Featuring a selection of Manchester’s top improvisers, Revival Room is comprised of three musicians closely associated with the Efpi family, and with the city’s burgeoning creative improvised music scene – Adam Fairhall (organ), Mark Hanslip (tenor saxophone), and Johnny Hunter (drums). The band is the culmination of a series of long-held friendships: often playing together in various combinations in other projects, the trio were drawn together by shared principles of collaboration. “It's a genuinely cooperative band, where we all have an equal say”, Mark explains. This deeply creative debut album is the sound of a group at once bedding in and breaking out.
The organ trio format has a rich and varied history. The iconic sound of the Hammond organ has historically graced an array of genres, inspiring performers from Larry Young to Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Yet the format has often been overlooked as a medium for exploration, particularly as a vehicle for improvisation and free playing. Revival Room are on a mission to change that, following such contemporary organists as Alexander Hawkins, John Medeski and Daniel Formo. As Adam notes; “I'd been exploring other keyboard instruments for a few years, and the Hammond organ was one that I was trying to get into. I needed to play with people, and Johnny and Mark are both great at jazz, but also have a very inclusive perspective on improv too. The idea was that we tried to explore the possibilities of an organ trio in improvisation, bringing in non-jazz vocabularies as well as referencing parts of the tradition.”
That combination of tradition and exploration becomes an important guiding principle for the group. Thoroughly acquainted with the musical languages of not just organ trios, but the entire post-bop vernacular, Revival Room spin vibrant new tunes with a distinct sound in this exciting study of the format.
'You Funnin Me, Son?' is an immediate step into the band’s noir sound world. The piece (referencing a quote from Ron Perlman’s Hannibal Chau in Pacific Rim) has an off-kilter, Monk-ish vibe, built on an ostinato organ bass. 'Red Room' continues with vivid filmic imagery, referencing Hanslip’s intriguing cover art, generated by hybridizing two distinct images using AI.
The band gradually emerge from the heavy misterioso feel in 'Monobrow', where free playing meets a series of unison statements. “I wanted to write a single line that we all played together”, Hanslip explains. “We arrived at an arrangement for it as a group though. Working like this is home territory for me after being in bands like Twelves and Outhouse, where the composition might be your own, but the arrangement is worked out collectively.” Further contrast arrives in 'Day Of Rest', a straight-ahead jazz ballad: “I tried to make it as simple as possible”, says Hanslip. “I just wanted to write a really simple ballad, with as much clarity as possible.”
Originally written by Johnny for baritone saxophone and snare drum, 'April' later entered the repertoire of his New Orleans-style street band before finding its way into Revival Room's book. Hunter’s compositions put a heavier emphasis on groove, finding the grit and dirt. 'To And Frodo' is similarly groove-focused, and also started life elsewhere: first designed as an exercise to ease Hunter and bassist Seth Bennett into the 5:3 polyrhythm, the group breathes new life into the track on top of this rhythmic bedrock. Fairhall’s 'Pines' brings back the more misterioso mood of his opening tracks, with both himself and Hanslip improvising freely over this harmonically complex ballad. 'Slippy', another Fairhall original, ups the pace - a tricky head section gives way to a sparse sax solo, before Fairhall and Hunter crank up the intensity with some frenetic organ-and-drums shredding.
The album finishes with the only non-original piece – 'Ida Lupino', by prolific American composer and bandleader Carla Bley, and a crowd favourite typically played at the end of Revival Room gigs. The piece was originally written as an homage to the similarly pioneering Lupino, an Anglo-American filmmaker and a prominent voice in the male-dominated landscape of 1950s Hollywood. The tune represents a side of Bley’s compositional style that is smooth and lyrical, slower and calmer than some of her edgier, more unpredictable compositions.
Ending on the smoother side of Bley seems appropriate for a group keen to update, contest and explore. “I guess we're eclectic musicians”, says Adam. “Johnny and I have been involved in the creative side of the jazz scene in Manchester, and the free side as well, for quite a few years now - and it's really great that Mark has embedded himself in the Manchester scene too now that he’s based in the north.”
1. You Funnin' Me, Son?
2. Red Room
3. Monobrow
4. Day Of Rest
5. To And Frodo
6. April
7. Pines
8. Slippy
9. Ida Lupino
Adam Fairhall - Hammond B3 organ
Mark Hanslip - tenor saxophone
Johnny Hunter - drums
Recorded in Leeds on 1st and 2nd August 2018
Engineered, mixed and mastered by Michael Ward
Artwork by Mark Hanslip
Sleeve designed by Ten
