March round-up
The SNJO (see Jazz Choice) typifies the music’s strengths beyond the allegedly London-centric nature of British culture; indeed, anything that can transport the weary listener away from Westminster has to be a good thing. Several further examples present themselves this month, too.
Leeds College of Music is actually where jazz education at tertiary level began in the UK many decades ago; alumni include the spirited 12-piece Nubiyan Twist, a band that takes the multifarious roots of the current generation of musicians in jazz, hip-hop, Africana and more, and effortlessly allows them to grow back into the ancestral unity that always bound these genres together. Fronted by singer Nubiya Brandon and with each track featuring a member or guest, Jungle Run is a vibrant, vivacious album marred slightly by a clanky production sound that may have you wishing you still owned a graphic equaliser. (Strut STRUT198CD ★★★★)
Leeds can also lay claim to resident bassist and composer
Sam Quintana, whose quintet’s eponymous album Wandering Monster is really rather brilliant and this month’s winner of the award for the Sound of Surprise. Serpentine without ever seeming convoluted and full of contrasts that sound as though they were made for juxtaposition, his artful, expertly paced music displays the more sophisticated kind of rock influences while never losing sight of a jazz sensibility. Both band and leader are worth keeping tabs on. (Ubuntu Music UBU0023 ★★★★★)
Quintana’s band counts guitarist Mike Walker among its admirers, and it so happens that he also has a new album available. The crowdfunded Ropes, recorded at various venues in Cumbria, Manchester, Halifax and Bury, is an intriguing take on the jazzband-with-strings approach. It’s something of a brontosaurus, being slightly thin at both ends, but the much thicker bit in the middle is a tour de force of rolls and tumbles leavened with elegant, sparse pastoralism that more than makes up for this, while the judicious recorded sound deserves its own credit. (Madhouse 0002 ★★★★★) Invoking freedom of movement, we find that drummer Jeff Ballard has also gone for the roving option by recording Fairgrounds during a European tour. This is often a good plan if the budget allows as it gives a wide selection of source material, but it particularly applies to this quintet’s music, which is a pleasantly skittish but not uneuphonious form of improvisation. Much of the playing pivots around Ballard’s textural inventiveness and rhythmic propulsion, although even that gets wickedly subverted by the drummer’s unconventional choice of percussive sounds. A fine nearly-an-hour of listening for fans of the unpredictable. (Edition EDN1121 ★★★★★)
Finally this month, trumpet and flugelhorn maestro Randy Brecker has also done the American-in-europe thing with Rocks, comprising recordings made with the NDR Big Band in Hamburg. Mercifully, this disc proves not to be Brecker’s take on a string of rock standards but rather a selection of items from his own catalogue, the title track being one such. Brecker has transformed mellow slickness into an art form, a talent that combines with his tunesmithing skills to produce reliably faultless results. Jörg Achim Keller’s robust arrangements and spirited conducting serve the music well. ( Jazzline N 77057 ★★★★★)