Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio, The Edge Arts Centre, Much Wenlock, Shropshire, 12/11/2011.

Thanks to his work with funkmeister Maceo Parker’s ensemble plus leadership of his own funky Badbone group Dennis Rollins is arguably Britain’s best known contemporary jazz trombonist. With Badbone now pretty much a “festival” band Rollins had been looking for a smaller creative unit with which to express himself and found it in the Velocity trio, a unique combination of trombone, Hammond organ and drums. Organ trios featuring saxophones and guitars are relatively common but I can’t think of another group that deploys Velocity’s instrumentation.

Rollins has been honing the Velocity project for some time now. I saw an early edition of the group featuring organist Mike Gorman and Empirical drummer Shaney Forbes at the Lichfield Real Ale Jazz & Blues Festival in 2009, a rather ragged performance from a band that was clearly very much a work in progress. Since then Rollins has refined his vision with the help of new collaborators Ross Stanley (organ) and Pedro Segundo (drums). On the evidence of tonight’s performance plus the music to be heard on the trio’s début album “The 11th Gate” Rollins has really nailed it with this current trio, what might at first sight appear to be an unpromising instrumental configuration actually works very well. Much of this is due to the skill of the players, the self effacing Stanley is Britain’s first call organist for pretty much any jazz outfit seeking to deploy a Hammond and the Portugese born Segundo is a drummer of power, wit and invention. Rollins abilities as a trombonist are undoubted but he has also come up with a strong set of compositions for his colleagues to work with. All these qualities, combined with Rollins’ natural affability and flair for showmanship added up to a memorable evening’s music at Much Wenlock with Rollins’ touring sound engineer linking up with The Edge’s Peter Maxwell Dickson to provide the immaculate sound we’re becoming accustomed to at this venue.

The trio commenced proceedings with the opening track of the album, “Samba Galactica”, an attention grabbing opener mixing funky, soulful grooves with a high level of musical sophistication.
Stanley took the first solo on his two manual KeyB Duo organ, not actually a Hammond at all but sounding for all the world like the real thing. Speaking to Ross afterwards he reckoned his Italian made instrument is actually better than the current crop of contemporary Hammond keyboards. It certainly sounded great and Stanley, also a brilliant pianist incidentally, excelled throughout. Rollins took the next solo on his trusty trombone and was followed by Segundo, his drum feature also revealing a love of showmanship and theatricality as he deployed a battery of small percussive devices in addition to his conventional kit drums.

Also from the new release “Emergence” drew its inspiration from organist Larry Young’s seminal 1965 “Unity” album (other influences on the album include Steve Coleman, Julian Priester, Eddie Harris and many more from the worlds of both jazz and rock). Given Young’s influence it came as no surprise to see Stanley deliver another brilliant solo, followed once more by Rollins and the consistently flamboyant Segundo. Acknowledging the applause Rollins remarked on how lucky he was to be “working with musicians of this calibre”.

The supremely funky “Ujamma” has been in Rollins’ set list for some time (I remembered it from Lichfield) and was ushered in here by solo trombone with Rollins subsequently being joined by the patter of Segundo’s hand drums. The leader’s fruity tones heralded his best trombone solo yet with Stanley matching him for virtuosity, soloing on the top manual whilst picking out the bass line on the lower.

The first set closed with “The Other Side” with Segundo introducing the piece with some shimmering, highly atmospheric cymbal work. Rollins’ first deployment of electronics added to the spacey atmosphere as electronic and acoustic elements became blurred. Rollins’ soundwashes provided the backdrop for his own long toned trombone solo, his contribution punctuated by Stanley’s keyboards.

The trio’s set was extremely well received and many listeners, your reviewer included, were very pleasantly surprised. Rollins always has something interesting to say but even I wasn’t expecting anything quite so good this as the trio combined sophistication with funkiness and showmanship in pretty much equal measure.

Rollins promised that the second set would be funkier and more extrovert than the first and more than lived up to his word with the opening “Big Chill”, a tune dating back to 1995 and here featuring Rollins’ astonishingly agile wah wah trombone combined with Stanley’s keyboard stabs and Segundo’s propulsive drumming.

A hard grooving version of Pink Floyd’s “Money” delighted the crowd with funky solos coming from Rollins and Stanley before Segundo’s exuberant drum feature saw him dazzle with the use of all manner of exotic percussion. The stop/start arrangement teased the audience, only adding to the sense of fun and invention.

The title of “The Eleventh Gate” itself reflects Rollins’ fascination with numerology-his 47th birthday was November 11th 2011, also the date chosen for the album’s release. Introduced by Stanley’s solo organ the tune itself had a gospel feel with Rollins’ big toned trombone taking the role of the preacher and throwing in a hint of Gershwin’s “Summertime” for good measure.

Finally came the trio’s version of Eddie Harris’ classic “Freedom Jazz Dance”, an arrangement full of twists and turns and with superb solos from Rollins and Stanley. Ever the showman the gregarious Rollins encouraged the audience to clap along thus bringing an evening of consistently excellent music to a joyous conclusion. Although the size audience was a little smaller than usual (around 70 or so at a guess) their enthusiasm was enough to tempt the trio back to the stage for an obviously unplanned encore as Rollins opted to run through “Samba Galactica” once more albeit with a few tweaks to the arrangement here and there.

After the gig I spoke to both Dennis and Ross Stanley, both refreshingly modest and down to earth chaps. Dennis very kindly gave me a copy of the freshly released “The 11th Gate” album which appears on the American Motema label. With the exception of the Pink Floyd tune all the pieces we heard tonight appear on the album and I’m pleased to report that the trio’s music works just as well on CD as it does in live performance. The album is consistently involving and rewarding and repays repeated listening. The four star rating applies equally to both tonight’s performance and the album itself. It’s taken Dennis Rollins some time to get the Velocity Trio to this point but it’s been well worth the wait. 

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