Olie Brice Quintet - Day After Day (BABEL LABEL 2017)

It’s hard to explain how music can evoke the same feelings in different people, but it’s also one of life’s more wonderful truths. Musing on adjectives to convey something about this set of free but lyrical pieces, I toy with saying something about melancholy abandon. Then, referring back to leader Olie Brice’s own words from a year ago, I find he is drawn to “emotional, mysterious music with an intense vocal quality and sense of complete commitment and abandonment, droning, melancholy yet also joyous, and a collective, communal process of generating melody and harmony”. A few more words, but I think we’re talking about the same thing. 

Bassist Brice was describing influences - including old blues, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, Leo Smith, the liturgical music he once sang in synagogues - and the music he hoped to make with this quintet on the road. This CD, recorded just after that tour, suggests they succeeded. 

There’s a change in the front line since his first quintet recording, 2013’s Immune to Clockwork with George Crowley on tenor sax and Mike Fletcher on alto coming in for Mark Hanslip and Waclaw Zimpel. Alex Bonney remains essential to the group sound, though switching from cornet to trumpet, and master drummer Jeff Williams contributes that unbeatable sensation of always being loosely propulsive even when he’s apparently heedless of timekeeping. 

It’s a post-Ornette quality, and that’s where one can locate most of the music, as Brice indicates. (He’s also deeply influenced here, he says, by the novels of Nathaniel Mackay, about whom I know nothing). There are four original pieces, which dig deep into multi-vocal improvisation from the horns as well as offering solo-plus-rhythm contributions from all three - Bonney spontaneously melodic at will, Fletcher fluid and inventive, Crowley thoughtfully fierce. If You Were the Only Girl in the World - a song Brice learnt from his grandmother but was inspired to perform by a recording of Sonny Rollins and one of his bass heroes, Henry Grimes - rounds out the set. 

There are hints of other great bassists, too - William Parker comes to mind at times. But as Brice’s inspirations indicate, the music is about building feeling through interaction more than individual brilliance. There’s nothing formulaic here, just an open, responsive approach that speaks to many different strands of improvising tradition, old and new, and makes them personal. The closer and title track, a simple, folkish theme evoking ancient echoes, sees the three horns bring many of these threads together, weaving them into a fresh, vividly coloured fabric. It’s a great realisation of Brice’s prospectus, rewarding for players and listeners alike.  READ MORE

1. Aunt Nancy's Balloons 8:04 

2. Red Honey, Yellow Honey 9:22 

3. Interruptions No. 1 4:49 

4. Another Mad Yak 6:18 

5. If You Were The Only Girl In The World 7:10 

6. Day After Day 8:14

Olie Brice double bass

Alex Bonney cornet

Mike Fletcher alto saxophone

George Crowley tenor saxophone

Jeff Williams drums

Human - Fractured Lands (BABEL LABEL 2017)

MARLBANK

Once done, around for quite a while longer, different reasons entirely and the name of a band instead of a song, their incomparable music won’t be beamed out from your local coffee shoppe any time soon, Human, drummer-leader Stephen Davis, Django Bates’ brother Dylan Bates on violin, trumpeter/electronicist Alex Bonney and pianist Alexander Hawkins, return this summer with Fractured Lands not that potential CostaBucksNero absence makes any odds.

Listen, above, no background information available at all about the release annoyingly, the story so far... well four years ago the very fine Being Human came along which amounted to the quartet’s debut. Bates impressed most back then. And the good news is he is pretty darn good again, shucks, on the upcoming album too, again to be released by the Babel label. His role is much more integrated now so that makes the band even more convincing. Go to the wayward dirge-like stagger of ‘Lennard Road’ where he comes into his own for a slice of the best Bates bits. Hawkins is more brooding possibly than ever and certainly Humanly before. Listen to his haunting introduction on ‘My Imaginary Friend’, the fragile trumpet line of Bonney following and Davis’ aesthetic use of small bells imbuing the track with a heartrending atmosphere.

It isn’t all stark. Hawkins, lightening up, introduces a touch of son somehow constructed and deconstructed on ‘Circle Knots’. The band thrive on an unofficial uncertainty principle meaning that they are not afraid to ask musical questions and leave them unanswered, delving along the way into unsaid emotions rendered abstract. This track expresses that well. No safety net is provided and no it isn’t just a play-anything-anyhow jam, something you often hear alarmingly bandied about when free improv is being dismissed. These guys are all masters of improvisation and/or spontaneous composition. (Is composition less valid if it is done in real time?)

1. IMPOSTER 06:45

2. MY IMAGINARY FRIEND 07:17

3. BLENHEIM ROAD 01:22

4. CIRCLE KNOTS 03:48

5. LENNARD ROAD 01:11

6. HOUSE OF SEEDS 03:28

7. WRONG CAR 05:57

8. PRINCETOWN ROAD 01:26

9. TAK-HETI-SWAMP 05:09

10. WELLINGTON STREET 01:35

New Simplicity Trio - Common Spaces (BABEL LABEL 2017)

Common Spaces by New Simplicity Trio is a powerful statement of musical commitment to groove and melody. These are tunes that will be whistled and hummed. 

Something of a rarity on the contemporary UK and European scene amongst younger players, the trio of Heinen, Jensen and Fusco focus on melodic and harmonic simplicity. That approach has given space for every stroke or touch to stand distinct, achieving a fine balance of tension and grace on Common Spaces and between the 3 players. 

New Simplicity Trio formed in 2014, with the addition of Danish London-based double bassist Henrik Jensen to the long-standing and deep collaboration between Italian drummer Antonio Fusco and the British pianist Bruno Heinen. Their approach is rooted in the ideas initially put forward by the Evans/La Faro/Motion trio of a collective and equally voiced group, but with a contemporary compositional perspective, with contributions from each of the trio. 

The group’s name was inspired by the post serial movement of late 1970’s contemporary classical German composers who rejected the complexity of serialism and other avant-garde practices. They instead composed memorable melodic and harmonic compositions, seeking an immediacy and clarity of communication with their audiences.

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1. GROOVY 05:50

2. ROCCARDO'S ROOM 05:49

3. AROUND MILAN 09:50

4. ACROSS THE POND 07:23

5. FULL FLAT 06:04

6. ORIENT EXPRESS 05:35

7. COMMON SPACES 09:14

8. GOODBYE PORK PIE HAT 06:37

9. DAYDREAMER 05:15

10.THE SEAGULL 06:40

BRUNO HEINEN is a London based contemporary pianist, composer and bandleader. Bruno has released four records on the forward looking Babel Label ('Twinkle Twinkle', 'Tierkries', 'Postcard to Bill Evans' and 'Changing of the Seasons) and a solo CD is due to be released in the coming year. Bruno has performed in festivals including the Shanghai World Music Festival, the London Jazz Festival, the Cork Jazz Festival, Inntöne Festival Austria and the Rest Is Noise. He has had his music played on BBC Radio 3, BBC6 Music, BBC Scotland, in Austria, Canada, and the USA, as well as giving live broadcasts and interviews for the BBC. Bruno has been nominated for the Paul Hamlyn composers’ award and he is currently researching towards a practice-based PhD at the RNCM which is funded by the AHRC. 

HENRIK JENSEN came to London from Denmark in 1997 to study electric bass at The Musicians Institute. He later transitioned to the double bass and became a student at the Royal Academy of Music on the jazz degree. Jensen's rich bass tone has worked all over world from the Blue Note in Tokyo to concert halls in Moscow while still keeping busy on the London jazz scene where he has also been laying the bass lines down with artists including Pete Wareham, Elizabeth Shepherd, Martin Speake and Billy Jenkins. Jensen formed ‘Followed By Thirteen’ in 2010 and has a close working relationship with saxophonist Peter Ehwald from Berlin. He is also a part of The Mauricio Velasierra Group and for the last 9 years has also been working with The Puppini Sisters, with whom he has toured internationally and recorded for major label Verve, UMG. 

ANTONIO FUSCO is one of the most original drummers of the European Jazz scene, currently involved in various European projects including Giovanni Falzone Contemporary Orchestra, Tino Tracanna Acrobats, No Pair, Reem Kelani Band, and Followed by Thirteen. In 2011 he founded the project - Antonio Fusco Sextet- “Suite For Motian” and in the 2014 it was released with the Italian label Auditorium Parco Della Musica Records. He has played with Tim Berne, Paolo Fresu, Tino Tracanna, Paolino Dalla Porta, Francesco Bearzatti Tinissima 4et, Antonio Zambrini, Andrè Canniere, Esben Tjalve and he's part of several projects between Germany, Italy, China and UK. In 2017 he has been engaged to joint the “ALBORAN Trio”, a historic jazz trio, founded from the Italian pianist Paolo Paliaga and the bassist Dino Contenti with whom he is working at the new album.

Brass Mask - Live (BABEL LABEL April 21, 2017)

1. FRANCILIA + SHALLOW WATER 06:20

2. LIL’ LIZA JANE 06:03

3. THE BAGUE 05:11

4. INDIAN RED 05:12

5. I THANK YOU JESUS 04:55

6. NYODI 06:22

7. THE MERMAN 06:14

8. FRANCIS P 10:15 

Tom Challenger (ts, acl)

Dan Nicholls (ts, bcl)

George Crowley (ts, cl)

Alex Bonney (tp)

Rory Simmons (tp)

Nat Cross (trombone)

Theon Cross (tuba)

John Blease (perc)