Music / free jazz

The week in Jazz January 22 – 28

By Tony Benjamin  Monday Jan 22, 2018

There’s an eclectic range of music for jazz-friendly ears this week, with Kenny Wheeler Award winning saxophonist Tom Barford’s Asterope quintet (Hen and Chicken, Sunday 28) an undeniable highlight. One of Edition Records’ more recent discoveries, Tom leads the young fivesome from the front with a fulsome toned tenor sax and clear (if intricate) compositional ideas. His well-chosen cohorts – Billy Marrow on guitar, Rupert Cox’ piano, Flo Moore on bass and Dave Storey drumming – are all ‘names to watch’, too.

Konik’s Mark Langford (left) playing in the Unity Trio

The week starts, however, with a triple bill of what the Exchange has called Unpopular Musics (Monday 22), being improvisation from the excellent Foster/Grigg/Kelly/Sneddon, the violin/double bass combination of Callahan & Magda Duo and a headline set from Konik, a trio of Mark Langford’s reeds, Dominic Lash on bass and Roger Telford on drums. The mix of seasoned free players and newer arrivals always produces surprises. The next night at The Exchange weird electronic non-popsters UUUU may well spread happy genre-bending confusion.

Nick Dover – finding faults

There’s a welcome return to The Fringe for tenor sax player Nick Dover and his Fault Lines quartet (Wednesday 24) albeit with a new line-up featuring Metheny-esque guitarist Matt Hopkins alongside Dave Guy and Matt Brown on bass and drums respectively. Nick’s playing draws deeply on the great sax players of the post-war years and the band has a classic modern jazz sound.

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John O’Gallagher lets rip

More experimental approaches may well be heard when US sax man John O’Gallagher visits the Fringe next week with Paul Dunmall but you can catch him in the more composed setting as featured artist with the Olly Chalk Trio (Future Inn Thursday 25). Birmingham Conservatoire graduate Olly places as much emphasis on composition as piano playing – though he’s pretty ace at both – so the interplay with O’Gallagher’s ‘exploratory’ playing should make for interesting results.

The quintessentially groovy Ray D’Inverno

The Bebop Club’s Andy Hague has played in South Coast pianist Ray D’Inverno’s  band for some time now so it’s perhaps unsurprising that Ray is launching Quintessential Groove’s new CD All In The Same Boat at the club (Friday 26) with Canadian sax player Terry Quinney another leading light in the band and a whole heap of Ray’s new compositions to be showcased.

Blowing in from the Caribbean Michel Padron.

Meanwhile on the same night (but across the river) the excellent  trumpet of Havana-born Michel Padron leads his Latin-jazz trio with Colombian pianist Raymond Fernandez and Cuban Yoan Sanchez (El Rincon, Friday 26) for some really authentic Latin grooves. The livewire Snazzback keep it caliente, too, at Mr Wolf’s (Tuesday 23), while Samba Junglist DJ Hiphoppapotamus unveils an ambitious live show including saxophonist Dave Sanders and loop-guitar star The Flamenco Thief also Mr Wolf’s Friday 26).

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