Music / contemporary jazz
Review: World Service Project/Roller Trio, Jam Jar
When the World Service Project’s main man Dave Morecroft sprang to life behind his Nord you felt this was a man bursting out of lockdown. Then you remember that he was the same during his last pre-pandemic visit to Bristol, leaping and writhing as if on an imaginary festival Main Stage. And now he was well matched in the band’s latest line-up by lunging and swaggering saxophonist Ben Powling, another player whose body language matches the urgency and edge of their music.
Roller Trio: James Mainwaring, Luke Reddin Williams, Chris Sharkey. (Photo: Tony Benjamin)
But before that there was my first chance to see the Roller Trio’s altered line-up – also my first chance to see new member Chris Sharkey playing bass guitar rather than six-string. With saxophonist James Mainwaring behind a table of electronics and drummer Luke Reddin Williams equally tooled up with gizmo boxes the famously FX-adept Sharkey clearly fitted into the band’s new digitally-enhanced sound. The set felt pretty much fully improvised, the combination of acoustic and electronic sound ebbing and flowing through textural changes ranging from complex cross-tempo chaos to tight-clenched techno stretches and even Moroder influences. Sometimes it was brutally basic, sledgehammer beats and warring electronica, other times duelling sax and bass morphed into a more harmonious duet. The ideas just kept coming, with a feeling of carefully nurtured spontaneity running throughout.
Hardworking drummer Luke Reddin Williams. (Photo: Tony Benjamin)
Given his impressive work rate through the Roller Trio’s set it would have been unsurprising if drummer Luke Reddin Williams had a bit less to offer World Service Project but that was far from the case. The band exploded into action with his hard-edged stick work propelling them through the kinds of tight changes you expect from Dave Morecroft’s compositions. The keyboard player himself seemed to have spent lockdown finding all the most aggressive and dirty sounds the usually inoffensive Nord Stage keyboard had to offer – at one point he caught the wheedling distortion of Sister Ray, at another a demented Dr Phibes organ solo, frequently his smashing hands evoked post-punk guitar overloads. A lot of the melodic work fell to Powling’s tenor sax and he, too, added rawness and grit to his sound whether driving one of the many hook-riffs or elevating to a screaming outburst of solo flourishes. In all this Arthur O’Hara’s bass somehow managed to assert itself with a certain dignity amongst the fury.
is needed now More than ever
World Service Project: Dave Morecroft, Ben Powling, Luke Reddin Williams, Arthur O’Hara. (Photo: Tony Benjamin)
One underlying motivator was clear, not least in Morecroft’s impassioned introduction to Europhiles explaining the devastating impact of Taking Back Control on arranging musical tours in Europe (something he was known for). The tune itself gained a harsher tone from the album recording, albeit with a surprisingly wistful pay-off. Similarly The Kipper and the Pork’s denunciation of our truth-averse Prime Minister crashed through with unfiltered and uncouth punk rock disdain.
(Photo: Tony Benjamin)
Whatever the changes in the geopolitical context, however, it was good to see World Service Project maintaining their position as post-rock provocateurs, marrying their jazz credentials to rock and roll’s insouciant bravado. Bringing those overblown ‘main stage’ posturings to the Jam Jar’s tighter confines felt, in the end, entirely appropriate.
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