Escape Hatch featuring Julian Arguelles

“Roots of Unity”

(Whirlwind Recordings WR4696)

Escape Hatch is the name of the London based trio featuring the Italian born bassist Andrea Di Biase and the British musicians Ivo Neame (piano) and Dave Hamblett (drums). The band’s music features the compositions of Di Biase and Neame exclusively with the pair citing pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Steve Lehman as significant influences on their writing, alongside the classical composers Gyorgy Ligeti and Oliver Messaien.

Escape Hatch frequently perform with guest musicians and their collaborators have included the late, great Kenny Wheeler on trumpet and flugel horn, to whom this album is dedicated with the words “a good friend and a great inspiration for us all”.

For their début recording, released in November 2016, the trio enlisted the services of saxophonist Julian Arguelles who has previously worked with one of Neame’s other groups, the peerless Phronesis. My review copy of this CD was recently received directly from Whirlwind label owner Michael Janisch, so my thanks to him for that.

The album title is derived from the world of mathematics as a succinct sleeve note explains;
“in mathematics, a root of unity is any complex number that gives 1 when raised to some positive integer power n. From complexity to unity”.

I’ll admit to being baffled by this, but it ties in neatly with the acknowledged Iyer influence. The Indian-American pianist and composer studied mathematics and physics at Yale and UC Berkeley before turning to music full time, initially at the invitation of saxophonist and M-Base founder Steve Coleman.

But even if the concept behind the album seems a little dry and academic and suggests that the resultant music will be forbiddingly complex the potential listener shouldn’t be discouraged. The nine pieces, six by Di Biase and three by Neame, may be adventurous and sometimes complex but they also contain much warmth, humanity, and indeed melody and lyricism – one would expect nothing less with a musician of Arguelles’ calibre on board. 

The album commences with the Di Biase composition “Hysterical Revisionism”, a ten minute epic that allows ample room for Neame, Di Biase and Arguelles to stretch out with fluent, cogent, sometimes powerful solos, embracing both complexity and freedom but never abandoning an innate underlying lyricism. This is a piece that seems to develop naturally and organically no matter how deeply the band probe.

Neame’s “La Strega” (Italian for “The Witch”) embraces something of Iyer’s math inspired complexity but again retains an essential warmth and playfulness, thanks in no small measure to Arguelles’ contribution as he undertakes the first solo on tenor saxophone. The composer’s own solo is an outpouring of ideas that gets close to reaching the same levels of energy and inventiveness that he regularly achieves with Phronesis. It’s a tune that has previously been performed by Neame’s own quintet.

Di Biase’s title track emerges out of a freely structured dialogue for his double bass and Neame’s piano with Hamblett’s terse drumming gradually imposing a greater sense of order as the music unfolds. It’s a piece that features the core trio and demonstrates that Escape Hatch are a highly effective unit in and of themselves, even without the help of their illustrious guests. Neame again relishes the opportunity to stretch out at length as Di Biase and Hamblett confirm that they’re a hugely accomplished rhythm team. Indeed the pair work regularly together as a rhythm section with other artists, among them pianist Elchin Shirinov and guitarist Vitor Pereira, plus Neame’s own quintet.   

Neame’s “Moonbathing” opens with some complex but playful and consistently fascinating interplay between the members of the core trio, something eventually curtailed with the introduction of Arguelles’ melodic tenor sax which subsequently takes joyous flight. There is also room for a solo from Di Biase and something of a drum feature from Hamblett.

Di Biase’s “Today, Tomorrow, Never” may have a title reminiscent of an Echobelly song but it’s actually a beautiful jazz composition that begins in ballad mode with Arguelles featuring on keening, lyrical soprano. Neame’s expansive piano solo sees this episodic piece gaining energy and momentum before Arguelles returns for the delicate coda.

Also by Di Biase “History Repeating” sees Escape Hatch reverting to the trio format for the remainder of the recording. It’s an intense if brief workout with Neame’s feverish piano explorations stabilised by the rhythm section.

The pianist’s own “Resignation” is typically angular and begins with him trading ideas with drummer Hamblett anchored by Di Biase’s grounding bass pulse. Di Biase subsequently emerges as a soloist, highly dexterous and huge in tone.

It’s Di Biase’s bass that introduces his own “Dust and Moonlight”, a kind of abstract ballad featuring some of Neame’s most lyrical playing cushioned by the composer’s languid, rounded bass sound and Hamblett’s sensitively brushed support.

Also credited to Di Biase the closing “Common Multiple” is a brief but lively mathematically inspired rhythmic exercise that sees the trio toying playfully with pulse and meter in agreeably quirky fashion.

“Roots of Unity” represents an impressive début from Escape Hatch. Despite the apparent loftiness of the concept behind the album the music is inherently accessible and approachable and even at its most complex the group sound is never overly heavy or difficult. The core trio are an effective unit in their own right but the best moments on the album come with the addition of Arguelles who brings a welcome warmth and humanity to the recording besides functioning as a wonderfully fluent and inventive soloist. Like the late Kenny Wheeler he’s a UK based musician who is genuinely world class and he adds hugely to the success of an already impressive album.

 

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