Mike Chillingworth

“Friday The Thirteenth”

(Ubuntu Music UBU0174)

Mike Chillingworth – alto & soprano saxophones, Ivo Neame – piano, Tom Farmer – bass, Jon Scott – drums

Saxophonist and composer Mike Chillingworth has been a busy presence on the London jazz scene for well over a decade,   performing in a variety of large and small ensembles and also working as an acclaimed music teacher and educator.

I’ve seen him play several times in a large ensemble setting, including performances with the Royal Academy of Music Big Band, the Gareth Lockrane Big Band, Troykestra, the Julian Siegel Jazz Orchestra and Stan Sulzmann’s Neon Orchestra,.

Chillingworth has recorded with Troykestra, the Julian Siegel Jazz Orchestra, the Fresh Sound Ensemble, the Guildhall Big Band and with the Jack Davies Big Band, led by the talented young trumpeter and composer Jack Davies. In all of these contexts he has impressed as both a section player and as an exciting soloist on a range of reed instruments including alto, soprano and tenor sax, plus clarinet.

Chillingworth’s small group work has included four albums with guitarist Ant Law’s quintet, “Entanglement” (2013), “Zero Sum World” (2015),  “Life I Know” (2018) and the digital only “The Sleeper Wakes” (2020)

.  He has also recorded with trumpeter Miguel Gorodi’s Nonet (the excellent “Apophenia” from 2019) and with the Anglo-Italian Oltremare Quartet, a group that also included pianist Antonio Zambrini, bassist Andrea di Biase and drummer Jon Scott. He also appears on albums featuring pianist Rick Simpson and vocalist Atar Shafighian

Chillingworth was also part of Round Trip, the quartet led by the late trumpeter and composer Richard Turner who died from an aneurysm in 2011 at the tragically early age of twenty seven. 

In 2016 Chillingworth made his recording debut as a leader with “Scratch And Sift”, which appeared on the Two Rivers record label. This featured a stellar septet with the leader on alto sax and clarinet joined by Tom Challenger (tenor sax, clarinet), Josh Arcoleo (tenor sax), George Crowley (bass clarinet), Lewis Wright (vibraphone), Sam Lasserson (double bass) and Jon Scott (drums). This was an ambitious and impressive first outing that featured some adventurous and intriguing themes and arrangements, allied to a consistently high standard of musicianship. My review of “Scratch And Sift”, from which much of the above biographical detail has been sourced, can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/michael-chillingworth-scratch-and-sift

For his second release as a leader Chillingworth unveils a new quartet featuring Scott on drums, Ivo Neame on piano and Tom Farmer on bass. The new group draws inspiration from the ideas of Chillingworth’s fellow saxophonists John Coltrane and Steve Coleman, bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Paul Motian as it explores the concept of polyrhythms. The resultant music is frequently complex, but also embraces elements of melody and groove. For all its challenges this is music that remains readily accessible.

Chillingworth himself explains;
Tracks like ‘Friday the Thirteenth’, ‘Coach Trip Special’, and my arrangement of Steve Swallow’s tune, ‘Ladies in Mercedes’, are based on a single specific polyrhythmic idea but always keeping melody and groove front and centre and allowing the musicians in the band plenty of space to improvise and explore together”

Indeed it’s the title track that begins proceedings, with drummer Scott and bassist Farmer establishing a busy polyrhythmic groove that underpins Chillingworth’s agile alto sax inventions. The Steve Coleman influence is readily apparent, and some listeners may also be reminded of Ornette Coleman. The introduction of Neame at the piano initially steers the music in a more mellow direction, but the polyrhythmic principles remain in place, even during an unaccompanied piano passage. But Neame is soon cutting loose with a wildly. inventive piano solo, accompanied by the polyrhythmic roiling of bass and drums. Chillingworth then takes over once more before a complex unison passage brings this hectic, but exhilarating tour de force to a close.

Building out of an insistent piano vamp “Kilter Filter” displays Chillingworth’s power of melodic invention as his alto sax surfs the complex polyrhythms churning beneath. More reflective and lyrical episodes feature Neame on piano, with Farmer also making a substantial contribution at the bass. Following Neame’s solo the opening motif returns as Chillingworth assumes the lead once more, the track playing out with the duo of alto sax and piano.

The pace is reduced with “Narwhal”, of which Chillingworth states;
“‘Narwhal’ is a slow and atmospheric Paul Motian-like ballad, reflecting my broad interests within jazz from the straight-ahead tradition to the avant-garde.”
Introduced by breathy, unaccompanied alto sax this piece has a dark hued, undersea atmosphere, with the leader’s sax floating on the gentle tides created by Farmer’s deeply resonant double bass and Scott’s delicately brushed drums. Chillingworth’s thoughtful extemporisations eventually give way to Neame’s reflective and lyrical piano musings, When Chillingworth’s alto returns his sound is initially more incisive and plangent,  before subsiding once more into delicate reflection. Following the relative intensity of the first two tracks “Narwhal” represents a welcome change of mood and pace, and demonstrates that album sequencing isn’t entirely a lost art in the modern age.

The cleverly titled “Sync or Swim” marks a return to the energy and complexity of the opening two pieces but remains eminently accessible as Chillingworth takes the first solo on soprano sax. The piece is also a feature for Farmer on double bass, his tone big and meaty and his dexterity consistently inventive. Chillingworth returns for a second bite at the cherry, his playing impassioned and incisive, inviting comparison with Coltrane’s playing of the soprano.

Steve Swallow’s enduringly popular “Ladies in Mercedes” is treated to an interesting arrangement, and it’s nice to hear the tune performed as an instrumental, rather than the ‘vocalese’ version. Again Chillingworth is at his most inventive on alto as he solos above a busy double bass / brushed drum groove, with Farmer also featuring as a soloist. Indeed the familiar melodic motif only kicks in towards the end of this relatively brief (three and a half minutes) trio performance.

Chillingworth describes “Keep It Simple” as “a more straight-ahead Mingus inspired tune”. That said it’s actually far from simple, but it does nod in the direction of Mingus and the blues and contains a feverishly inventive piano solo from Neame.  Chillingworth’s own soloing is equally impressive, a torrential outpouring of ideas that is impassioned and incisive. With bass and drums roiling beneath it’s a tightly focussed and highly dynamic group performance, with Scott’s drumming featuring powerfully towards the close.

The album ends with “Coach Trip Special”, a piece with a title that nods towards the genesis of this album. Chillingworth, an acclaimed music educator, began sketching out compositional ideas during the course of a bus tour when he was supervising fifty teenagers. Immersing himself in polyrhythmic ideas he subsequently assembled a band of tried and trusted musicians to play his compositions, several of them written with this exact personnel in mind. “Coach Trip Special” is thus a celebration of this concept and this group. It commences with an unaccompanied passage featuring darting alto sax, with the leader’s melodic inventions subsequently punctuated by stabbing rhythms as the ‘coach’ gathers momentum and barrels down the fast lane. The busy and complex rhythms fuel febrile solos from Neame on piano and Chillingworth on alto as the journey careers towards its end. It’s heady, high octane stuff.

Although occasionally challenging “Friday The Thirteenth” makes for exciting and invigorating listening and the standard of the playing is exceptional throughout. Chillingworth and Neame are both inspired and highly inventive soloists, while Farmer and Scott respond to the rhythmic challenges presented by Chillingworth’s writing with great elan, they seem to relish having something meaty to really get their teeth into. The level of rapport between the musicians, who have all worked together before, is exceptional throughout.

This new recording is a very worthy, and substantially different, follow up to “Scratch And Sift”. It would also be interesting to see the music of “Friday The Thirteenth” being performed live. At present there don’t seem to be any gigs lined, but let’s hope that Chillingworth gets the opportunity to take this quartet, or a variant thereof (they are all very busy individuals) out on the road. In the meantime there’s this excellent album to enjoy.

blog comments powered by Disqus