Julian Martin Trio and guests Ben Thomas and Leslie Maynerd, Brecon Jazz Club, The Muse Arts Centre, Brecon, 08/04/2025.

Julian Martin – piano, Ross Thomas – electric bass, Ian Williams – drums, percussion
with Ben Thomas – trumpet, flugelhorn, Leslie Maynerd – alto saxophone

Brecon Jazz Club’s April event featured a Cardiff based trio led by pianist and composer Julian Martin, together with two guests also active on the South Wales jazz scene, trumpeter Ben Thomas and alto saxophonist Leslie Maynerd.

Bandleader Julian Martin has previously appeared on the Jazzmann web pages as the co-leader, with guitarist James Chadwick,  of J4, a Cardiff based quartet dedicated to performing jazz arrangements of Beatles tunes. Also featuring bassist Don Sweeney and tonight’s drummer Ian Williams J4 appeared at the 2022 Brecon Jazz Festival and my account of their performance can be found as part of my Festival coverage here.
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/brecon-jazz-festival-2022-final-weekend-sunday-21st-august-2022

2022 also saw the release of J4’s eponymous album featuring their adaptations of Beatles’ classics. Featuring inventive but subtle arrangements by Martin and Chadwick it was a pleasingly credible and convincing piece of work that cast these much loved songs in a new jazz inflected light.

Martin is also a busy presence on the Cardiff jazz scene and runs regular jam sessions at the city’s Ardour Academy. He has also formed a trio with drummer Ian Williams and bass guitarist Ross Thomas and in 2024 this line-up released their debut album “Dacw Nghariad”, the title track a Martin arrangement of a traditional Welsh folk tune. However the bulk of the album puts the focus on Martin’s own writing and ten of twelve tracks are original compositions. Embracing a variety of jazz styles it’s an impressive debut.

Martin also plays accordion and once performed on this instrument as part of the gypsy jazz combo Five Go Swing, the group that eventually morphed into the still ongoing Hot Club Gallois.

Martin also works as a jazz educator and also as a composer for film and television, writing for specific commissions in addition to more generic ‘library music’. His work in these areas has been aired in both the UK and Australia.

Tonight’s event saw the core trio joined by two guests, trumpeter Ben Thomas, a musician who has appeared on The Jazzmann on numerous occasions as the leader of his own projects, and locally based alto saxophonist Leslie Maynerd.

The Martin Trio regularly works with guest musicians and struck up an instinctive rapport with Thomas who has effectively joined the group full time, making it a quartet. However as the core trio has already recorded an album and also functions as a self contained unit Martin is keen for it to retain in its own identity. Nevertheless Thomas remained on stage for the whole of tonight’s performance and has become fully integrated into the group sound, make no mistake from these four it was very much a ‘band’ performance.

Meanwhile Maynerd, who has previously appeared at Brecon Jazz Club and Festival leading her own groups, guested on one tune in each set.

Tonight’s core quartet began the evening with the jazz standard “There Will Never Be Another You”, with Ben Thomas leading off the solos on trumpet, followed by Martin on acoustic piano and Ross Thomas (no relation, as far as I’m aware) on fretless electric bass. The performance concluded with a series of trumpet and drum exchanges between Ben Thomas and Williams.

So far, so predictable, but things were to take more of an unexpected turn with the next piece. Martin’s capabilities as an imaginative jazz arranger of non-jazz material has already been amply demonstrated by the J4 project but his reach extends wider than just The Beatles. His love of film and its associated music was demonstrated by an arrangement of the John Williams tune “Can You Read My Mind” which appears in the Superman movie franchise. This saw Ben Thomas switching to flugel as he shared the solos with Martin on piano and Ross Thomas on electric bass. Williams’ performance behind the kit was augmented by a variety of small percussive instruments.

Ben Thomas’ status as really being a fully fledged member of the group was acknowledged by the inclusion of a number of his original compositions. “No For An Answer” was a lively, bebop inspired number with a bouncy theme that provided the springboard for solos from electric bass, trumpet and piano.

Leslie Maynerd joined the group to perform an arrangement of the Paul Desmond composition “Samba Cantina”, a tune that Maynerd described as being “the musical equivalent of a dry Martini”. Desmond is one of Maynerd’s alto sax heroes and his influence could be heard in her own sound as she shared the solos with Martin at the piano and Ben Thomas, who switched from flugel to trumpet during the performance, starting on the former but soloing on the latter. Ross Thomas was also featured on electric bass, accompanied by the soft patter of Thomas’ hand drumming.

Martin’s facility for creating imaginative jazz arrangement from pop material was further evidenced by the quartet’s version of the 1980s song “Only You”, a hit for the synth and vocal duo Yazoo (Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet). Interestingly Clarke’s birth name is Vincent John Martin, coincidence, or are he and Julian really related? This all instrumental featured the plaintive sound of Ben’s trumpet, which had a Miles Davis / Chet Baker like melancholy, Martin’s lyrical piano soloing and a finely nuanced drumming performance from Williams, mainly deploying brushes.

Unaccompanied piano introduced the final item of the first set, another jazz arrangement of a pop song, this time Wales’ own Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual”. A slowed down, Latin tinged treatment of the song featured solos from Ben Thomas on trumpet, Martin at the piano and Ross Thomas on melodic electric bass, with Williams’ hand drumming again a distinctive feature. Martin informed us that he had decided to tackle this particular item as his mum’s favourite singer is none other than Tom Jones! The arrangement certainly brought a fresh perspective to the song and ended the first set in highly enjoyable fashion.

Set two was to feature a similar mix of jazz standards, jazz arrangements of pop tunes and band originals.

Things got underway with a subtly disguised but invigoratingly upbeat arrangement of George Shearing’s “Lullaby of Birdland”, which included a feverish piano solo from the leader alongside features for both Thomases, Ben on trumpet and Ross on electric bass.

By way of contrast an expansive and lyrical adaptation of Joni Mitchell’s timeless “Both Sides Now” incorporated solos from Ben Thomas on trumpet, Martin at the piano and Ross Thomas on bass.

The quartet continued in ballad mode with Ben’s original composition “Kindness of Strangers”, a very different piece to his upbeat offering in the first half and a good demonstration of his versatility as a writer. Gentle and lyrical this featured solos from the composer on trumpet, Martin on piano and Ross Thomas on languid and liquid electric bass, with Williams again impressing with his delicate and sympathetic brush work.

The Martin original “Actually I Do” proved to be a contrafact on the jazz standard “You Don’t Know What Love Is”  and included solos from Ross on bass, Ben on trumpet and Martin himself at the piano.

Another Martin original, “Just a Cigar”, appears on the trio’s album and was described by its composer as “a funky little number”. Introduced by bass and drums this saw Ross Thomas and Williams establishing a suitably funky groove but with Ben Thomas’ trumpet solo still bringing a degree of introspection to the music. The group switched into piano trio mode for Martin’s solo, this followed by a feature for Williams that included hand drumming and body percussion as he slapped his thighs with his hands as well as the drum skins. This was a piece that reminded me of the music of Horace Silver and its infectious grooves, allied to Williams’ low key but idiosyncratic showmanship behind the kit, helped to ensure that it was particularly well received by the large and supportive audience.

Maynerd rejoined the band for the final number, a version of the ever adaptable Duke Ellington / Juan Tizol composition “Caravan”, introduced by Williams at the drums and later featuring Maynerd leading on the theme, her sax melodies punctuated by Ben’s trumpet interjections. Ben Thomas and Maynerd were then featured as soloists, followed by Martin at the piano, Ross Thomas on electric bass and finally Williams at the drums.

This spirited rendition of a much loved favourite also went down a storm with the crowd and the core quartet remained on stage for a deserved encore. Quirky to the end this proved to be a Ben Thomas arrangement of “a childhood favourite”. This proved to be “A Windmill in Old Amsterdam”, a 1965 novelty hit for the Yorkshire born singer Ronnie Hilton (1926 – 2001). Like Martin’s own jazz adaptations of unlikely material this proved to be surprisingly effective with a slowed down arrangement that was tinted with nostalgia and included Ben’s theme statement and solo and Martin’s final piano excursion of the night.

This concluded an intriguing evening of music making that had included an eclectic mix of material. Buoyed by the support of an attentive and appreciative audience the confidence of the musicians visibly grew as the evening went on, with the quality of the playing improving accordingly. What had at first promised to be a fairly rote standards based set developed into something that was so much more than that and the feedback from audience members post gig has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s good to know that other people were similarly impressed. Martin’s composing and arranging skills, allied to some excellent playing from the members of the ensemble, helped to ensure that this was an evening of music that was entertaining and enjoyable, but also full of interesting and sophisticated musical ideas, all of this laced with a welcome dash of musical humour Well done to all concerned.

blog comments powered by Disqus