The big band with a big difference
Jazz Beats & Pieces Ronnie Scott’s ★★★★★
Few sounds are as instantly recognisable as a big band. And that’s its problem. Those choirs of trumpets and horns raised in ecstatic harmony carry one irresistibly back to a different, more glamorous age. It seems a genre that’s good only for peddling nostalgia.
Ben Cottrell, the musical director and composer-in-chief of the young Manchester-based band Beats & Pieces, is determined to prove the cliché wrong. The band’s line-up at Tuesday night’s gig – part of a threenight residency at Ronnie Scott’s – was the familiar one: three trios of trumpets at the back, trombones in the middle, saxes at the front, and a standard rhythm section with the addition of guitar. And yet, the sound of the band was anything but familiar, partly because lurking around its edges were electronic sounds, which leant an interesting air of unfamiliarity to the proceedings. One piece, Broken, began with ghostly sustained notes issuing from who knows where, which only gradually accreted tentative fluttering sounds from saxes and muted trombones.
This was a rare moment of “atmosphere”, which thank goodness is not something this band generally trades in – it has far too much exuberant generosity for that. Most of the numbers had an irresistible zip, powered by Cottrell’s sly way of investing the familiar chords of jazz with a startling new energy.
He’s clearly learned a lot from New York minimalism, as was shown by several pieces in which a longbreathed melody floated over a nervously active repeating riff. The result was pleasingly ambiguous, hectic and calm at once.
When I first saw this band some years ago, they were almost obsessively tightly controlled and super-sharp. Now, in their 10thanniversary year, with another album in the offing, they’re confident enough to relax that impressive discipline. In one number, the three trombones had a joint solo spot, sparring in interlocking rhythmic patterns that felt improvised even though they probably weren’t.
All this kept us on our toes, as did the music’s refusal to box itself into a genre. One number launched off in a mood of stealthy, noirish sophistication, topped off with a beautifully louche solo from trumpeter Nick Walters.
Without warning, the chordal pattern shifted into a new, faster rhythmic gear, and suddenly we were in the midst of Bowie’s Let’s Dance, brilliantly reimagined for stabbing trumpets and trombones. Beats & Pieces have come far in their 10 years, but they will surely go further.
Beats & Pieces’ UK tour continues through January, beatsnpieces.net