John Ellis

“Evolution :  Seeds & Streams”

(Gondwana Records GONDCD015)

The pianist and composer John Ellis is a stalwart of the Manchester jazz scene where he leads his own trio plus the twelve piece John Ellis Big Band. He is perhaps best known as a member of the Cinematic Orchestra, alongside guitarist Stuart McCallum and others, and features strongly on that ensemble’s albums “Everyday” and “Man With The Movie Camera”.

I’ve witnessed Ellis performing with saxophonist/clarinettist Arun Ghosh’s sextet but this versatile musician and producer has also worked with pop and rock orientated artists such as DJ Vadim and the singers Tom Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae and Lily Allen.

Released in November 2016 “Evolution : Seeds & Streams” represents Ellis’ recording début as a leader and came about as the result of a commission for the 2015 Manchester International Jazz Festival. The annual MIJF Originals commission supported by Irwin Mitchell solicitors saw Ellis collaborating with the visual artist Antony Barkworth Knight and the work was performed at the Great Hall in Manchester Town Hall with Barkworth Knight’s images projected onto a screen behind the performers to create an immersive audio-visual experience.

Reviews of “Evolution : Seeds & Streams” have spoken of the music having a “spiritual dimension” and it’s therefore appropriate that the album appears on trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Records, the Manchester based home of the contemporary ‘spiritual jazz’ purveyed by Halsall and by saxophonist Nat Birchall. That said the label has also been home to younger musicians such as the trios Mammal Hands and GoGo Penguin.

Gondwana’s diversity is reflected in Ellis’ music which draws on many sources and many cultures including jazz, world music, contemporary classical music and electronica. A unique instrumental line-up features Ellis on piano and keyboards, Pete Turner on bass and synthesiser, Helena Jane Summerfield on clarinet, tenor sax and flute, Sam Healey on alto sax. Ellie Smith on trombone and Rick Weedon on percussion. So far, so jazz but the ensemble also features Jessica McDonald on cello plus two kora players, Jali Nyonkoling Kuyateh and John Haycock. Finally we have the beatboxer Jason Singh who has previously collaborated with the trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed, most notably on “Alhaan Al Siduri”, her extended work commissioned by the Birmingham based Jazzlines organisation.

The album packaging, with its minimalist artwork by Daniel Halsall, doesn’t make it clear if the music was recorded live at MIJF or during a later studio visit – if it’s the former all audience noise has been edited out. What is more verifiable is the theme of the album, that of evolution, but not just in the physical, Darwinian sense. Ellis also addresses the evolution of human thought, culture and ideas and it’s this aspect that helped to inspire the diverse, multi-cultural instrumental line up.

The absence of a conventional drum kit helps to give the music something of a ‘chamber jazz’ feel but this is just one of the many influences that pervade an album which consists of eight interlocking pieces or ‘movements’ .

The journey commences with “Flight”, the title of which refers not just to the evolution of birds but also acts as a metaphor for “the flight of the soul or free spirit”. Heavily arpeggiated with intertwined instrumental parts for piano, reeds, brass and cello it borrows something from Reich and the minimalists but with reeds approximating the sound of bird song and percussion the beating of wings the music possesses a warmth and charm that surpasses mere mechanics. The twin koras add a pleasing additional dimension and feature prominently in the second half of a piece that segues gently into the brief but beguiling“Interlude One” which features Healey’s lyrical alto sax. 

The sound of the koras introduces “Unidentical Twins”, the title of which refers to the ‘opposites’ which make up the world, including such fundamentals as light and dark, hot and cold and even male and female. The composition expresses these through a series of duets within the fabric of the music beginning with the two koras, then progressing through intertwining reeds and the unusual pairing of cello and trombone. However these are far more than mere ‘set pieces’, such is the skilful way in which they are woven into the overall tapestry of the music. Despite the superlative nature of the individual contributions the music throughout the album is consistently focussed on the bigger picture and the overall sound of the music rather than conventional individual jazz soloing.

“Interlude Two” introduces more of an urban feel with its liquid electric bass motifs and skittering percussion grooves moderated by melodic keyboard and cello flourishes. It’s a mood that partially continues into “The Ladder” with its insistent rhythmic pulses (shades of Reich again) and electric keyboard sounds. The title is inspired by the concept not only of evolutionary ascent in the purely physical sense but also by the ideas of ladders linking the human to the divine, as in Jacob’s ladder.
The interlocking rhythmic pulses also signify the double helix ladder shape of DNA. Meanwhile Smith on trombone emerges as the featured instrumentalist, soaring joyously above the rhythmic ferment bubbling beneath.

“Poemander” takes its title from a Greek word meaning “shepherd” and in this case alludes to a kind of “guardian angel” figure. The music is appropriately serene and calming with the leader’s spacious and lyrical piano augmented by softly melancholic cello and the atmospheric rustle of percussion. The koras continue the mood of other worldly tranquillity in conjunction with piano and percussion, and eventually melodic brass and reeds.

“A Bigger Cake” is meant to celebrate the full flowering of the human spirit (frankly in 2016/17 we seem a long way off) and with this in mind the music is intended to be a celebration - albeit something of an abstract one as the other instruments cavort around Ellis’ insistent keyboard motif.

The final piece, “Arrival”, signifies a journey’s end and as such has an appropriately elegaic/valedictory air about it with a gorgeous folk like melody delightfully embellished by cello, reeds and kora. It’s perhaps wholly apposite that the very last notes are played by the latter, the instrument that helps to give this album such a distinctive flavour, notwithstanding the fact that Ellis’ keyboards are consistently at the heart of the music.

“Evolution ; Seeds & Streams” has received universally positive reviews and it is certainly an interesting and distinctive piece of work, both well written and performed.

It’s an album that left me reflecting on the double edged sword of being a reviewer. Because I receive a press release, as well as conducting my own research before writing a review, I was aware that this was an audio-visual collaboration, and inevitably, this affected the way in which I listened to the music. Being aware of how the music was created and how it was originally performed at MIJF it felt to me that there was something missing, I yearned to see Barkworth Knight’s visuals too.

However if I’d come to this music with no prior knowledge or preconceptions, perhaps hearing an extract on Late Junction, which seems to me like a perfect fit for it, I’d probably have enjoyed it a whole lot more. Sometimes too much knowledge can be a bad, or even dangerous, thing - an interesting observation in the light of the concept behind this (very good) album. 

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