Music / Jazz
Review: Tony Orrell’s Big Top, Breaking Bread
Returning to Breaking Bread’s Pergola for another of Worm Disco Club’s weekly jazz sessions already felt like coming home. Indeed, the relaxed jazz club vibe of socially distanced tables barely seemed out of place, and when the familiar faces of Tony Orrell’s all-star Big Top quintet took to the stage it seemed ‘normal’ jazz life had returned. There was one less familiar face, though, as pianist John Baggott was sitting in for regular keyboard player Dan Moore.
Big Top (l-r) Matt Brown, Riaan Vosloo, Jake McMurchie, John Baggott, Tony Orrell
The obvious USP of the band is the double drum set-up – two substantial kits flanking the stage, two contrastingly powerful drummers taking up the sticks – and this requires some pretty muscular performances from the players standing between them. When all five rise to the occasion as sparklingly as they did for this gig you are assured of some real quality contemporary jazz, full of surprises and smile-inducing moments.
is needed now More than ever
A great example of the latter came from bassist Riaan Vosloo’s tune Algernon which began in a classic free exchange of scraped bass harmonics, rattling seashell percussion and jungle bird saxophone hoots then took shape around a primordial bass line with pensive piano and hushed brushed drums. Jake McMurchie introduced a soulful sax line, a song without words also picked out on piano – it all hung together perfectly for a moment and then disjointed harmonics and broken rhythms took the song to pieces. Just when it seemed it was all over a modular grooving pulse grew up that took shape as Sun Ra’s Love In Outer Space. It was a seamless piece of transformation the assurance of which belied the two year gap since the band’s last live appearance.
That second tune’s spacious drift was a gift to Baggott and his extended solo was a revelation to anyone who only knew him in rock mode as a regular part of Portishead, Massive Attack or Robert Plant’s band. Using the full length of his keyboard his energetic left hand leaped between chords and bass notes while his right threw in a dazzlingly anarchic series of twists and turns. Minimalist arpeggios gave way to cocktail flourishes or soaring runs in the kind of eclectic contrasts that Sun Ra himself thoroughly approved of, and revealed a stylishness as a jazz musician that the pianist rarely has the chance to demonstrate.
Tony Orrell
What integrated the music, though, was the careful collaboration of ‘partners in time’ drummers Tony Orrell and Matt Brown, the former known for impromptu rhythmic games and surprises, the latter for intensely driving grooves. Their triad with Vosloo’s machine-precise bass was glorious to watch, especially on the Mingus number Better Get It In Your Soul that began with an underplayed drum dialogue under cross-rhythmic piano which fell into a straight piano/bass/drum trio with Orrell drumming. Brown held back for some time, then brought up a percussion counterpoint before synching into the bass leaving Tony to follow his own path. Over all this McMurchie’s sax caught the dynamic shifts perfectly and the piece evolved to a splendid grooving end.
Matt Brown
It was a set of many such highpoints that never flagged or fell back on the obvious yet was undeniably crowd pleasing throughout. Football, it seems, may have slightly lost its way but on the strength of this evening Bristol’s quality jazz scene might well be coming home.
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