Sean Khan’s last release was the highly successful Supreme Love: A Journey Through John Coltrane on BBE Records, reviewed by me in JJ in January 2022. He states that his distinctive playing can be heard on both old and new sets as he now joins the dots between John Coltrane and Nick Drake. That’s some gap to bridge. But while his spiritual and cosmic approach to Coltrane was apposite, it is not entirely fitting to this collection of modern folk classics.
The opening traditional song She Moves Through The Fair initially keeps some of that song’s poise, but then shifts into some fine but unrelated jazz piano, while John Martyn’s sublime Solid Air, written about Nick Drake, is hard to gift to another voice – even one as good as Rosie Frater-Taylor’s – when its composer so defined the mystery and distance of Drake himself in his worried words and ethereal voice.
Obviously, Khan has a massive soft spot for Nick Drake, that most unknowable of English folk singers. He features two of his finest compositions, Parasite and Things Behind The Sun, and ends with a fond tribute to him. But both songs lose their distinctive quality, with Kindelan straining on the haunting Parasite and the setting of Things Behind The Sun too cluttered and too busy. Above all, both miss the fact that Drake was a master guitarist, his subtle tunings and adept finger skills making him a one-take master and one of the finest folk guitarists of a generation that included Davy Graham, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn.
None of that comes out here, as no lead guitarist is featured, although the visiting string quartet do echo well the original string arrangements by Robert Kirby on Drake’s debut album Five Leaves Left. Other songs here come from the pens of Pentangle – singer Jacqui McShee was a member, and sings here on her own co-compositions Light Flight and I’ve Got A Feeling – and the wondrous Sandy Denny, but their folk origins are now updated by Khan’s solid jazz credentials on soprano sax.
All of this leaves me with mixed feelings about this set, for while I applaud Sean Khan’s devotion to its subject matter, and welcome any exposure offered to Drake, I’m not convinced this ensemble is quite right for the task.
Discography
She Moves Through The Fair; Solid Air; Light Flight; Parasite; Things Behind The Sun; Who Knows Where Time Goes; I’ve Got A Feeling; Ode To Nick Drake (35.52)
Khan (ss, f); Andy Noble (p, kyb); Mirko Scarcia (b); Phil Lawson, Dave Pegg (elb); Laurie Lowe (d); Gerry Diver (fiddle); Max Baillie, Miya Vaisanen (vn); Rachel Robson (vla); Danny Keane (clo); Rosie Frater-Taylor (g, v); Kindelan, Jacqui McShee (v). Premises Studios, London, c. 2023.
Acid Jazz Records AJXCD774
