Jazz at Progress, Progress Theatre, Reading, Berkshire
Empirical
Friday 21 February 2025

Empirical: Nathaniel Facey-alto sax, Jonny Mansfield -vibes, Will Barry - piano, Tom Farmer - bass, Shaney Forbes - drums

Multi-award winning Empirical made a very welcome return to Jazz in Reading on Friday 21 February, after an interval of nine years, with an enthralling evening of inspired jazz. The band’s inception in 2007, bringing together the multifarious writing and improvisation talents of Nathaniel Facey, Lewis Wright, Tom Farmer and Shaney Forbes, made an immediate impression on the jazz scene with its collective approach to creating jazz. It cast a backward glance to the fundamental roots of the music, capturing the exuberance and freedom of spirit of those early days at the turn of the twentieth century, but with a level of sophistication, virtuoso performance and breadth of expression that the pioneers of New Orleans could never have imagined in their wildest dreams. It’s an utterly compelling process of creation; a mix of respect for formal structure combined with the spontaneity of improvisation that effortlessly draws the audience into its orbit. We could all share in that thrilling feeling of stepping into the unknown and seeing where the music might take us.

With Jonny Mansfield now occupying the vibes ‘chair’ vacated by Lewis Wright, who recently moved to the States and the addition of Will Barry on piano, Empirical now has a new look and fresh sounds to explore, while remaining true to the philosophy that brought it into being.

Nathaniel Facey’s earth-shattering alto saxophone emerging from the dreamlike background of Tom Farmer’s ‘The Naitoku’ provided the ‘wondrous beginning’ to the evening. My mind immediately rolled back to a date in the late 1960s when I had the good fortune to hear the great Joe Harriott in person. Facey has the same qualities of poise, energy and creative power that so impressed me with Joe, and with a glorious sound that literally filled every space of the Progress auditorium.

Those qualities were on further display in Facey’s daring acappella introduction to ‘Gazzelloni’, Eric Dolphy’s dedication to his flute teacher that featured on the classic Blue Note album ‘Out to Lunch’, recorded in 1964. Facey conjured an incredible range of sounds from his instrument – from the delicacy of the flute to out-of-this-world harmonics. Having held the audience totally spellbound, he summoned the band into action and Will Barry launched into a flight of restless invention ahead of a fiery exchange between Facey and drummer Shaney Forbes. A moment of stunned silence followed the abrupt ending before the audience broke into a huge round of applause.

‘Giants’, an extract from a newly composed suite by Shaney Forbes, and literally ‘hot’ from the recording studio, gave us a taste of the prospective delights to be found on Empirical’s next album, scheduled for release later this year. Set to the exotic rhythms of Forbes’ tumbling drums, it had a curiously enigmatic feel to it as each musician revealed his own vision of what a ‘Giant’ might be.

All too soon, the first set concluded with ‘As the Eagle’, Nathaniel Facey’s majestic impression of an eagle soaring from its mountain top eyrie. We felt as one with this creature in its flight through the infinite open space of the sky.

The second set opened with Nathaniel Facey’s dramatic depiction of a mythical dragon, The Grocklum’. The wide range of its unpredictable moods, successively portrayed by the earthy groove of Will Barry’s piano and Jonny Mansfield’s dazzling four-mallet outing on his vibraphone, built to a ferocious climax with Facey’s alto spitting sheets of flame fuelled by Forbes’ insistent percussion.
WOW!

The exquisite, ever-changing tone colours and textures of Tom Farmer’s achingly beautiful ‘Wonder is the Feeling’, perfectly captured that moment in our lives when, for the first time, we open our minds to all the possibilities that life and the world have to offer.

Remaining in this realm of profound thought, Shaney Forbes’ used ‘Lambs to the Slaughter’ to pose the question of whether we are able to exercise our minds creatively for the common good, or are we indeed destined simply to become ‘lambs for the slaughter’. Jonny Mansfield set the debate in motion with a simple and highly effective repeated motif, underpinned by the cello-like bowed bass of Tom Farmer. Against this background grew a conversation of steadily increasing intensity between the instruments – restless piano, delicate vibes, wailing saxophone. As it grew towards a crescendo of sound and excitement, Tom Farmer released the tension with a perfectly placed bass break, a breathing space before the final ‘bash’ and a revelatory drum solo by Shaney Forbes. It added up to an astonishing performance of collective music-making.

The coda, Forbes’ ‘Garden of Beginnings’, provided further affirmation that such creative processes as jazz can offer a hopeful future for our deeply troubled world. Empirical deal with some serious themes through their music, but please don’t think this makes it difficult to listen to. It’s full of life, colour and knife-edge excitement and has an appeal that’s impossible to resist. The band take their music seriously, but not themselves. They had great fun on stage dealing with the ‘house poltergeist’ which first sent Jonny Mansfield’s carefully placed music scores flying and later broke apart a mic stand just as Shaney Forbes was about to make an announcement.

Empirical is a band to catch as it continues its ‘Wonder is the Beginning’ tour with dates in Stamford, Birmingham, Derby and Winchester. As ever our thanks to the volunteers of the Progress Theatre for their warm hospitality and for the excellent quality of sound and lighting.

TREVOR BANNISTER