by Ian Mann
June 29, 2016
/ ALBUM
The many fans of these prolific and gifted musicians will doubtless relish the opportunity of hearing their playing in such an intimate context.
Dave Jones / Ashley John Long
“Postscript”
Pianist Dave Jones and bassist Ashley John Long are two of the most in demand musicians on the South Wales Jazz scene and both have been regular presences on the Jazzmann web pages.
I’ve been following the music of Port Talbot based Jones since 2009 when I reviewed his excellent trio album “Impetus”, a recording that highlighted both his pianistic and compositional abilities and which also attracted a good deal of favourable attention from the national jazz media. Jones had already released a couple of earlier, presumably now deleted, albums and worked extensively on the jazz scene in the South East of England before returning to his native South Wales.
In 2010 Jones’ second trio album “Journeys” expanded on the promise shown by “Impetus” and introduced a new rhythm partnership that included Ashley John Long on double bass. The recording also saw Jones expanding his sonic palette with the addition of three guest horn players plus the Mavron String Quartet.
The high standards were maintained on 2012’s “Resonance” which again featured Long and saw the core group expanded to a quartet with the addition of saxophonist Lee Goodall. The album also included further contributions from the Mavrons plus guest horn players Gareth Roberts (trombone) and Tomos Williams (trumpet). Drumming duties were shared by the promising former RWCMD student Lloyd Haines and the Irishman Kevin Lawlor. Jones was to form a particularly fruitful partnership with the Wexford based Lawlor with the two musicians regularly crossing the Irish Sea to play in each others bands and appear on each others recordings.
Jones featured on Lawlor’s “Exodus” album from 2013 with the drummer returning the compliment by appearing on the Jones Quartet’s 2014 concert recording “Live At AMG”, a performance captured at the Acoustic Meeting Ground venue in Pontardawe. In December 2014 I witnessed a superb live performance by the quartet of Jones, Long, Goodall and Lawlor at Dempsey’s in Cardiff with Jones making full use of the venue’s much loved grand piano.
Away from his own projects Jones works with a number of other South Wales based bands including the excellent jazz/folk crossover sextet Burum and saxophonist Lyndon Owen’s barnstorming Coltrane Dedication group. He also writes ‘library’ music for TV and film with one of these pieces, titled “Ubermeister”, recently featuring on the TV programme “The Big Bang Theory”.
Ashley John Long is a hugely talented and supremely versatile bass player. I’ve seen him playing bass more times than I can remember in a wide variety of jazz contexts ranging through mainstream to bebop to free jazz. He’s an consistently creative and frequently astonishing soloist, both with and without the bow, you don’t nod off during the bass solo if Ash is on the bandstand.
But there’s more to Long’s talents than many jazz listeners may realise. He’s also an accomplished classical double bassist with a particular affinity for baroque music and also a composer of contemporary classical music scores who has written for harpist Catrin Finch and for the Lunar Saxophone Quartet.
He’s also a skilled multi-instrumentalist and has recently been seen playing vibraphone with cult Cardiff band the Heavy Quartet as well as leading his own small groups from the vibes. Long is almost as impressive as a vibraphone soloist with four mallets floating and flying across the bars in a manner that wouldn’t disgrace Gary Burton. In short, the man’s outrageously talented.
As a jazz bassist Long has been comparatively under recorded but he has featured on albums by pianists Dave Jones, Geoff Eales and Mike Collins, trumpeter Chris Hodgkins and, of course, Heavy Quartet.
Having played together in numerous jazz ensembles for over a decade Jones and Long decided that it was time to put down some tracks in a duo context. “Postscript” was recorded at the former BBC Building in Swansea (now owned by the University of Wales Trinity Saint. David), the location from which Dylan Thomas used to broadcast. With Jones playing a Yamaha grand piano and with Long on double bass the album was effectively recorded ‘live in the studio’.
It’s a reflective, relatively low key recording and essentially a ‘cottage industry’ production with Jones dealing with the production duties (with some input from engineer Andy ‘Wal’ Coughlin) and Long providing the artwork. The material comprises of two pieces from each of the protagonists plus interpretations of tunes by such well known jazz composers as Duke Ellington, Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron, Jerome Kern, Thelonious Monk and Kenny Kirkland.
The album commences with the Jones composition “Three on Four”, a piece that has been in his repertoire for many years and previously featured on the “Impetus” album. Jones has always had a gift for melody and this is readily apparent here as the duo improvise on the the theme generating a commendable level of swing in the process. Long features with the bow in the introductory stages but mainly plays pizzicato as he underpins Jones’ flowing lyricism. The pianist then returns the favour, his sympathetic chording helping to bolster a typically virtuoso plucked bass solo from Long.
Long’s first offering with the pen is the marvellously titled “Nearly Everything Happens To Me”, a delightfully intimate ballad performance that combines Jones’ lightly lyrical piano touch with the deeply resonant, but always melodic, sound of Long’s bass. The writing is sometimes suggestive of the classical music that Long sometimes performs elsewhere.
The CD sleeve lists Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” as being up next. Instead it’s a dazzling version of Bud Powell’s “Tempus Fugit” which features some virtuoso playing from both musicians, and once again an impressive degree of swing. Jones may be a fine composer but he’s also an excellent interpreter of standard jazz and bebop material.
With the listings reversed it’s the Ellington tune that we now hear with Jones again demonstrating his ability to breathe fresh life into already familiar material. There are lengthy passages of elegantly lyrical solo piano here with Long appearing fleetingly to deliver a delightfully melodic pizzicato bass solo.
The title track is another piece from the Jones back catalogue and has been recorded before in various guises, most recently on “Impetus”. It’s another winning tune and in this incarnation offers Long the opportunity to demonstrate his abilities with the bow as he doubles up with Jones on the beautiful melody, his sound rich and warm and almost cello-like. He puts down the bow later in the tune as Jones injects an element of harder edged bluesiness into the proceedings.
Tadd Dameron’s popular standard “Ladybird” is given a relaxed, gently swinging interpretation by the duo with Long now playing pizzicato once more.
The late Kenny Kirkland’s composition “Dienda” finds the pair in more reflective mood and represents a particularly intimate duo performance with Long’s plucked bass again featuring strongly and melodically alongside Jones’ thoughtful piano lyricism.
Long’s own “Zebedee” has an attractive melody and the duo’s relaxed reading features the composer’s melodic pizzicato bass prominently on a lengthy but consistently engaging solo. In its own quiet way it’s one of the album’s stand out tracks and it’s pleasing to hear Long in such impressive form performing his own material.
Jerome Kern’s “Long Ago and Far Away” has become a popular jazz standard and the duo more than do it justice with a vivacious and swinging performance that features some sparkling playing from both musicians.
The album concludes with the duo’s thoughtful take on Thelonious Monk’s “Ask Me Now” with Long again picking up his bow. This lovely but melancholic interpretation helps to end the recording on a pleasingly elegiac note.
As I mentioned earlier “Postscript” is a low profile release and will be available from July from Dave Jones’ website (address below) , from CD Baby, and of course at gigs. With its largely standards based programme it’s not a recording that’s going to pull up many trees, but that was never its intention. However the many fans of these prolific and gifted musicians will doubtless relish the opportunity of hearing their playing in such an intimate context.
Dave Jones has a number of other projects in the pipeline and it’s quite possible that further releases under his own name, but in very different instrumental formats, may appear over the course of the next twelve months Watch this space.
Artist websites;
http://www.ashleyjohnlong.co.uk