James Borland Quintet featuring George Crowley, Corn Exchange Jazz Club, The Corn Exchange, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, 12/09/2024.

James Borland – trumpet, George Crowley – tenor sax, Nick Manz- piano, Ben Love – double bass,  Kai Chareunsy - drums

Tonight’s event was part of the Jazz Central Mentorship Scheme series of events which is supported by Jazz Midlands, the consortium of West Midlands based promoters of which   the Corn Exchange Jazz Club is a member.

The Scheme is designed to assist young Jazz Graduates and is overseen by  the leading jazz bassist Arnie Somogyi, a tutor on the jazz course at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.  Six young Birmingham based jazz musicians have been commissioned to write new works, working in conjunction with a more established jazz musician of their own choosing acting as a ‘mentor’. Typically the mentors have also passed through a Jazz Conservatoire education and although now well established on the international jazz scene some are still relatively young themselves.

Tonight’s performance was part of the 2024 Jazz Central Mentorship scheme. This year’s participants are;

Torin Davies (guitar) with mentor James Maddren (drums)

James Borland (trumpet) with mentor George Crowley (sax)

Andrew Duncan (drums) with mentor Rachael Cohen (sax)

Dave Flanagan (bass) with mentor Phil Robson (guitar)

James Romaine (sax) with mentor Gareth Lockrane (flute)

Alex Clarke (sax) with mentor Alex Garnett (sax)

The six young musicians, in conjunction with their mentors presented their work at the 2024 Jazz Central Mentoring Festival which was at the 1000 Trades venue in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter over the weekend of Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th of September.

The bands involved will also take their music to other jazz venues around the Midlands that form part of the Jazz Midlands consortium. On 5th September 2024 I enjoyed a performance by guitarist and composer Torin Davies and his mentor James Maddren at a Music Spoken Here event at The Marr’s Bar in Worcester. Review here.
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/torin-davies-quartet-featuring-james-maddren-music-spoken-here-the-marrs-bar-worcester-05-09-2024

Davies and Maddren had set the bar high and I was looking forward to another strong performance from the Borland / Crowley group. Originally from Solihull Borland is a recent graduate of the Jazz Course at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC).

I had previously enjoyed Borland’s playing when he was one of the star soloists of the Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra when they played a hugely enjoyable concert at Kidderminster Jazz Club in October 2023. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/midland-youth-jazz-orchestra-kidderminster-jazz-club-st-ambrose-parish-centre-kidderminster-worcs-06-10-2023

I had also witnessed an online performance by Borland when he was part of a nonet featuring RBC members led by alto saxophonist and tutor Mike Williams that appeared as part of the 2021 Cheltenham Jazz Festival Jazz Stream. That performance is reviewed as part of my Festival coverage here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/cheltenham-jazz-festival-jazz-stream-2021-day-one-saturday-may-1st-2021

Borland had also been part of the 2023 Jazz Central Mentorship scheme when he was a member of a quintet led by saxophonist Liam Brennan that also featured mentor Lara Jurd, another trumpeter. The unusual front line of saxophone and twin trumpets was augmented by bassist Tommy Fuller and tonight’s drummer Kai Chareunsy. 

Borland’s mentor, George Crowley, is a highly versatile saxophonist and bass clarinettist who has appeared on the Jazzmann on multiple occasions, both as the leader of his own groups and as a prolific sideman in the bands of others. His work ranges right across the jazz spectrum from the relatively straight ahead to the experimental. His previous appearances on this site are too numerous to cross reference here but include favourable reviews of his solo albums “Paper Universe” (2012) and “Can Of Worms” (2015).

Tonight’s performance featured Borland’s compositions exclusively, the individual pieces forming part of a broader overall project named “Looking Backwards, Moving Forwards”, the title representing an acknowledgement of the importance of the jazz tradition, while also expressing Borland’s desire to create something new and original within it and to make his own mark within the genre.

As a writer Borland acknowledges the influence of such giants of the genre as pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, in addition to younger contemporary musicians such as trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins.

The stated aim of the “Looking Backwards, Moving Forwards” project was to experiment with melody, rhythm and harmony as compositional components and the free flowing nature of many of the pieces owed something to Akinmusire’s open ended approach, with the individual solos not as clearly signposted as they are in more conventional bebop / hard bop. The interplay between the leader’s trumpet and Cowley’s tenor was particularly impressive, as was the playing of Nick Manz, a former BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year finalist. Chareunsy made a colourful and distinctive contribution at the drum kit and Love represented the glue holding it altogether.

Unaccompanied trumpet introduced the opening piece, appropriately titled “Dawn”. Subsequently Chareunsy laid down a slow marching rhythm that formed the bedrock for the intertwining of trumpet and tenor. At one point I though I detected an allusion to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, but I may have been wrong. A change of rhythm and tempo then brought about an acceleration in pace as the music became more conventionally be-boppish, this acting as the trigger for powerful but fluent solos from both Borland and Crowley and a dazzling excursion from the excellent Manz at the piano, all these powered by Chareunsy’s propulsive drumming.

“Lost” commenced with Borland and Crowley combining to state the theme with solos following from Manz and Crowley. At one juncture Borland’s trumpet feature saw him playing in an exposed trio situation with just bass and drums for company.  Subsequently a greater emphasis was placed on the interplay between trumpet and tenor, with the inter-weaving lines of the horns underpinned by fluid rhythms, with Chareunsy deploying brushes. A short passage of unaccompanied tenor sax led into a solo from Love at the double bass, this followed by a further trumpet solo from Borland. We later learnt that this lengthy performance had actually been a segue, with “Lost” merged with the Wayne Shorter inspired composition “Desire”.

The first set concluded with the slow burning “The Same Sky”, with trumpet and tenor again stating the theme prior to more expansive solos from Borland and Manz, with Chareunsy providing pertinent drum commentary.  The sound of his sticks on rims eventually signalled an injection of pace and a more impassioned tenor solo from the excellent Crowley. The saxophonist was subsequently joined by Borland for another impressive example of trumpet / tenor interplay as an intriguing and absorbing first set drew to a close.

Set two kicked off in lively fashion with the boppish introduction to “New Day”, this triggering a series of fiery trumpet and tenor exchanges. With energy levels running high Chareunsy was featured at the kit, followed by a solo from Manz at the piano.
A short passage of unaccompanied double bass represented the transition into the ballad “Hill View”, based around Love’s recurring bass motif and featuring the sounds of Chareunsy’s mallets on toms and cymbals. Trumpet and tenor sax took it turns to state the melody before Love was liberated from his previous role in order to deliver a melodic double bass solo. Following this the music began to gather momentum, the greater rhythmic urgency inspiring a series of absorbing horn exchanges.

An older tune, “Twenty Six” had been written some two and a half years ago and was so named simply because it was the 26th tune in the prolific Borland’s notebook. This continued the mood of “Hill View” with the trumpet and tenor exchanges notable for a kind of bruised lyricism. Subsequent solos from Manz and Borland saw the music gradually gaining momentum and the piece concluded with a series of increasingly animated trumpet and tenor exchanges.

“Escape” adopted more of a modal approach with the horns combining to state the opening theme before diverging to deliver a typically engaging series of exchanges. Manz then caught the eye and ear with an expansive and increasingly feverish piano solo. He was followed by the leader, whose trumpet solo embraced a wide series of dynamic variations. Crowley followed with a similarly fiery tenor solo on a piece that was particularly well received by the Ross audience.

By way of contrast Borland announced that the final number, “Home”, would have us “humming on the way home”. This was a piece with a suitably memorable, folk inspired. melody and a distinct pastoral quality. Ushered in by a short passage of unaccompanied trumpet the opening solo came from Manz, who also provided the link between the solos of Crowley and Borland.

The bucolic, slightly quirky nature of this piece reminded me of the post Loose Tubes music of Django Bates, Iain Ballamy, Julian Arguelles and Mark Lockheart and acted as a poignant reminder of the recent passing of former Loose Tubes drummer Martin France, at the age of just sixty. George Crowley had worked with France in bands led by pianist Ivo Neame and after the show we exchanged memories of this great musician, a much loved figure on the UK jazz scene who will be very much missed by fans and fellow musicians alike.

My thanks to George for speaking with me at length and also to James for talking me through the set list and explaining about his various musical influences. I’d jotted Ornette Coleman down as a possible source of inspiration but James stated that although he was aware of Coleman’s music it wasn’t one of his primary influences.

This was a second impressive performance under the Jazz Central Mentorship umbrella and it was good to see a pleasingly sizeable audience at Ross supporting new music from young musicians. Previous visits to the Corn Exchange from groups led by young Birmingham based musicians Thomas Marsh (bass) and Ben Carter (alto sax) have been similarly successful and promoter Dave Logan has expressed a desire to continue supporting up and coming jazz talent. Good for him. My thanks to Dave for providing press tickets for my wife and I for this very enjoyable event.

As with Torin Davies at Worcester the previous week it would be good of Borland could get this music documented on disc, and I’m sure that this is an observation that could be applied to all the young musicians in the Jazz Central Mentorship series. This is music that is too good to just be played live a couple of times and then just disappear into the ether.

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