, rising to the high technical and imaginative bar the great man set and it was apparent from the early appearance of the classic Brilliant Corners that he could do the job. While the faultless rhythm section guided the piece through its sudden swivels of speed and Kofi maximised bop fluency on his tenor Gee kept a hand in both camps, simultaneously crashing chords and snatching melodic phrases, finding unity with the sax and then quickly dispelling it.
Monk Liberation Front: Ben Hazelton (bass), Tony Kofi (sax), Rod Youngs (drums). (pic: Tony Benjamin)
The tension between order and chaos came out well in Ugly Beauty, a ponderously conventional tune that emerged from Kofi’s suave solo introduction and which the piano increasingly disrupted. The piece became a tangled duet between bass and keys with the unrufflable Hazelton playing it straight and lyrical against Gee’s deliberate awkwardness – and yet it all sounded perfectly right: the clue was in the title, of course. Less obviously challenging to the new listener, BooBoo’s Birthday was positively jaunty and there was a slinky jazz club vibe to Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are. The latter’s conventional blues structure gained swing precision courtesy of the exuberant Youngs’ economic percussion while Kofi graced it with a fine solo in the Rollins style, albeit graced with a circular breathing cascade. A more lugubrious sax introduced Ruby My Dear, a tune whose well-formed Ellingtonian niceness made it a contrasting stand-out.
is needed now More than ever
Monk Liberation Front (pic: Tony Benjamin)
It was an evening of rich variety that did full justice to the demands of such great music – obviously eighteen years immersion in the repertoire has given the players a real insight into one of the most complex minds in jazz history. As a result they looked incredibly relaxed even in the trickiest moments and all four radiated a sense of the fun they were evidently having – and happily sharing with their audience. Reviewing their 2003 debut The Guardian’s John L. Waters opined that “One day it may become compulsory for every musical festival to programme the Monk Liberation Front” and this very satisfying performance showed that it still should be the case.
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