Nate Dorward Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Been listening to this one a lot lately, in part because I've been writing a formal review for Coda, but mostly just because it's a great new release. It's on the small label Foghorn, which is run by the saxophonist Tony Bevan; the trio is Murray, Bevan & John Edwards. They did an album a few years back, Home Cooking in the UK, which was OK but had some prolonged dead spots. This one is one of those free jazz albums where some unhappy circumstances lent a nice bit of pissed-offness & intensity to the gig. (The short story: the trio was booked into a nice arts centre to play a gig in Newcastle. Turned out they were double-booked; so they were forced to relocate to the nearby Newcastle Working Men's Club, with a very rowdy audience of locals who mostly had never heard free jazz before. & Murray was given a very shoddy drumkit to play.) Anyway, listening to it was for me a nice lesson in how loose & raw a drummer can get & yet still keep the time flowing & turning. (There are free passages, but also a waltz & a loose 5/4 rock/funk groove.) & as folks here who've seen my past reviews will know, I think Bevan is one of the real unsung heroes of the UK jazz scene--a great gift for melody & an acute rhythmic sense. Pungent work from Edwards, another player whom I always seek out. Anyway, a great free blowing session; the local audience sounds like they were won over after a few minutes, & the trio actually get a pretty warm reception. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 Where can I buy a copy? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 Send Sunny $150 and he might send you a CD-R... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 Tony's got a site at www.foghornrecords.co.uk I'd recommend most of the stuff on the label, actually... In a rush, but more thoughts later - I caught the trio on this tour. A short one though - both Tony and John are MONSTER musicians (and extremely nice people to boot). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted January 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 Yes, you can get it through the Foghorn site; probably DMG or Cadence could get it for you in the States, too--both of them have stocked previous Foghorn titles. It's a really nice label--I've liked nearly everything I've heard on it (the only disc I'd say give a pass on is the Matthew Bourne solo piano disc--weird, good in spots, but terribly uneven & it requires a strong tolerance for bathroom humour). Aside from this disc, the three albums by Bruise are excellent--the newest one, We Packed Are Bags, was one of the best things I heard in 2007. The quartet album with Jeb Bishop is worth getting hold of, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted January 29, 2008 Report Share Posted January 29, 2008 I think I caught the band the night after their Newcastle hit. All was somewhat fraught - they had the camera crew in tow (recently mentioned on that thread about Sunny's big band in Luxembourg). Don't remember too much about the camera crew, other than them very excited that Lol Coxhill was in the audience, and trying to get an interview with him about Sunny. All got more fraught when about 15 minutes before the gig was to start, Sunny decided he didn't like the bass drum head on the drum set provided - it was one of those with a hole in for the microphone, so calls were put in to drummers across London to see if anyone had the right head. It arrived eventually. The first piece was extraordinary. Absolutely blistering. Tony played tenor throughout. What first struck me (although I should have know from this trio's 'Home Cooking') was how loud Sunny was. Part of me still thought of him as the Sunny Murray from Spiritual Unity, dancing all over the cymbals with the lightest of touches. Not this Murray, who played like an animal. John and Tony are very loud, very muscular players when need be, and my goodness did Murray goad them into some extremely loud, muscular stuff. It was almost 'guilty pleasure' music; an almost egregious blowout, but because of the sheer power ultimately incredibly arresting. It was interesting to hear Murray behind Tony when he played his bass sax, because for my money, he's much more - sorry for the cumbersome types - of a 'free jazzer' on tenor, and much more of a European 'non-idiomatic' player on bass (on which theme, I'd recommend a fantastic late Derek Bailey record, Limescale, featuring Derek, Tony, the phenomenal Alex Ward and THF Drenching and Sonic Pleasure [sic!]). Sure I had something else to add about the gig, but it's slipped my mind...At any rate - really looking forward to hearing this one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted January 29, 2008 Report Share Posted January 29, 2008 Ever check some of those Sunny vids from You Tube? You bet he's fuckin' loud... Though ironically the few times I've seen him have been toned down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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