Heavenly sounds January round-up
Kit Downes uses the organ and a galaxy of stars to push back the boundaries of jazz
Kit Downes
Dreamlife of Debris
Kit Downes (piano, organ), Tom Challenger (sax), Lucy Railton (cello), Stian Westerhuis (guitar), Sebastian Rochford (drums)
ECM 2632
Kit Downes follows 2018’s Obsidian album, an idiosyncratic solo exploration of the pipe organ, with this quintet work of other-worldly beauty.
Although largely improvised around pre-written themes (the pieces are named after galaxies), studio edits and overlays were used to heighten the sound’s celestial textures. Downes stays at the centre of the music and, while sax player Tom Challenger is never far away, the other players move in and out of orbit.
‘Sculptor’ sets the scene, Downes’s limpid piano figures combining with Challenger’s piping tenor lines, all set against a diaphanous organ drone. ‘Pinwheel’ has a creepy theme spelled out by the piano, haunted by Railton’s cello accompaniment and Rochford’s rustling cymbals. The segue into ‘Bodes’ passes almost unnoticed until Norwegian Stian Westerhuis’s guitar launches steely sheets of sound and deep space reverberation.
The programme is consummated by ‘Blackeye’, Rochford’s snare and splashing ride cymbals assailing the organ’s grandiose edifice of sound. It is jazz – but not as we know it. ★★★★★
ECM has been able to nurture adventurous artists like Kit Downes for the last 50 years thanks largely to the global sales of improvising galactico Keith Jarrett. The pianist’s new album for the illustrious German imprint, Munich 2016, is the latest in a series of live solo recordings made over the years. It’s a supernatural performance, even by Jarrett’s peerless standards. The simply numbered 12-part suite is a standing wave of harmonic and melodic imagination that draws on folksong, blues and classicism. There’s no sign that it’s the final date on the tour’s European leg, such is Jarrett’s focus and energy; even the quieter pieces have a profound intensity. A gentle reading of three tin-pan alley standards, including his signature ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, seals the deal beautifully. (ECM 2667/68 ★★★★★)
Pianist Darius Brubeck has always celebrated his famous father’s life and legacy, rather than be put in the shade by it. His latest quartet recording, Live in Poland, commemorates Dave Brubeck’s historic tour behind the Iron
Curtain in 1958. This beautifully produced recording made in Poznan’s Blue Note Club – four original pieces and three associated with Brubeck
Snr – is a straightahead treat.
There’s no grandstanding from the leader, just an easy swinging facility that aims to please, like the lilting South African-hued ‘Nomali’. British saxophonist Dave O’higgins is magisterial, blowing pure-toned lyricism on ‘Earthrise’. The set closes with the rhythm section given free rein on a version of ‘Take Five’ (Ubuntu Music UBU0033 ★★★★).
Bassist Alison Rayner was already a mainstay of the UK jazz scene when she co-founded the Guest Stars in London, alongside guitarist Deidre Cartwright in 1989.
Thirty years on, leading her own quintet, Rayner still makes bright, open jazz music that rejoices in human experience without sentimentalising it. Short Stories,a collection of eight perfectly formed originals, makes the most of three standout soloists: Cartwright, along with wily two-handed pianist Steve Lodder and lithe saxophonist Diane Mcloughlin. I especially liked the affectionate ‘A Braw Boy’, lovingly articulated by Mcloughlin, and Cartwright’s ‘Life Lived Wide’, whose rising wave of energy channels the late Esbjorn Svensson (Blow The Fuse BTF1914 ★★★★).
Like Alison Rayner, the young Belgian horn player Jean Paul Estievenart sprinkles a little Latin flavour over his writing for Strange Bird. But his quintet’s sound isn’t at all spicy. An understated soloist, Estievenart’s restrained lyricism reminds me of the American trumpeter Tom Harrell. The original number ‘Con Pasion’ is anything but passionate – though Estievenart articulates feeling beautifully through fluent, deft phrasing. The introduction of guest altoist Logan Richardson, whose attacking style on ‘Henri’, a spiky bebop piece and two other numbers, is a clever touch to contrast Estievenart’s cool approach (Out Note OTN 630 ★★★★).
There’s no law that says a Hollywood superstar can’t front a big band for fun, nor put out CDS whose cover shows him sitting at a white grand piano that’s in the middle of a palm-fringed swimming pool. Indeed, Jeff Goldblum is to be encouraged:
I Shouldn’t Be Telling
You This is a swinging affair and his choice of tunes – Herbie Hancock, Wes Montgomery, Joe Henderson – show he’s got musical taste at least. (Decca 00602508060519 ★★★)