Ben Lee Quintet

“In The Tree”

(Stony Lane Records SLR1892)

Ben Lee is a young guitarist and composer who studied jazz guitar at Birmingham Conservatoire. Since graduation Lee has moved to London but during his years in Birmingham he made his mark on that city’s music scene playing in a variety of bands, often with his Conservatoire colleagues.

His own quintet remains Lee’s primary creative outlet but he has also worked with pianist and composer Mark Pringle, the organ trio Three Step Manoeuvre and the collaborative quartet Avisya Rhythm among others. He has performed with the large ensembles the Birmingham Jazz Orchestra and the Jonathan Silk Big Band. Full details of his richly varied musical activities can be found at http://www.benleeguitar.com

Lee is a highly versatile musician who is highly proficient on both electric and acoustic guitars. He even plays mandolin and sings in the bluegrass group Mason Dixon. However my first sighting of Lee was in October 2015 as part of saxophonist Claude Pietersen’s uncompromising Zwolfton quintet at a gig at the Hare & Hounds in Birmingham where they were supporting Sons Of Kemet. Pietersen’s band interpreted pieces by Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, the group of composers collectively known as “The Second Viennese School”. This was pretty ‘out there’ stuff but was still eminently enjoyable with Lee making a particularly significant contribution on electric guitar leading to my comment;
“the most eye catching soloist was Lee who played with power, precision and astonishing technical prowess as he explored the conventional range of his instrument and beyond”. It’s a remark that has been widely quoted since, not least on Lee’s own website.

Lee is a young musician with a typically wide range of influences ranging from jazz to rock and pop to modern classical and beyond. He has also read and travelled widely and the inspirations behind the music to be heard on “In The Tree” are correspondingly eclectic and varied, covering a broad sweep of musical and contemporary cultural influences.

Recorded late in 2015 for the Birmingham based Stoney Lane record label “In The Tree” features a quintet of prominent young Birmingham musicians and finds Lee alongside alto saxophonist Chris Young, trombonist Richard Foote and drummer Euan Palmer. An unusual instrumental line up is completed by organist David Ferris, Lee’s colleague in the trios Three Step Manoeuvre and Lee/Ferris/Weir. 

All of the compositions on “In The Tree” are Lee’s and the album commences with “Folk Theme”, inspired not, as one might think, by pastoral tranquillity but by dystopian novels and the threat of war. The martial rumble of Palmer’s toms sets the mood as does the harsh timbre of Young’s alto. Lee’s use of acoustic guitar suggests that the setting of his scenario is rural but the mood is far from bucolic as Ferris weighs in with a swooping organ solo that draws on the influence of vintage prog rockers such as Keith Emerson and Jon Lord, both sadly no longer with us. Ferris, also a highly talented pianist, has been increasingly drawn towards the organ of late and these days is most frequently to be found playing that instrument. Having previously only heard him on piano I found it fascinating to listen to him on organ and found his overall contribution to this album to be excellent.

Dystopian visions may inform some of Lee’s work but the overall mood of “In The Tree” is far from morose. Indeed the title track features somebody whistling (presumably the composer) a jaunty tune above the lugubrious but gently amusing sound of Foote’s trombone. Guitar eventually takes over and sax and drums also enter the proceedings. Apparently the tune once had words and the overall mood is one of playful naivete and of a very English whimsy. There are echoes here of something that Django Bates and other members of the Loose Tubes school might have attempted back in the day. Meanwhile Foote’s trombone solo adds an African feel to the music suggesting the influence of Township Jazz.

“First Contact” is inspired by Lee’s love of sci-fi literature and film. A suitably spacey and atmospheric FX laden intro eventually leads into a hard driving tune that reflects Lee’s grounding in rock and blues. The leader takes the first solo, his playing fluent and inventive but heavily influenced by rock. He later spars with Foote’s trombone, the pair spurred on by Palmer’s solidly propulsive drumming. Then it’s the turn of Ferris with a blazing Hammond solo.

The Danish word “Hygge”, meaning “well-being” has been much in the news of late. Lee appears to have been ahead of the game here, his composition of the same name is a warm, lush, elegant trio performance featuring just himself, Ferris and Palmer. The piece was inspired by a 2014 trip to Copenhagen for a winter jazz school, the Birmingham Conservatoire party being led by pianist and tutor Hans Koller.

“Beginning Of The End” is closely related to the opening “Folk Theme” with both pieces emerging from Lee’s abandoned big band project “States”. Despite this being a bass-less group both Foote and Ferris are capable of filling the spaces at the ‘bottom end’ of the music and this piece has a terrific groove to which drummer Palmer makes a massive contribution. Periodically the music is punctuated by high octane passages of electric guitar, alto sax, trombone and organ. It’s all highly charged, energetic and exciting. These guys make ‘Dystopia’ a good place to be.
This piece has also been performed live by the quintet in conjunction with the Jonathan Silk Big Band.

The self explanatory “Drone” was inspired by George Harrison’s experiments with Indian music and features unusual guitar tunings and extended techniques. Introduced by the gentle, tabla like patter of Palmer’s drums the mood travels from wispily atmospheric to full on anthemic with Foote, Ferris and Young also making substantial contributions. Having reached a peak the music quietly subsides and fades away via the eerie ‘drone’ of the title.

The title of “Scratching The Itch” alludes to Lee’s ‘addictive personality’ but his ‘addictions’ are hobbies or pastimes - definitely nothing illegal! The music itself is an odd meter horn driven romp into whose quirkiness Lee injects a pleasingly idiosyncratic, rock influenced solo. There’s also a drum feature for the excellent Euan Palmer who makes such a powerful contribution to the album as a whole.

The jaunty “Kickin’ The Chicken” draws inspirations from Lee’s regular visits to Malawi. His school in Exeter had close ties with a counterpart in Malawi and Lee has subsequently forged friendships in that country. The lively music is a combination of African inspired sounds and the calypso jazz of Sonny Rollins with an allusion to Wes Montgomery’s “Four on Six” thrown in for good measure. Lee’s ‘chicken scratch’ guitar underscores Young’s alto solo before the leader takes over with his own solo statement. There’s another strong performance from Palmer, too.

Lee’s love of rock music is well documented with Blink 182 and Radiohead among his numerous influences. The eight and a half minute “Nirvana” is thus a tribute to the late Kurt Cobain and his colleagues which, not surprisingly, features some of Lee’s heaviest playing as he slams out the power chords. There are allusions to classic Nirvana tunes and effective use of the classic grunge ‘soft – loud’ dynamic. Not that Lee and his colleagues merely mimic Cobain, Lee’s solo has a pleasing amount of jazz inspired content as does Foote’s agilely expansive trombone feature.

The album concludes with the brief whimsy of “Skateboarding On My Own”, a song lasting just over a minute performed by Lee on acoustic guitar and vocals with the sound of a skateboard thrown in for good measure. Skateboaring is just one of those ‘addictions’ alluded to in “Scratching The Itch”.

“In The Tree” represents a strong and highly individual début from Lee. The album explores a range of musical styles and cultural influences and the unusual instrumental configuration makes for a highly distinctive group sound. Although Lee is the most widely featured soloist all of the other musicians show up well both individually and collectively on an album that is a fine team effort despite the leader’s subtle dominance.

Informative interviews with Ben Lee have been conducted my my fellow bloggers Peter Bacon of The Jazz Breakfast https://thejazzbreakfast.com/2016/10/21/ben-lee-october-2016/
and Leah Williams writing for the London Jazz News website http://www.londonjazznews.com/2016/10/feature-ben-lee-quintet-new-album-in.html

Future appearances by the Ben Lee Quintet include;

08/01/2017 - The Green Note, Camden Town, London

10/01/2017 – The Spotted Dog, Digbeth, Birmingham

18/01/2017 – Jazz at The Lescar, Sheffield

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