Having wrapped up last year’s programme with a thoroughly enjoyable evening of Christmas-flecked material, courtesy of the captivating Alan Barnes Octet, Chichester Jazz Club kicked off 2025 with two foot-tapping and finger-snapping – but also deeply lyrical – sets from the excellent Robert Fowler Quartet.
A fine clarinettist, Robert left the liquorice stick at home to concentrate on tenor sax, in the Rolls Royce company of the endlessly accomplished and seemingly ageless John Pearce (p) and Dave Green (b) and the ever-attentive Steve Brown, a master of sticks, brushes and bare hands, as well as silence, snapping criss-cross rim shots and cymbal flurries of feathered poetry. No wonder he smiles so much, whether offering the most judicious accompaniment or stretching out on solos marked by an invigorating command of dynamics as intelligent as they are exciting. As I joked after the gig, “Just when, Steve, did you stop giving lessons to Philly Joe Jones?!”
Scott Hamilton had been booked for this opening night of the club’s new season but unfortunately was indisposed. The considerable silver lining came in the shape of stand-in Fowler, whose beautiful playing in the Barnes octet’s Christmas gig had caught many an ear, including mine. You can relish his maturely rounded and diversely projected, finely weighted sound and melodically oriented, modern-to-post bop mainstream mastery of tonal, rhythmic and harmonic subtleties – the whole realised in phrasing as elegant as it may be ad libitum or cooking – on the octet’s latest release, the 14-part Copperfield: A Dickensian Jazz Suite.
If my memory serves me well, the first of Fowler’s two sets began with a crisp and energising medium-up take on Will You Still Be Mine, followed by a lovely, liquid and suitably atmospheric treatment of the waltz that is John Lewis’s Skating In Central Park. Jobim’s Wave and the Parker classic Out Of Nowhere were followed by a quite wondrous ad libitum reading of Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most, before a lively take on the Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt Blues Up And Down left the highly appreciative (and practically full) house eager for more.
And what a second set of diverse yet consistently satisfying music they were offered! Distant images of Billie Holiday came to mind for me in the up-and-opening The Way You Look Tonight before Fowler and his admirable cohorts went on to deliver delicious versions of Green Dolphin Street, Johnny Mandel’s Close Enough for Love, Groovy Samba (from Sérgio Mendes) and an ultra-meditative take on Leslie Bricusse’s and Tony Newley’s Pure Imagination (from the Roald Dahl-inspired 1971 musical fantasy Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory – and a treatment which, thankfully, purged the rubato melody of the now cheesy, now somewhat ominous overtones of Gene Wilder’s original film vocal). Plus … a concluding balanced burn-up on Ray Noble’s Cherokee, long beloved by such transformative boppers as Charlie Parker and Bud Powell.
Phew! I asked my wife Louise, who was with me at the gig, how one might best describe such music, featuring as it did not only the consummate, sometimes East-Coast-like artistry of Robert Fowler (who in his early days listened hard to Lester Young recordings and counts Stan Getz as an elective affinity) but also a remarkable range of beautifully integrated contributions from the peerless Pearce, Green and Brown. “Pure class”, came her reply.
There are many further special nights lined up for this year’s CJC programme, including a visit from the Espen Eriksen Trio with Andy Sheppard, the Hannah Horton Quartet and Clark Tracey’s Champions of Jazz Quintet featuring, a.o., Art Themen and Dave Newton. But all such will have to go some to top this absolutely cracking opening event. Bravo, CJC!
Robert Fowler Quartet at Chichester Jazz Club, 10 January 2025
