James Allsopp Quartet, ‘Plays Stan Getz’, Shrewsbury Jazz Network, The Hive Music & Media Centre, Shrewsbury, 12/10/2024.

James Allsopp – tenor saxophone, Colin Oxley – guitar, Dave Whitford – double bass, Dave Storey – drums

James Allsopp is a London based reeds player, mainly performing on tenor and baritone saxophones and bass clarinet. I’m used to hearing his playing at the more experimental end of the jazz spectrum and he has featured on the Jazzmann web pages on many occasions, both leading his own groups or making substantial contributions to bands led by others.

I first became aware of his playing in 2003 when he appeared as a member of pianist and composer Richard Fairhurst’s sextet at that year’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival. The music was a Festival Commission and was subsequently recorded on the album “Standing Tall”, which was released in 2004 on the Babel label. Allsopp performs on clarinet and bass clarinet.

In 2006 Allsopp returned to Cheltenham to deliver an incendiary performance with Fraud, an international quintet co-led by Allsopp and drummer Tim Giles that also featured Norwegian guitarist Stian Westerhus. The band created quite a stir and released one self titled album but the international line up proved difficult to sustain and the group folded, with Allsopp and Giles going on to form the trio Golden Age of Steam with organist Kit Downes. Occasionally the core line up of GAOS was augmented with the addition of guest musicians such as bassist Ruth Goller and trumpeter Alex Bonney and this group proved to be longer lived than Fraud,  releasing the albums  “Raspberry Tongue” (Babel, 2010) and “Welcome To Bat Country” (Basho, 2012) before returning after a long hiatus with “Tomato Brain” (Limited Noise Records, 2020). All three GAOS recordings are reviewed on this site as are a number of live performances by both GAOS and Fraud.

Allsopp has also been a member of the collaborative electro-improvising trio BABs, alongside Bonney and bassist Olie Brice. The trio’s album “The Vulture Watches” is reviewed elsewhere on these pages, as is a 2016 EFG London Jazz Festival performance at The Vortex.

Allsopp also works in a duo with drummer / percussionist Will Glaser and with Well Hung Game, a duo with electronic musician Ed Dudley.

More recently Allsopp has been leading a chordless quartet featuring Steve Buckley on alto sax and bass clarinet, Tom Herbert on electric bass and Dave Storey at the drums.

He has also recently recorded with the electro-improvising ensemble Scarla O’Horror, a group featuring Bonney, Giles and electronic musician Isambard Khroustaliov. My review of the group’s recent album “Semiconductor Taxidermy For The Masses” can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/scarla-ohorror-semiconductor-taxidermy-for-the-masses

As a prolific sideman Allsopp has worked in bands led by Downes and Goller plus composer Graham Collier, vocalist Sara Mitra, guitarist Vitor Pereira, trumpeter Percy Pursglove and keyboard players Django Bates, Dan Nicholls, Bruno Heinen, Rick Simpson and Adam Fairhall.

He has also been a member of various groups with band names that are different to that of the leader. These include Fringe Magnetic (trumpeter Rory Simmons), Examples of Twelves (bassist Riaan Vosloo), Nostalgia ‘77 (guitarist Ben Lamdin), Neon Orchestra (saxophonist Stan Sulzmann), Pigfoot (trumpeter Chris Batchelor), and both World Sanguine Report and Snack Family, groups led by vocalist / guitarist Andrew Plummer. He has also played with Troykestra, the big band version of Troyka (Downes, guitarist Chris Montague and drummer Joshua Blackmore). Allsopp and Downes have also worked together in Barbacana, an Anglo-French quartet that also includes Adrien Dennefeld (guitar, cello) and Sylvain Darrifourcq (drums, objects, toys).

Others with whom he has worked include The Last Poets, David Axelrod, Dr John,  Mulatu Astatke, Sly & The Family Drone, Polar Bear, Jamie Cullum, Jorja Smith and composer Brian Irvine.

As can be seen from the above most of these leadership and sideman collaborations have been at the contemporary / experimental / improvisational end of the jazz spectrum. I was therefore intrigued to see that for his visit to Shrewsbury Jazz Network Allsopp would be performing a set dedicated to the music of Stan Getz.

That said there are two more Allsopp collaborations that I haven’t mentioned yet that have particular relevance with regard to tonight’s event. Allsopp was a key member of pianist Sam Leak’s Aquarium quartet, a group that placed a greater premium on melody and lyricism than some of Allsopp’s other projects. Both of this group’s albums “Aquarium” (Babel, 20110 and “Places” (2013) are reviewed elsewhere on this site, as are numerous live festival performances by the quartet.

Allsopp has also been a particularly vital component in the Sonny Rollins inspired ‘saxophone trio’ led by tonight’s drummer Dave Storey. As well as fronting the band Allsopp is also its principal composer. The trio’s three albums to date,  “Bosco” (2019), “Jouska” (2020 and “Circeo” (2023) are all reviewed elsewhere on these pages, as is a 2021 livestream by a different version of the trio, with organist Ross Stanley replacing regular member Conor Chaplin (double bass) from the Peggy’s Skylight venue in Nottingham. The strong and distinctive rapport developed by Storey and Allsopp in the relatively exposed setting of the saxophone trio was apparent throughout tonight’s performance with Storey’s playing impressing everybody in a pleasingly substantial audience at this well attended event. The name of Stan Getz had certainly attracted the attention of the Shropshire jazz public and it’s becoming noticeable that themed / tribute evenings such as this are becoming an increasingly popular and economical way for promoters to put ‘bums on seats’, with trumpeter Jay Phelps’ Kind of Blue / Miles Davis themed show representing another current example. 

But before anybody accuses of Allsopp of ‘selling out’ it should be explained that his father was an avid jazz fan whose favourite musicians were the saxophonists Stan Getz and Lester Young. As a result Allsopp was immersed in the music of these two masters from a young age and took up the saxophone himself, studying jazz performance plus classical clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music in London. After many years of ploughing his own musical furrow via the numerous projects and collaborations listed above he has now returned to the classic jazz repertoire with this Stan Getz project. It is intended that the music will be recorded for album release with the quartet going into the studios next month. On the evidence of tonight’s performance the resultant recording should be well worth hearing.

As his musical CV shows Allsopp a highly versatile and adaptable musician who can play just about any style of jazz and play it well. Not averse to a musical challenge he has been described as a “musical chameleon”. Tonight represented a return to his original colours.

Joining Allsopp and Storey this evening were the ever reliable bassist Dave Whitford (replacing the advertised Oli Hayhurst) and guitarist Colin Oxley, the inclusion of the latter perhaps reflecting the fact that Getz often worked with guitar players, most notably Herb Ellis and Jim Hall.

Tonight’s performance commenced with an arrangement of the Jerome Kern song “Nobody Else But Me”. This revealed Allsopp to be an astonishingly fluent tenor sax soloist, his playing both seamless and flawless, the ideas just seeming to flow effortlessly. Oxley followed on his Gibson L-5 archtop guitar, favouring a clean, orthodox jazz guitar sound with no recourse to any kinds of effects. Achieving a similar level of fluency to the leader his solos typically featured nimble single note lines combined with sophisticated chording. During the course of a piece that served as an introduction to the individual instrumental voices of the band we also heard from the estimable Whitford on the bass and from the excellent Storey at the drums as he engaged in a series of exchanges with Oxley and Allsopp. An excellent start.

Getz achieved something of a commercial breakthrough via a series of recordings made with the Brazilian musicians Antonio Carlos Jobim (piano), Joao Gilberto (guitar, vocals) and Astrud Gilberto (vocals). Jobim was also a prolific and greatly admired composer and songwriter and his piece “Dreamer” followed, with Allsopp stating the melodic theme before handing over to Oxley for the first solo. The leader then followed on tenor sax.

Brushed drums introduced a suitably joyous rendition of “I Want To Be Happy” with Allsopp subsequently stating the theme and taking the opening solo. A word here for Oxley’s comping skills as he punctuated Allsopp’s mellifluous sax outpourings before embarking on his own solo. Whitford followed on double bass before Storey subsequently enjoyed a series of brushed drum breaks as he again enjoyed another set of exchanges with Allsopp and Oxley. In truth many of tonight’s performances followed the same pattern and featured the solos in the same order. It may have been a little predictable but with playing of this quality nobody was complaining.

Storey continued to deploy brushes on the ballad “A Handful of Stars” with Allsopp adopting a gentler, breathier sound on tenor as he again stated the theme and delivered the first solo. Oxley followed on guitar and the performance was also notable for a delightfully melodic double bass solo from Whitford.

A version of Jobim’s “Wave” represented the first true bossa, introduced by the trio of guitar, bass and drums as Allsopp delayed his entrance, eventually arriving in time to deliver the theme and take the first solo, again followed by the agile fingers of Oxley on the guitar.

The first set concluded with a swinging version of “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” that featured solos from Allsopp and Oxley, with these two also entering into a high energy series of exchanges with Storey. A lively, upbeat way to end an excellent fist set.

Set two got under way with “There Will Never Be Another You”, a tune from Getz’s 1956 album “The Steamer”, with Allsopp stating the theme and taking the first solo,  this time incorporating a passage of otherwise unaccompanied tenor sax punctuated only by Storey’s drums. A more conventional solo followed from Oxley before the now customary sax / guitar / drum exchanges towards the close.

A Jobim bossa with a title translating as “Lover No More” incorporated solos from Oxley, Allsopp and Whitford with the bassist’s feature skilfully combining melody with an underlying swing.

The ballad “My One and Only Love” featured Storey’s delicate brush work allied to the sensitive soloing of Allsopp and Oxley plus another beautifully melodic bass solo from Whitford. Allsopp’s closing tenor sax solo was accompanied by the gentle rumble of Storey’s mallets.

The quartet upped the energy levels once more with “Woody ‘n’ You”, a bebop classic written by Dizzy Gillespie as tribute to bandleader Woody Herman. A suitably tricky bebop style ‘head’ was followed by solos from Allsopp and Oxley, these fuelled by Whitford’s propulsive bass lines and Storey’s brisk drumming, the latter including some sizzling cymbal work. Storey was to also to feature in a series of high energy trades with Allsopp and Oxley.

The set concluded in gentler fashion with a ballad arrangement of “Like Someone in Love”, with the rhythm section still imparting a gentle swing via the use of double bass and brushed drums. Solos here came from Allsopp on tenor and Oxley on guitar.

The quartet’s performance was warmly received by a highly appreciative and knowledgeable crowd at The Hive and SJN chairman Mike Wright had little difficulty in persuading the band to remain on stage for a deserved encore. This proved to be another ballad, a beautiful interpretation of “Body and Soul” featuring the sounds of breathy tenor sax and brushed drums, with Storey again contributing some exquisite cymbal work.

This was an event that got Shrewsbury Jazz Network’s 2024-25 programme off to an excellent start with the quality of both the venue and its audience being greatly appreciated by all four musicians. It was Oxley’s first visit to The Hive and he was particularly impressed.

My thanks to all the members of the quartet for speaking with me after the show and to Dave Storey for verifying set list details and to James for signing my copy of the recent Scarla O’Horror album. Also to Colin as we reminisced about the much missed Titley Jazz Festival (2010-14), at which he had been a regular performer.