Ivo Neame Quintet, Dempsey’s, Cardiff, 08/03/2012.

Ivo Neame (b.1981) has emerged from the ranks of the Loop Collective to become one of Britain’s leading contemporary jazz pianists. He is currently a member of two of the UK’s most popular and successful jazz groups, bassist Jasper Hoiby’s Phronesis and saxophonist Adam Waldmann’s Kairos 4tet. The success of Phronesis and Kairos has meant that Neame’s solo career has taken something of a back seat so this rare quintet appearance represented a welcome opportunity to hear Neame in a different context after a series of regular sightings with Phronesis and Kairos.

Neame’s solo career began with the album “Swirls And Eddies” (Loop Records) back in 2007, a promising but unexceptional trio date with bassist Phil Donkin and drummer George Hart. By the time his second album “Caught In The Light Of Day” (Edition Records) emerged in 2009 Neame’s playing and writing had taken a quantum leap forward and he had expanded the group to a quartet with the addition of vibraphonist Jim Hart and an all new, all star rhythm section of Hoiby and drummer James Maddren. Neame’s increasingly complex writing convinced both on record and in a live context. I saw the quartet, with Kairos drummer Jon Scott replacing Maddren, produce an excellent live performance at The Edge Arts Centre in Much Wenlock in March 2009, just prior to the album’s release. Reviews of this live show plus Neame’s two albums can be found elsewhere on this site.

Neame is due to record again in April at London’s Fish Factory studios with the results being released by Edition Records in the Autumn. The new album will feature Neame’s most ambitious project yet, an octet comprising of himself on piano plus Jon Shenoy (clarinet), Shabaka Hutchings (bass clarinet), Tori Freestone (tenor sax/flute), Jason Yarde (alto sax), Jim Hart (vibes), Jasper Hoiby (double bass) and Dave Hamblett (drums). This line up has already played a prestige date at the Purcell Room at London’s Southbank Centre but economics have dictated that Neame take a smaller unit out on the road i.e a core quintet featuring Freestone, Hart, Hoiby and Hamblett. Tonight’s two engaging sets included material drawn both from the impending new album and from “Caught In The Light Of The Day”, the latter still clearly something of a touchstone for the pianist.

The music of Neame’s groups is very different from the fiery, groove based interaction of Phronesis or the spacious lyricism of Kairos. Instead the pianist brings his own ideas to the party and it’s a tribute to the versatility and adaptability of the musicians that they are able to deal with Neame’s wilfully complex music with such aplomb. Neame’s themes are tricky and knotty, drawing on such diverse influences as Thelonious Monk and Steve Reich. Melodic and rhythmic lines intertwine and every space seems to be filled. This is music that requires high levels of concentration from both the players and the listener, yet for all that it’s not overly “difficult”-for the audience at any rate, some it must be a bit of a devil to play. The addition of Freestone’s sax and flute added yet another layer to the music and it’s fascinating to speculate as to how the full octet might sound (I wasn’t fortunate enough to be at the Purcell Room back in February).

The quintet commenced with “Birdbrained” from the “Caught In The Light Of Day” album, an updated version of bebop with dense, interlocking lines and lots and lots of notes. Vibraphonist Jim Hart embarked on a barnstorming marathon solo, mallets (four of them, naturally) flying over the bars of the instrument in a dizzying display of virtuosity that caused my mate Paul to comment “he’s the Lionel Messi of the vibraphone”. This remark came the night after Messi’s mesmerising five goal haul for Barcelona against a hapless Bayer Leverkusen and I can see Paul’s point; Hart is a highly spectacular performer, one we’ve both seen many times, but the initial reaction to a Hart solo is invariably “how the hell does he do it?”. Having such a flamboyant, scene stealing soloist in your band could be considered a bit of a risk but Neame and Hart go back a long way with Ivo sometimes reversing the role with his contributions, on alto sax this time, to Hart’s group Gemini. Here there was also plenty to admire about his knotty pianism as the group entered into trio mode for Neame’s own solo. 

A new tune “La Strega” (Italian for “The Witch”, Neame has a fondness for vampire and other supernatural imagery) began with interlocking. almost Reich-ian piano and vibe lines before opening out to embrace a more conventional jazz feel. Solos came from Freestone on tenor and Hoiby at the bass as Neame encouraged other members of the group to make their mark.

“Moody”, also new, was equally complex if rather less frenetic, at least in its early stages. The piece included a lengthy passage for solo piano and Neame joked that he should have called the piece “Schizophrenic”, such was the range of emotions and dynamics that it embraced.

The eerie sound of Hart’s bowed vibes, punctuated by Neame’s sparse piano chords and Hamblett’s mallet rumbles introduced “Quixotic” from “Caught In The Light…”. Freestone’s wispy tenor sax was next to show in a piece that built in layers to embrace a spirit of collective improvisation before fragmenting into a series of set pieces. These comprised of a lengthy sax and drum dialogue, a further passage of solo piano and finally a series of scintillating piano and vibe exchanges, alone at first but then with a full rhythm section. This was heady, breathless stuff with which to conclude what had been an absorbing and engrossing first half.

Neame and Hoiby also play alongside each other in both Phronesis and Kairos. Neame’s hard grooving tune “American Jesus”, which opened the second set here, also forms part of the Phronesis repertoire and will appear on the forthcoming Phronesis album “Walking Dark”(to be released on Edition Records on April 2nd 2012). Here it appeared in a very different form with Freestone on flute and Hart on vibes the featured soloists.

The new tune “Moon Bathing” offered a more lyrical approach with Freestone’s warm tenor sound closer to “conventional” jazz than pretty much everything we’d heard previously. The piece also included a feature for young drummer Dave Hamblett, a player who has studied with such drum masters as Martin France and Jeff Williams. Hamblett, who has succeeded first James Maddren and then Jon Scott, combines a hard hitting style with considerable flexibility. The twists, turns and complexities of Neame’s writing ensure that any drummer is kept firmly on his toes.

Neame ushered in “Unseen Coracle” with a 1,2,3,4 countdown but here any orthodoxies immediately ended with the tune’s complex meters framing an unusual Hart solo that saw him adopting a softer, marimba like sound and also once again deploying the bow on his instrument.

“Passing Point” from “Caught In The Light…” represented this set’s ballad with Freestone tenor ruminations supported by Hamblett’s delicate brushwork. The piece differed in feel from much of Neame’s other output by virtue of its spaciousness, particularly with regard to the pianist’s own solo.

The new tune “Mustard Street” concluded things on a suitably energetic note, a typically busy Neame piece with fine solos from Freestone and Hart.
Freestone was the only one of these musicians I hadn’t seen play live before and overall I was impressed. She made a strong contribution to the ensemble sound and soloed in a succinct but intelligent manner. I’d heard her previously as co-leader of the band Compassionate Dictatorship alongside guitarist Jez Franks (the album “Cash Cows” is reviewed elsewhere on this site).

A crowd of around 35-40 including a gaggle of students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (some of whom I recognised from the RWCMD Jazz Ensemble’s performance at Abergavenny a couple of weeks back) gave them a good reception but no encore was forthcoming. This was largely due to the fact that Neame and Hoiby had flown in to Heathrow that morning from Norway where they had been touring with saxophonist Marius Neset. A two hour delay at Oslo airport plus the drive from London to Cardiff had left them understandably drained. A jazz musician’s life is not a glamorous one. Still at least they had overnight accommodation in the Welsh capital. 

Tonight’s performance was a good taster for the impending new octet album. As the leader of his own group Neame’s focus is very much on the writing and the overall ensemble sound, he actually plays far more flamboyantly in the more open surroundings of Phronesis. Although his own group is less immediately accessible than the other two bands he regularly plays with Neame’s music is still highly rewarding and is full of interesting musical ideas. In Hart, Hoiby, Freestone and Hamblett he also has a first class band. The release of the octet album should represent a major event in the UK jazz calendar.

The quintet have two more gigs coming up at the end of March 2012 in Leeds and Sheffield. See http://www.ivoneame.com for further details.

 

 

blog comments powered by Disqus