John Williamson: The Northern Sea (Ubuntu UBU0182)
Over the years, one of the many sources of inspiration for composition has been location: Dear Old Stockholm, April In Paris, Moonlight In Vermont, Chelsea Bridge, and so on. No doubt it’s tempting fate, but not many have used the Yorkshire coast as a muse. On the face of it, bassist John Williamson’s new release puts that right with its title and with a cover photo showing the kiosk of Saltburn’s Tramway, the oldest funicular railway in the country still in operation, dating from 1884 and operated by counter-balanced water tanks.
Disappointingly perhaps, for geographers, the reference stops there, although Nothing Grows In Concrete could allude to it obliquely. As Williamson mentions in the sleeve notes, the emphasis has been on experimenting with existing frameworks, either consciously (Contrafact 1 is based on I Should Care and there’s a hint of Skylark in Gozo) or otherwise. Certainly they handle slower numbers with care and sensitivity and can equally rip into the faster tempos, as you’d expect from tenor saxophonist Alex Hitchcock – Nothing Grows and Contrafact 2 are good examples of these.
There is, however, 2700 Q Street Northwest, with wordless vocals by Immy Churchill. It’s hardly round the corner from Saltburn; it’s an apartment building in Washington (DC, not Tyne and Wear) a few blocks away from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Any ducal connection is missing though. A tasteful arrangement, no doubt like the apartments.
John Alvey: Loft Glow (Jazz Music City)
Whilst Yorkshire is not immediately noted for a specific musical tradition (apologies to Bob Barclay and others), Nashville is. Often known as Music City, it’s C&W and the Grand Ole Opry that leap out, although a strong jazz tradition has developed, the city historically linked to Memphis and hosting Fisk University, where much earlier Lil Hardin studied. Loft Glow, a solid excursion into modern hard bop, is by drummer John Alvey’s Nashville-based sextet.
Trombonist Roland Barber contributes Winslow Nocturne, a waltz less likely referring to the town in Arizona on Route 66 than to the bar on E14th Street in the East Village area of New York , near to where Barber studied at the Manhattan School of Music. It has all the feel of late-night city rather than an itinerant’s stopping-off place.
Barber is an imposing presence, from the moment he builds his solo on the attractive, propulsive opener, Azure, to his plunger mute playing on John Stubblefield’s Baby Man, an astute choice of material that shows the band to good effect, especially the alto of Jovan Quallo.
Another location namecheck, this time less specific, is Benny Golson’s Terminal One (composed for Spielberg’s film, Terminal, in which Golson had a cameo role). The music is easily interpreted as reflecting the alternating tempos between arrivals and departures at a busy airport. An impressive debut for Alvey and this band.
Arun Ramamurthy Trio: New Moon (Greenleaf GRE-CD-1111)
Strikingly different in background and approach is violinist Arun Ramamurthy’s New Moon. Raised in New Jersey and based in Brooklyn, Ramamurthy is established as an exponent of Indian classical music and its links with improvised Western music, notably jazz. Since Coltrane’s India (1961), Yusef Lateef’s Eastern Sounds, Charlie Mariano and the Karnataka percussion, and the high energy of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, there have been examples of this relationship. Possibly the best known, certainly in the UK, is the Indo-Jazz fusion of Joe Harriott and John Mayer, back in 1966/7.
Many thought the two traditions didn’t sit well together, Cook and Morton’s Penguin Guide describing it as “not so much a synthesis as an awkward juxtaposition”. However, Coleridge Goode, bassist in the Harriott-Mayer group, felt it was successful, despite difficulties with time signatures. He recalled his bass working like a drone in a series of repeated phrases as others interweaved with him. Since then, there’s been a move towards greater use of time and space, improvisation and cyclical rhythm, and on this album, it’s Ramamurthy that leads, so the Indian element has greater prominence.
This is shown on – more locations – Bangalore To Brooklyn, the journey Ramamurthy’s parents made years earlier. Damon Banks’ bass is a purring rumble before laying down a straight rhythmic pulse. After the contemplative mode of the introduction, the tempo increases and the violin is given freer expression, veering between the mesmeric and forceful. It’s followed by the four-part New Moon Suite that follows traditional Indian structures, blending Carnatic music with spontaneity and a firm jazz backcloth. Essential listening for anyone interested in the fusion of these musical traditions.
Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli: Le Quintette à Cordes 1946-47 (Label Quest 304 080.2)
After the Second World War, Reinhardt and Grappelli had a historic meeting in London – they’d not seen each other for the duration of the hostilities. An impromptu, slightly chaotic session ensued, drink was taken, and as Charles Delaunay wrote, “inspiration flowed… they were still swinging when dawn broke over Green Park”. It led to a visit to Abbey Road studios on 31st January 1946 in an attempt to recreate the atmosphere and music of two nights before. Local musicians were used, including bassist Coleridge Goode.
The tracks included Nuages, Mélodie Au Crépuscule and Belleville, named after the area of eastern Paris where Reinhardt had lived in the 20s, playing at the Ça Gaze club. Of Échos De France (a version of La Marseillaise), Delaunay continued, “In a foreign country these two reprobates had given vent to the kind of patriotic gesture one would never have thought them capable of!” The recordings remain an important and integral part of the history of the two.
By November 1947, Reinhardt was playing again in Paris, with the Quintette du Hot Club de France, with fellow guitarists Joseph Reinhardt and Eugene Vees, and bassist Fred Ermelin. Grappelli returned and joined them for a recording session, a concert at Salle Pleyel and to record programmes for Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française, some included here. Reinhardt’s playing “recalled the splendid improviser we once knew so well… the richness of his melodic invention,” wrote Daphnis (Boris Vian) for Jazz Hot in December 1947, but with reservations: “Somehow the old flame, the old urge to create seems to have left him.” It’s still enjoyable and highly evocative material though.
