Pigfoot

“21st Century Acid Trad”

(Village Life Records 131112VL)

The sight of Chris Batchelor playing trumpet with both Loose Tubes and the Township Comets at the 2014 Brecon Jazz Festival led to me digging this excellent album out from the “to do” pile where it had been languishing for far too long.

Released in March 2014 “21st Century Acid Trad” features Pigfoot, a quartet led by Batchelor that features the talents of some of Britain’s most respected jazz musicians in the shapes of pianist Liam Noble, tuba player Oren Marshall and drummer/percussionist Paul Clarvis. Released on Clarvis’ Village Life imprint and co-produced by Clarvis and Batchelor the music was recorded at a live performance at London’s Vortex Jazz Club in early 2013.

I was lucky enough to see the band myself at the 2013 London Jazz Festival when they gave a free afternoon performance at the Southbank Centre’s Clore Ballroom, playing several of the pieces to be heard on this CD. Long before the album title had been coined I found myself scribbling down phrases such as “punk trad” and “post modern trad” in my notebook. All these descriptions are perfectly valid for a band that takes classic early jazz material associated with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines and others and gives it a fiercely contemporary twist.

As Matthew Wright observed when writing for London Jazz News Pigfoot cast these old chestnuts in a new light, updating harmonies, rhythms and textures while leaving enough of the original melody intact for the pieces to still be instantly recognisable. It’s an approach similar to that adopted by the younger and more wilfully iconoclastic New York based quartet Mostly Other People Do The Killing but with Pigfoot exhibiting a more obvious and genuine affection for their source material despite the liberties they take with it. And for those who might be wondering the group name from the Bessie Smith song “Gimme A Pigfoot”.

Wright also suggests that Pigfoot serve to act as a reminder that “this music was once raucously subversive and intensely joyous”, a good point I think after years of trad as repertory or commercialised trad with the rough edges filed off, think Ball and Bilk who for all their commercial success actually put many listeners off trad for life - and yes I’ll include myself here. 

Pigfoot’s music is both rowdy and intelligent, sophisticated in its knowing adventurousness but most importantly great fun, albeit in a post modern sort of a way. Their spirited reclamation of the trad jazz canon has won them considerable critical acclaim, notably from Philip Clark writing in Wire magazine.

And so to the music. With four such exceptional instrumentalists in the line up Pigfoot frequently stretch their chosen material out to incorporate some exceptional soloing, something that would have been impossible when most of these tunes were written thanks to the time limitations of the 78 rpm record -although admittedly live performances may have been different. This expansion represents the most basic element of updating but on the relatively concise opener “Basin Street Blues”, written by Spencer Williams in 1926 and made famous by Louis Armstrong in a recording from 1928, contemporary techniques combine with traditional virtues to create something sounding fresh and vital.

Euday Bowman’s “12th Street Rag”, another tune immortalised by Armstrong, is transformed even more dramatically with exaggeratedly ragged harmonies and rhythms. There’s some extraordinary piano from Noble and an astonishingly agile solo from the always brilliant Marshall.

Described by Batchelor as “the first jazz waltz” Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz” is subjected to several changes of meter and is stretched out to over nine minutes to accommodate invigorating features for all four musicians. But perhaps the most brazen liberty taking of all is the way the band joyously leap into a few choruses of Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour” in the tune’s closing stages. 

Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King’s “Tennessee Waltz” is best known as a country song but it’s still ripe for the Pigfoot treatment albeit with band still retaining an element of pathos amidst the
de-constructive cleverness. There’s an astonishing solo from Noble accompanied by Clarvis’ studiously busy drumming and Marshall’s low end tuba growl.

A segue of “Just A Closer Walk With Thee / His Eye Is On The Sparrow” is a reminder of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and of the earliest days of jazz in New Orleans. Initially Pigfoot approach things in a relatively reverential, straight ahead manner but they’re soon tearing up the rulebook with extended solos from Batchelor and Marshall allied to thumping if flexible rhythms and a series of blistering exchanges between Batchelor and Clarvis.

Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” sees Batchelor expressing genuine emotion via his vocalised trumpet playing with Marshall’s tuba slurs and rasps providing a more subversive element. The piece also includes stunning solos from Noble and Clarvis plus the now standard rhythm and tempo transformations.

Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” begins with the composer’s soprano sax being replaced by the earthy sound of Marshall’s tuba in a neat inversion of the original. Things really take flight with Batchelor’s solo, throughout the album he deploys a variety of techniques and makes use of a range of mutes, thus his playing is pleasingly unpredictable and ensures that listeners are kept on their toes. These qualities apply equally to Noble, Marshall and Clarvis as the music shiftshapes almost constantly within the loosely drawn trad framework. For all the individual brilliance on display here it’s the ensemble work that is key, the sense that all four musicians are listening intently to each other and feeding off each other’s ideas. It is in this way, more than any other, that they bring the spirit of contemporary jazz to this vintage material. 

The album concludes with a ten minute rendition of Jimmy Cox’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out”, a song indelibly associated with Bessie Smith. Batchelor’s mournful solo trumpet opens the proceedings and the true, sad spirit of the song persists even as the rest of the band join in. It’s all about Batchelor in the early stages, a soloist who wears his virtuosity lightly. He’s followed by Marshall’s wonderfully flexible tuba solo, the mood subtly changing from the lugubrious to the celebratory as he makes this most unlikely of instruments positively soar. Noble’s solo adds a hint of wilful dissonance as he introduces more obviously contemporary techniques. Finally there’s a triumphantly raucous final band section with Batchelor’s trumpet to the fore.

There seem to be a number of bands around at the moment intent on reclaiming and updating the trad heritage, like prog rock many of the old prejudices have withered away and the music is ripe for re-evaluation. However I suspect that there are few other bands who have mined the trad seam quite as radically or audaciously as Pigfoot who look at the music with a fresh eye and cast it into fabulous new shapes while still retaining the outlines of the originals. Above all they sound as if they’re having fun.   

 

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