WALL2WALL JAZZ FESTIVAL, ABERGAVENNY, 27-29 SEPTEMBER 2024

PROLOGUE;

The 2024 Wall2Wall Jazz Festival, organised by Black Mountain Jazz Club in the town of Abergavenny has just concluded and was a huge success.

The Festival featured three ticketed concerts held on consecutive evenings at BMJ’s regular base, the Theatre at the Melville Centre. The concert programme featured saxophonist and composer Hannah Horton and her quartet, trumpeter Jay Phelps and his quintet with a Miles Davis themed performance and pianist / vocalist Jeremy Sassoon and his band with their Ray Charles Project. All three ticketed events played to large and supportive audiences with two of the performances completely selling out.

In addition there were two workshop events, “Gospel and Blues” with vocalist Tanya Walker and “The Foundations of Playing and Improvising Jazz”, hosted by trombonist Gareth Roberts.

Sunday afternoon (29th September) was a free ‘Community Afternoon’ with street parades featuring samba and New Orleans bands in addition to other street music. There was also a public performance by the BMJazz Katz, BMJ’s youth jazz section and their tutors. Several pub and restaurant venues around the town also hosted live music events, a number of these being duo performances that formed part of a ‘Jazz Piano Lounge Trail’.

All three concert performances will be reviewed separately and a feature on the Community Afternoon will also follow.

JAY PHELPS QUINTET, “A KIND OF BLUE and MILES DAVIS”, MELVILLE CENTRE THEATRE, 28/09/2024

Jay Phelps – trumpet, Dan Lockheart – tenor saxophone, Andy Bunting – piano, James Owston – double bass, Jim Bashford – drums

The second ticketed event at the 2024 Wall2Wall Jazz Festival was this sold out performance by trumpeter Jay Phelps and his quintet as they paid homage to the musical genius that was Miles Davis, with a particular emphasis on the music of Davis’ best known work the 1959 album “Kind of Blue”.

Born in Vancouver, Canada, trumpeter and composer Jay Phelps moved to the UK at the age of seventeen and quickly established himself on the London jazz scene under the patronage of bassist Gary Crosby. Phelps subsequently became an important member of the award winning group Empirical and made a substantial contribution as both musician and writer on the band’s eponymous début CD released in 2007. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/empirical

Having made a name for himself with Empirical Phelps left the group after that first album and began to establish himself as a solo artist, releasing “Jay Walkin’”, his debut as a leader in 2011. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/jay-walkin

Phelps has continued to work as a solo artist with album releases including “Free As The Birds”, “Live At The Cockpit” and the recent “The Now” (2023), all featuring different versions of the Jay Phelps Band.

As a sideman he has featured on the Jazzmann web pages as a member of bands variously led by trombonist Dennis Rollins, saxophonist Courtney Pine, keyboard player Django Bates and bassist Shez Raja, the last named a previous visitor to Wall2Wall.

More recently he was an integral part of saxophonist Xhosa Cole’s quartet and appears on Cole’s 2021 album “K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us”, the line up also including tonight’s rhythm section of bassist James Owston and drummer Jim Bashford. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/xhosa-cole-know-them-know-us

Phelps’ other sideman credits also include work with fellow trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, reeds player Shabaka Hutchings and the late, great singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse.

Phelps has also worked as a DJ, radio presenter and film maker (the Youtube series ‘Ear To the Ground’) and also runs his own musical casting agency SoulEndvr.

His original music has always combined jazz with more contemporary developments such as soul and hip hop. But alongside playing his own compositions with the Jay Phelps Band the trumpeter also runs another project that concentrates on playing the music of “Kind of Blue” era Miles Davis.

“Kind of Blue” remains the biggest selling, and arguably the most influential, jazz album of all time. He may no longer be with us but with all due respect to Phelps it’s the name of Miles Davis that ensured that tonight’s event was totally sold out, with a lengthy waiting list ready to pounce on any returns.

In terms of audience numbers Phelps’ Miles Davis show has proved to be a consistently successful live attraction. In July 2024 I witnessed him leading a sextet in a Miles Davis themed performance at Clun Valley Jazz in Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire. It was another sold out performance and featured Phelps alongside a band made up of London and Birmingham based musicians that included Donovan Haffner (alto sax), Maddy Coombs (tenor sax), Rick Simpson (piano), Josh Vadiveloo (double bass) and Jim Bashford (drums). I didn’t review this show as I was attending as a paying customer, but I have to admit that I was a little disappointed at the time. It seemed to me that this was very much a case of ‘jazz as repertory’ with the musicians playing the “Kind of Blue” material almost ‘note for note’. The sextet didn’t really put their own stamp on the music and for me the evening didn’t really ‘take off’ as I’d hoped it might have done. I did seem to be in the minority though, the rest of the audience loved it and the band went down a storm, with the organisers equally delighted with a full house.

With the Bishop’s Castle experience in mind I approached tonight’s event with a degree of trepidation, but this time round I wasn’t about to be disappointed. Although Phelps has spent most of his time in the UK in London he also lived and worked in Birmingham for a while and has developed strong links with that city’s jazz scene.

Tonight’s five piece line up was an all Birmingham band, with drummer Jim Bashford the only survivor from the Bishop’s Castle group. The young saxophonist Dan Lockheart was on tenor sax with James Owston on double bass and Andy Bunting, a comparative veteran of the Birmingham scene, on piano. Lockheart, (nephew of fellow saxophonist Mark, in case anyone was wondering) is a composer and bandleader in his own right and I enjoyed a performance by his quintet at a Music Spoken Here event at The Marr’s Bar, Worcester in September 2023. Review here;

With a new line up in tow tonight’s performance proved to be much more free-wheeling with subtle tweaks being made to the arrangements and with the soloists stretching out far more expansively. This time round there really was the sense that Phelps and the band were really starting to put their own stamp on the music, and really starting to enjoy themselves as a result. There were some truly blistering solos and a greater sense of adventure all round. The fact that he has worked extensively with both Owston and Bashford in Xhosa Cole’s group was also a big help.

Also key to the change was Andy Bunting, whose piano style was nothing like that of “Kind of Blue”’s Bill Evans -  and which didn’t try to be. Instead his percussive, highly charged pianistics owed more to McCoy Tyner and Thelonious Monk, or, as my fellow scribe and sometime Jazzmann contributor Nigel Jarrett so delightfully put it “Dave Brubeck on amphetamines”. Working in conjunction with Owston and the faithful Bashford Bunting helped to provide a sturdy platform for the soloing of Phelps and Lockheart, both taking the opportunity to really ‘go for it’, with the young saxophonist impressing alongside the more experienced, but still youthful, leader.

The trio of Bunting, Owston and Bashford introduced “Freddie Freeloader”, the first selection from the “Kind of Blue” album. Phelps and Lockheart combined to deliver unison horn melody lines before handing over to Bunting for the first solo of the night. The pianist quickly stamped his own authority on the proceedings with a fluent but percussive solo punctuated by off mic horn interjections. Lockheart and Phelps then delivered fluent and expansive solos of their own. In the Paul Chambers role Owston was as solid as a rock behind the bass, before eventually taking the spotlight with his own articulate solo.

Phelps informed us that “Kind of Blue” was one of the few recordings present in his childhood home, alongside discs by Glenn Miller and Herb Alpert. It was the combination of Davis and Alpert that first inspired him to take up the trumpet, with the “Kind of Blue” track “So What” representing a particularly significant source of influence. Tonight’s version was ushered in by an extended unaccompanied bass passage from Owston that eventually morphed into that most familiar of bass motifs, this representing the entry point for the rest of the band. Phelps’ solo featured some distinctive high register trumpeting as he began to make the piece his own. He was followed by Lockheart on tenor sax and Bunting at the piano, the latter’s percussive keyboard assault now perhaps reminiscent of McCoy Tyner, a comparison that Bashford’s dynamic drumming only helped to encourage. A brief double bass solo by Owston and THAT motif then signalled a final restatement of the theme. Great stuff.

Phelps mentioned the influence on Miles of both composer and arranger Gil Evans and pianist Bill Evans (no relation). On “Kind of Blue” Bill’s input was particularly significant on “Flamenco Sketches”, the next piece that we heard this evening. This represented the first example of Phelps playing with the Harmon mute, the resultant sound representing a particularly component on “Kind of Blue”.  The interplay between the leader’s trumpet and Lockheart’s tenor was particularly distinctive on this piece, which included solos from Lockheart on tenor, Phelps on muted trumpet and a rather more restrained Bunting at the piano.

The first set saw the quintet diverging from the music of “Kind of Blue” for the first time with “Fran Dance”, a Davis composition dedicated to his wife of the time, the dancer Frances Taylor. However,  as Phelps pointed out, the piece does appear on later deluxe editions of “Kind of Blue”. This highly melodic composition again featured the sound of the Harmon mute, with Lockheart’s tenor responding to Phelps’ melody lines. The leader took the first solo on muted trumpet, followed by Lockheart on tenor, who began to probe more deeply as the music gradually gathered momentum. Bunting was also featured at the piano before the horns combined to restate the theme. A charming conclusion to an excellent first set.

Set two kicked off in energetic fashion with a Davis inspired arrangement of Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale”, with Lockheart’s sax initially taking the lead and delivering the first solo. Bunting followed at the piano before handing over to Bunting. Things came to a peak with Phelps’ trumpet solo. Now playing with an open bell his stunning high register trills were underscored by Bunting’s pummelling of the keyboard and Bashford’s dynamic drumming, the latter subsequently enjoying his own drum feature. Phelps and Lockheart then engaged in a thrilling series of horn exchanges towards the close.

Davis’ own arrangement of “On Green Dolphin Street” was introduced by a passage of unaccompanied open bell trumpet, with Phelps also delivering the opening conventional jazz solo. Bunting and Lockheart followed, before handing over to Owston and Bashford for a thoughtful bass and drum dialogue. The horns then returned to restate the theme before a passage of unaccompanied piano marked the segue into “Blue In Green”, another piece from the “Kind of Blue” album. Featuring the sound of Harmon muted trumpet, melodic double bass and brushed drums tonight’s version also included expansive solos from Lockheart and Bunting that explored a surprisingly wide range of dynamics, with the pianist even adding an unexpected element of wilful dissonance. A final theme statement by the horns was then followed by a parting piano flourish.

The show concluded with the only piece from “Kind of Blue” that we still hadn’t heard. This was, of course, “All Blues”, with tenor sax and muted trumpet combining to state the theme above Bunting’s piano vamp. Delivered at a faster pace than the recorded version the piece featured a series of powerful solos with Phelps going first on trumpet, starting out with the Harmon in place, but later casting it aside in favour of the open bell. Lockheart blew up a veritable storm on tenor, it was hard to credit that this was the first time that he and Phelps had played this music together. Bunting, very much the ‘wild card’ of the line up, delivered another barnstorming solo at the piano.

This bravura performance of “All Blues” was rewarded with an ecstatic audience reaction and the inevitable clamour for an encore. This proved to be a joyous, free-wheeling version of “The Theme”, a bebop flavoured classic that incorporated a series of scintillating trumpet and tenor exchanges, plus individual features for piano, bass and drums. Terrific stuff.

Presented by Phelps with wit, warmth and insight this was an excellent performance that delighted the audience and no doubt the organisers too. This time round Phelps and his colleagues really did catch fire and on its own terms this gig was a total success. I’d still have preferred to have seen Phelps performing at least some of his own material, but yet again I suspect that I was in the minority with regard to this. However as Hannah Horton had proved the previous evening it can be done very successfully – even it doesn’t put quite so many ‘bums on seats’. I sometimes think jazz (and increasingly rock music too) is a bit too obsessed with its own past for its own good, but that’s an argument for another day.

My thanks to Jay, Dan, Jim and James for speaking with me after the show, and thanks too for a great gig and for some superb playing.

 

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