Music / Jazz
Review: Vein & Andy Sheppard, St George’s
When Andy Sheppard stepped onto the St George’s stage he had the sheepish smile of someone arriving late at a party in their honour. There was, of course, no need to apologise – we’d already been made comfortable by Vein, playing the role of hosts. The Swiss trio opened with Boarding The Beat, pretty much a showcase for pianist Michael Arbenz’ dazzling right hand technique and the band’s impeccable tightness displayed itself through flashes of close unity and choreographed shifts of pace and volume.
Michael Arbenz, Andy Sheppard, Thomas Lahns, Florian Arbenz
Once the saxophonist arrived, however, they began to explore their project adapting the music of Ravel beginning with Minuet, the drifting melody given Andy’s trademark caressing touch through impressionistic sketches echoed and replied to from the piano. Eventually fleshed out with Thomas Lahns’ bass and gentle urging from Florian Arbenz on drums the tune coalesced tidily into a gentle finale. A later rendition of Pavanne would also begin gently with an m’bira solo from Florian picked out on tinkling piano by his brother but this gained increasingly unsettling harmonies and cascading arpeggios, snatches of melody flickering intriguingly in and out of sight of this darker reading.
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The last time Vein played at St George’s, with Dave Liebmann on sax, things had been fairly straight-faced but, Michael’s somewhat dour expression notwithstanding, this visit promised to be fun, not least in one of the pianist’s own compositions. Under Construction began as a tidy post-bop burn up leading into an entertaining bass solo full of enough octave jumps and swoops to finally persuade the audience to begin applauding these individual moments. When it returned the underlying beat was an intriguing mix of hip hop and swing that stoked things nicely for another of Andy’s deftly subtle interventions, catching the piano motifs and raising the bar just a little.
Their amiable jousting was even more apparent in Reflections in D, one of Duke Ellington’s more classical pieces that, in this context, clearly echoed Ravel’s impressionistic approach (which itself was influenced by early jazz recordings). Harp like sweeps and rapid-fire tremolos from the keyboard came back through lyrically overblown sax yet, for all the wrangling, neither player crashed the tune’s essentially ruminative mood.
The set finished with 5 O’Clock Foxtrot, a surprisingly upbeat Ravel ballet piece that swung to a woozy beat. Andy let rip an impassioned solo workout that was just what Mr Sheppard’s fanbase (flock?) had wanted all along, before the Vein trio took over the piece and their combination of rolling rhythm and sharp, combative piano had something of the Bad Plus about it. All four players eventually headed for the finish line with an abandon that ran on into a short, entertaining encore piece and they left a proper jazz echo in St George’s fine acoustic as Andy finally left the stage with a cheeky wave over his shoulder.
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