A fine career Move
With tight, intense bebop and easy swing, Leo Richardson and company rise to the top
Leo Richardson Quartet Move
Leo Richardson, Alex Garnett (tenor sax), Rick Simpson (piano), Tim Thornton
(bass), Ed Richardson (drums)
Ubuntu Music UBU 0026 52:02 mins
I first heard Leo Richardson’s Quartet at the 2018 Teignmouth Jazz & Blues Festival with the same line-up that appears on this terrific album. They were impressive ‘live’ and clearly maintain a similar level of intensity in the studio. The band provides irrefutable substantiation of Mike Ledonne’s ‘Bopsolete’ contention
(see below right). Combining speed and accuracy, they play the hardest of hard-bop, but are also capable of urbane, relaxed swing, as on ‘Peace’, and affecting sensitivity, as on ‘E.F.G.’, dedicated to Leo Richardson’s wife. The leader’s playing is in the esteemed tradition of fellow tenor saxophonists Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson and mid-period John Coltrane, building crowd-pleasing excitement without losing his grip on structure. The rhythm section of Simpson, Thornton and Ed Richardson is exemplary in all modes. On the final track, ‘Second Wind’, Alex Garnett joins in on tenor for a classic sax ‘chase’. (The Chase happens to be the title of the quartet’s first release in 2017.)
Like Ledonne’s album, the work of this band could stand confidently alongside the great Blue Note sessions by the likes of Art Blakey, Horace Silver and Jackie Mclean. And that’s saying something. ★★★★★
October round-up
Leo Richardson crops up again on Road Warrior by the Quentin Collins Sextet. Written by Collins and British saxophonist Tom Harrison, the album is effectively a suite evoking the life of touring musicians. It was produced by Jean Toussaint, a one-time member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Toussaint settled in London in
1987 and has done a great deal to encourage young jazz musicians in Britain. He guests on tenor sax on two tracks. Like Move, it’s broadly in the neo-bop tradition, with splendid playing from the whole band on a varied programme of compositions given pleasing arrangements. An absorbing album. (Ubuntu Music UBU0027 ★★★★★)
Love and Liberation, the second album from Jazzmeia Horn, has gestated over months of touring, experimentation and refining. Horn has an attractive voice, a striking style and an engaging musical persona. Eight of the 12 songs are her originals, displaying a variety of approaches, from soulful ballads to high-speed neo-bop, even spoken passages. She makes effective use of scat, though the lyrics are important, encompassing various aspects of love and relationships but also, on ‘Free Your Mind’, counselling against digital obsession ousting real human interaction, while ‘When I
Say’ deals with the special time between mother and children. Supported by a stalwart, skilled group including pianist Victor Gould and bassist
Ben Williams, this session has immediate appeal which it maintains on further hearings. (Concord CJA 00155 ★★★★)
Mike Ledonne concludes Partners in Time with ‘Bopsolete’, a rebuke to those who claim bop is no longer relevant. This session is a triumphant confirmation that it can still surprise and delight, although the stylistic range extends beyond bop: there’s an atmospheric arrangement of ‘My Funny Valentine’ unlike any other I’ve heard, a voluptuous and lambent reading of JJ Johnson’s ‘Lament’ and some fine originals. Flanked by a superb team of Christian Mcbride (bass) and Lewis Nash (drums), Ledonne uses the Steinway B in the studio of the late great recording engineer Rudy van Gelder. And this CD can hold its head up alongside the many great albums made there. (Savant SCD 2174 ★★★★★)
The Norwegian music scene has been awash with imaginative and exploratory music for some years now, ranging from electronics and highly abstract free improvisation to music inspired by traditional songs and, of course, its own take on Scandijazz. Free To Play by the Espen Berg Trio (recorded in Sweden) relates to that latter category. The sound is excellent, crisp and full-bodied, doing justice to each member of the trio, but especially to Berg’s touch and articulation, bringing out the slightly mystical sensuousness of slow numbers and the sheer exhilaration in the up-tempo ones. Like all the best music, this album reveals something new and pleasing on each successive hearing. (Odin CD 9559 ★★★★)
Lionel Loueke and Kevin Hays play with almost preternatural synchronicity. The textures of Loueke’s acoustic guitar and Hays’s piano mesh so inexorably and apparently effortlessly that one might suspect pre-planning and over-dubbing. But although the 11 tracks of Hope launch from precomposed tunes they are, as far as I am aware, all spontaneous. Both musicians sing on some tracks, with appealing African echoes on Loueke’s compositions.
(Edition EDN 1133 ★★★★)