Music / European jazz
Review: Tom Arthur’s Trio, St George’s
This was a quiet affair, and not just because of the sadly small number of people scattered around St George’s rows of seats. Outside was a slow, dark Sunday evening, inside were three unamplified musicians playing the calm and modulated music from Tom Arthurs’ latest album One Year. It couldn’t help but make for a contemplative experience.
Tom Arthurs – unforced trumpet player
Tom Arthurs writes music that mostly unfolds like a careful thought process, while his unforced way of playing the trumpet can almost be pure breathing. There are no sudden bursts of sound or radical shifts in pace or style, though his technique (borrowed from film editing) of arranging modular units into shape does give structure and some change. One Year/Song was a suite that began with insistent metronome piano, a ringing cymbal pulse and an elaborate trumpet raga that eventually resolved into a section of fluent unison with Marc Schmolling’s piano before paying out on piano over one long-held trumpet note and flapping hand percussion. The sense of all being well after a frantic start to the year was excellently expressed.
Tom Arthurs and Markku Ounaskari
Playing acoustically is a serious challenge to drummers and some big names have got this wrong at St George’s over the years, drowning out the subtleties of their bandmates. Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari had it just right, however, avoiding any suggestion of thumping beats in favour of rhythmic deftness while closely responding to the other two players. Through clever use of cymbals, sticks and a damped snare drum his presence was always felt yet never obtrusive. When he had his one opportunity to solo – in Verklöstert – he used it with an energetic economy that remained true to his performance throughout.
is needed now More than ever
Marc Schmolling keeping time
Pianist Marc Schmolling was equally at home in the Tom Arthurs sound world, meticulously rhythmic and controlled in dynamics he enabled both continuity and change with subtlety, often carrying the core of a tune without over-emphasis.
As a contemporary jazz trumpeter inevitable comparisons have been made between Tom Arthur’s playing and Miles Davis or Kenny Wheeler. While he does wield the Harmon mute in a Milesian way his improvising thought processes are more like Wheeler’s for their European-influenced timing and emphasis on fluidity over rhythm. He’s spent much time in Finland and Germany, and while it’s a cliché that contemporary North European music reflects the long dark nights, silences and open spaces of Scandinavia there’s no doubt that this is not urban music. Listening as these impeccable pieces filled a half-empty church space felt like a well-tempered combination of time and place that a capacity audience might even have intruded upon.
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