Empirical: Like Lambs: To The Slaughter
In his note for this one Soweto Kinch highlights how he considers the long-form suite that comprises this album to be a thing of beauty and how the subject material for him deeply resonates in terms of “alienation, destruction and restoration in the post-truth age'”. I’m 65 years old and I feel quite alienated by the often clinically precise contemporary jazz this album amounts to. Accordingly it doesn’t speak much to me, but then thanks largely to the ageing process, my ear is nowhere near as sharp as it used to be. In fact I’m worried I might be turning into some 21st century equivalent of Philip Larkin or Brian Rust.
That said, the opening The Garden Of Beginnings: Innocence and Bliss, one of several pieces with fade endings and thus for me working against the notion of the music as an integrated whole, takes us into a calm, rhapsodic place that’s all the more moving because it’s so well pitched. Giants finds the group in animated form, with the music moving through time at a rate reflective of engagement with the passing moments and the degree to which intuitive understanding has a vital role. It ends with a fade too, which undermines the head of steam. Drogon is to some degree an exercise in the generation of instrumental colours. The group steps beyond the everything-all-the-time approach and the music’s full of subtlety and nuance.
In closing, The Garden Of Beginnings: Divine Revelation brings us back to the beginning, with Nathaniel Facey singing on his alto sax and in so doing breaking down the divide between the rhetorical and the spiritual. The music is animated yet contemplative, and despite my shortcomings as discussed, reaches me.
Discography
The Garden Of Beginnings: Innocence And Bliss; Giants; Like Lambs: To The Slaughter; Like Lambs: To Our Own Demise; The Garde Of Beginnings: Earth; Drogon: The Garden Of Beginnings: Divine Revelation (51.10)
Nathaniel Facey (as); Ivo Neame (p); David Preston (g); Tom Farmer (b); Shaney Forbes (d). RAK Studios, London, 11-12 February 2025.
Whirlwind Recordings WR4854
Yvonne Rogers: The Button Jar
The inspiration behind these solos is the pianist’s rural childhood and the album is one of those surprisingly infrequent occasions where the effect of the inspiration is pronounced not only on the compositions but also the musicianship. This makes for music in which technique, something Rogers clearly has in abundance, is not an end in itself but rather one means by which the music is realised. This is emphasised by the profound understatement of the opening Luster, where Rogers doesn’t so much underplay as allow what might be called the piece’s inner voice to be heard. The result is tranquil yet shot through with a kind of beguiling unease, hardly a combination in the contemporary jazz world.
Cloud Chorale is also intriguing, but for different reasons. Rogers almost mines a seam of Bill Evans-style tranquility, but her way with fragmentary melody is her own, and to the point where past echoes are merely a reference, which is just as it should be. If a title such as Little Dance suggests something cloyingly upbeat, Rogers shows she has a way of confounding expectations through working at a measured tempo that enables her to summon up a sunny mood without resorting to big and thus vacuous gestures.
Through the judicious use of silence and space Thread The Needle has for this listener at least the effect of evoking a rural landscape of an order which provides the music’s inspiration. Considered as the resulting music is, it’s clear that there’s a quasi-forensic, unsentimental sensibility at work. This serves to emphasise how for all of its conventional sonic palette this album has depth and substance to offer anyone willing to make an effort. The music takes its time and reveals its secrets only slowly.
Discography
Luster; The Button Jar; Cloud Chorale; Scatter And Sort; Monkey’s Fist; Avid Risks; Little Dance; Thread The Needle; Linear Gel; Puzzle Building; The Craft Room; Mismatch; First Attempt; Exhale (47.46)
Yvonne Rogers (p). Mount Vernon, NY, 20 September 2025.
Pyroclastic Records PR47
