I first heard Mansfield (vib) on Dominic Ingham’s Role Models of 2019, which I reviewed in JJ June 2020 – when I commented that Mansfield’s dynamic alertness served good indication of why he had won the Kenny Wheeler Prize in 2018. That award led to Mansfield’s 2019 debut recording Elftet on Edition Records, on which Ingham (vn) appeared. Here, the two lyrically attuned Englishmen are together again.
A beautiful, chamber-music-like album of Mansfield pieces, The Air In Front Of You is distinguished by spacious figures of sonorous, questing elegance from Mansfield and Ingham, set within intimate, intricate yet uncluttered passages of violin, cello and bass interaction, the whole underpinned by sensitive textures and freshly turned rhythms (with both sticks and brushes) from the excellent James Maddren.
Hear Ripples, which commences in reflective, near-classical mode before metamorphosing into a subtly assertive blend of intriguingly staggered phrases, temporal shifts and flowing accents. Enjoy further the folk-touched (Organise) The Air In Front Of You and – especially – the sustained meditation that is the gravely beautiful Flicker.
Like Ingham, Mansfield – a four-mallet man – can stretch out when he wishes. But his solo feature, the enchanting Etude, lasts for just over a minute. The emphasis here is on group interplay and dynamic subtlety, the whole far more than the sum of the parts.
Musicians as diverse as Evan Parker and Jorge Rossy have applauded Mansfield, with Parker speaking of the vibraphonist as having “a musical vision beyond his years”. The spirit of freshly conceived improvisation is certainly present here – but so too is a fresh command of compositional nuance, of time and texture.
While there is many an archetypal jazz accent to enjoy – witness the “sliding” violin figures which emerge from the floating and building measures of the drums-and-bass underpinned Periphery – the chief characteristic of this reverie-rich music is its most refreshing open-mindedness of musical conception and endeavour.
Discography
(1) Ripples; (Organise) The Air In Front Of You; Waves; Flicker; Norwood; (2) Etude; (1) Periphery (42.54)
(1) Mansfield (vib); Dominic Ingham (vn); Midori Jaeger (clo); Will Sach (b); James Maddren (d). (2) Mansfield solo. London, July 2022.
Resonant Postcards RP001
