Glorious Assembly Jazz Orchestra: Glorious Assembly Jazz Orchestra
I know nothing about the current economic viability of big bands but if anyone forked out to see this one live they’d be guilty as charged if the charge were spending money wisely. The music is written, arranged and conducted by David Mitcham, an Emmy-award-winning film composer, but there’s here’s nothing of the jazz dilettante about his music. It’s fully reflective of the instrumentation at his disposal, and is accordingly alive with colours, variation and the embodiment of moods.
The orchestra comprises a kind of who’s who of the current British jazz scene and everyone rises to the challenge of music that falls outside of the post-bop mainstream and in places gives the nod to fusion and minimalism without at any moment sounding contrived. Thus, Bop Canon tips the hat to that form while staying firmly in the present day and sidestepping recreative notions. The call-and-response between soloist Mark Lockheart and the ensemble is joyous and not in any way contrived.
The restraint of Gold In The Depths highlights how the subtlety of the writing is enhanced in the interpretation, allowing colouration into the proceedings. Solos from Gareth Lockrane on flute and trumpeter Laura Jurd are both in the moment and in the mood, highlighting how a large ensemble can be written for in such a way as to pre-empt grandstanding, empty or otherwise. There’s something nominally Terry Riley-esque about the exuberant, repeated figure played on Eb clarinets on Tom Wallager, at odds as it is with the underlying flow. But then the music pans out into cushioning for a succession of soloists, all of whom bring something substantial to the table.
Discography
The Autumn Of Our Days; 335; Winter Settling In My Heart; Wallager; Tidal Flow; A Kairos (In Blue); Gold In The Depths; Bop Canon (55.22)
James Davison, Louis Dowdeswell, Laura Jurd, Tom Rees-Roberts (t); Callum Au, Mark Nightingale, Andy Wood (tb); Richard Henry (btb); Dave Powell (tu); Gareth Lockrane, Steve Morris, Michael Wright (ww); Tori Freestone, Mark Lockheart, Phil Meadows, Claire McInerney, Kasper Rietkerk (s); Gareth Williams (p); John Parricelli (g); Loz Garratt (b); Ian Thomas (d). British Grove Studios. No location or date(s).
Manor Barn Records GA1001CD
Leverton Fox: Eternal Gongbath Of The Sunbed Mind
Among the members of this group, Tim Giles has the connections with jazz as such, while Alex Bonney and Isambard Khroustaliov (the alias of Sam Britton) are both known for their work in more sparsely populated musical areas. Their music in this instance is electronica informed in varying degrees by Pauline Oliveros, some of Conrad Schnitzler’s work and Morton Subotnick. In this era of cultural conservatism and far from limited precedents that’s not a bad strike rate. Given its duration, this set, the trio’s ninth on record, qualifies as an EP, but such is the speculative essence of the music that it justifies the usual 300 words or so.
Speculative Aerodynamic Problems Of A Human Headed Winged Lion gets close to the drone exemplified by Tony Conrad’s work then breaks out into a vague approximation of Pink Floyd before they morphed into a ponderous rock band. I like to think that the 36 seconds of Socrates The Quail in some respects evokes the calls of extinct birds. Certainly those seconds are intriguing enough, while the happily lengthier Serenade To A Blobfish (Subaqueous Sound System), though it might suggest uneasy mood music, does approximately the same in evoking aquatic life, in a way surely known only to deep-sea explorers.
Sounding Balloons At The Karman Line is simultaneously sedate and animated, with the consequent tension hinting at the kind of spontaneous interactive approaches which occur in the most “happening” free improvisation. This alone is enough to rue the fact that there isn’t more of this intriguing music.
Discography
Seals For Spronky; Serenade To A Blobfish (Subaqueous Sound System); Sounding Balloons At The Karman Line; Sleeper Train; Socrates The Quail ; Speculative Aerodynamic Problems Of A Human Headed Winged Lion (23.45)
Alex Bonney (elec, t); Tim Giles (elec, d); Isambard Khroustaliov (elec). New River Studios, London, date unknown, c. 2026.
Not Applicable NOT084
Jed Levy & Phil Robson Quartet: The Unpredictability Of The Sea
This album of state-of-the-art post-bop, from a label based in the Republic Of Ireland, presents a group putting out music of an order which is hardly rare but which rarely comes with such a level of conviction.
Levy and Robson met when Robson moved to New York in 2015. They played New York clubs before crossing the Atlantic to perform across Europe. Then the Covid pandemic intervened, delaying the recording of this, their first quartet album, to November 2025 during a Rome stop on their last Italy and UK tour.
It consists of original compositions by one or the other of the co-leaders, and while this writer doesn’t find any of them melodically memorable this merely means he can’t get over that mental block that automatically sets a new composition against some example from the book of standards. For example, Robson’s Canute falls into that big area between the melodically memorable and the formally indistinct vehicle for blowing on, which back in the day often came in a blues form. The performance is considered without being soporific, and substantial to the point where the ear’s engaged and the group interplay enhances the experience.
Levy’s Why is essentially more of the same, but simultaneously it makes apparent the depth of the quartet’s integration as what is presumably a working unit. Melodically, it’s one of the stronger outings and as such offers an intimation of how the quartet’s probably a different and in a sense less reserved proposition live, with the passing time more conducive to in-the-moment happenings.
Discography
Authenticity; The Unpredictability Of The Sea; Calder; 3 Chord Trick; Canute; Bogs Of Roscommon; Love Loss; Sluice; Now; Why (69.04)
Levy (ts); Robson (g); Mark Hodgson (b); Roberto Gatto (d). My Secret Place, Rome. November 2025.
Livia Records LRCD2601
