Neil Maya Quartet “1959: The Golden Year of Jazz”
Cawley Hall, Eye, Leominster, Herefordshire, 12/02/2022.

Neil Maya – tenor, alto & soprano saxophones, Tom Ball – keyboard, Kevin Sanders – double bass, Gary Evans- drums

This event was one of a short series of themed performances by the Neil Maya Quartet promoted by the estimable the Arts Alive organisation, a body that presents professional quality productions at rural locations in Herefordshire and Shropshire.

These include music, drama, comedy and cinema, the last of these under the “Flicks in the Sticks” banner. I have attended numerous Arts Alive events over the years and, where appropriate, have reviewed some of them for the Jazzmann site. The standard of the performances has always been high and Arts Alive do a superb job in bringing top quality productions to what can sometimes be a culturally starved rural area.

Devon based saxophonist Neil Maya has undertaken previous Arts Alive tours and in 2017 presented his “Brubeck Project”, a celebration of pianist and composer Dave Brubeck’s seminal 1959 album “Time Out” at various venues in Herefordshire and Shropshire.

The success of the Brubeck Project led to Maya extending his remit to celebrate some of the other great recordings from 1959, a year generally considered to be a pivotal one for jazz and which saw the release of many albums now regarded as classics. In addition to “Time Out” there was also Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”, Charles Mingus’ “Ah-Um”, John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” and Ornette Coleman’s “The Shape of Jazz To Come”, plus numerous other recordings regarded as milestones in the canons of their creators.

Maya’s presentation isn’t the only 1959 themed show around, but almost certainly it would have been new to most of the audience members seated cabaret style at the well appointed Cawley Hall,  the village hall for the small settlement of Eye, just north of Leominster.

As the sharp suited quartet took to the stage Maya set the scene – 1959 with MacMillan the British Prime Minister, Eisenhower the President of the US and Charles de Gaulle in power in France. Cliff Richard was top of the pop charts with “Living Doll”.
“...and then this happened” announced Maya as Sanders and Ball entered into a double bass and piano dialogue, out of which emerged the familiar bass motif of Miles Davis’ “So What” from the “Kind of Blue” album. No trumpeter tonight and only one reed player so in this arrangement the solos were shared between Maya on alto sax, effectively channelling both John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, and Ball at his Roland RD700EX keyboard with the instrument on an acoustic piano setting.

The pianist on most of the tracks on “Kind of Blue” was Bill Evans, which provided a neat link into an arrangement of the standard “Someday My Prince Will Come”, that had been inspired by Evans’ version on the album “Portrait In Jazz”, a live recording from 1959 documented at the famous New York City jazz club the Village Vanguard. A long way indeed from Cawley Hall.
The Evans album was a trio set featuring the pianist’s celebrated trio with bassist Scott La Faro and drummer Paul Motian and here the modest Maya left the stage to allow Ball, Sanders and Evans to tackle the tune.
Ball introduced the piece with a passage on unaccompanied ‘acoustic’ piano before stretching out further in the company of the rhythm section. The performance was also notable for Sander’s melodic, La Faro inspired double bass solo and the sensitive brush work of Gary Evans.

1958/9 also saw the emergence of the bossa nova movement in Brazil, headed by multi-instrumentalist and composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. The style later caught on in the US and Europe thanks to Jobim’s collaborations with the American saxophonist Stan Getz in the mid 1960s. The Jobim song “Chega de Saudade”  (English title “No More Blues”) was written in the late 50s and thus fitted this evening’s theme, but I suspect that Maya’s arrangement may have been inspired by a later recording by Getz. It represented Maya’s first outing of the night on tenor sax with an extended but highly fluent solo. The leader was subsequently followed by Ball at the piano.

In addition to his numerous ‘themed’ projects, which also include the Cartoon Jazz and Jazz Funk Emporium bands, Maya has also released two quartet albums of primarily original material, “Out of the Woodshed” (2006) and “Bread & Circuses” (2009).
The band took a step back from the 1959 remit to perform Maya’s own composition “Ode to a Great Shed” from the quartet’s début album. Written with the jazz tradition very much in mind this was introduced by a dialogue between Maya’s tenor and Sanders’ bass, the addition of piano and drums subsequently steering the music into classic hard bop territory with the leader’s muscular tenor sax to the fore. Ball’s piano solo allowed Maya to make the switch to alto sax, with the leader eventually returning to solo on this instrument. The performance was also notable for a series of fiery drum breaks from Evans, these leading to a fully fledged drum solo, in which he indeed sound as if he was constructing a very large shed. A final switch from Maya then saw the piece ending as it had begun, with a dialogue between tenor sax and double bass.

The hard bop feel continued as Ball changed his keyboard to a Hammond organ setting for a blistering version of Jimmy Smith’s composition “The Sermon!”, the title track of the organist’s classic 1959 album for Blue Note Records. This featured an extended passage with the group in organ trio mode, led by Ball’s gospel flavoured ‘Hammond’, with Maya subsequently stepping out of the wings to solo on alto.

The first half concluded with the quartet’s version of the title track of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” album. Having successfully navigated the composition’s notoriously complicated chord sequence the quartet were subsequently able to stretch out with solos coming from Maya on tenor sax and Ball on keyboard, now back to an acoustic piano setting.

At the beginning of the first set Maya had informed us that “So What” was one of the two most popular jazz tunes of all time. “You’ll hear the other one in the second set”, he promised. He didn’t actually tell us what this was, but I’d wager that it was the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s “Take Five”, which opened the second half. Sourced from the “Time Out” album the piece was actually written by the group’s saxophonist Paul Desmond, and it was Maya who stepped into the Desmond role by soloing on alto sax. Ball’s piano solo made allusions to John Coltrane’s version of “My Favourite Things” while Evans’ drum feature channelled the spirit of Brubeck quartet drummer Joe Morello.

Maya explained the story behind the Charles Mingus’ composition “Fables of Faubus” from the “Mingus Ah Um” album. The song was written as a protest against Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, who in 1957, in direct defiance of President Eisenhower,  sent out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the racial integration of Little Rock Central High School by  nine African-American pupils. The lyrics, which were sung as a dialogue between bassist Mingus and drummer Dannie Richmond, were so pointed that they were banned from the Columbia Records “Ah Um” recording, later emerging on “Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus”, a 1960 recording for the more independently minded Candid Records.
The Maya Quartet’s version was based on the instrumental version from “Ah Um”, but the sense of Mingus mocking Faubus and his ilk remained, with solos coming from Maya on alto and Ball on piano. In 2022 in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement the song has lost none of its power and pertinence more than sixty years later.

Following this brush with politics and the avant garde the quartet cooled things down a little with the first genuine ballad performance of the evening. This was John Coltrane’s “Naima”, a dedication to the composer’s first wife sourced from the “Giant Steps” album. Coltrane continued to regard the piece as one of his favourite compositions even after he’d split with Naima and Maya and the quartet did the piece justice with a beautiful performance featuring the leader’s soulful tenor, Ball’s lyrical piano and Sanders’ melodic double bass, with Evans deftly wielding brushes throughout.

This set’s original piece was Maya’s “Welcome to the Circus”, a four part composition from the “Bread & Circuses” album inspired by Maya’s home town of Totnes. Moving through several distinct phases, these representing a walk through various districts of the town, the piece featured Ball adopting an electric piano, or “Rhodes”, sound on his Roland as he took the first solo, followed by Sanders with a virtuoso double bass feature that included some seriously rapid finger work. Evans took over at the drums while Maya made the switch from tenor to soprano for a frantic final section inspired by the folk / klezmer band Sheelanagig, this including a healthy dose of musical humour, informed in part by Evans’ playful drumming.

“So What” and “Take Five” may arguably be the best known jazz pieces, but it was “Moanin’”, written by pianist Bobby Timmons for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, that really got the audience going. This gospel inspired piece with its ‘call and response’ piano motif is a bona fide jazz classic and saw Maya switching between alto and tenor and soloing expansively on the latter, followed by pianist Ball. Timmons’ life may have been short (1935 – 74) and troubled, but this composition alone has guaranteed him a little slice of jazz immortality.

The quartet returned to the Brubeck repertoire to conclude the set with a dynamic version of the pianist’s own “Blue Rondo a la Turk”, with solos from Maya on alto and Ball on piano.

With the audience now thoroughly onside an encore was inevitable. Maya decided to keep the pot bubbling with a version of the Horace Silver composition “Sister Sadie” from the pianist’s 1959 album “Blowin’ The Blues Away”. Something of a soul-jazz classic this performance featured Maya’s earthy, r’n’b style tenor, with Ball injecting an element of funkiness in the Horace Silver role.

Maya and the quartet had overcome the reservations of a rural audience with a performance that included some excellent playing from a well drilled and well balanced quartet, with each member making a substantial contribution, both individually and collectively. Maya’s command of three types of saxophone was impressive and his narration of this themed show both informative and entertaining.

As a seasoned jazz listener much of this material was familiar to me, sometimes overly so, but for many of tonight’s audience much of it would have been fresh, making this 1959 show an ideal production for rural touring. The Reithian ideals of inform, educate and entertain were definitely in evidence here.

My mate Steve, a jazz fan, although not quite as committed as myself, was to opine “there were some banging tunes in there”, an unorthodox appraisal for a jazz gig but pretty much spot on. That they all originated in one remarkably fertile and influential year is all the more astonishing. So many of these pieces have become modern day standards, learned by students in music colleges. The spirit of 1959 is going to live on for a long while yet.

The only notably absentee from the ‘Class of ‘59’ was Ornette Coleman. Perhaps Maya felt that Coleman’s music was too demanding for a non-specialist audience, a point I put to him when we spoke after the show. Maya admitted to finding Coleman a bit difficult himself,  but on reflection felt that he should perhaps have mentioned him at least. He also revealed that the quartet do sometimes play a version of “Lonely Woman” (from 1959’s “The Shape of Jazz to Come”) but in a later arrangement by saxophonist Branford Marsalis from his 1987 album “Random Abstract”.

Whilst writing I’d like to direct readers / listeners towards Maya’s own two albums of largely original material, both of which stand up well in the home listening environment and which are available, together with “The Brubeck Project”, via his website;
http://www.neilmayaquartet.co.uk

Further dates on the Neil Maya Quartet “1959; The Golden Year of Jazz” Tour are;

Date & Time
Fri 04 March 2022, 7.30pm
Linton Village Hall, Linton, Ross-on-Wye
HR9 7RX
South Herefordshire
Enquiries LVH@lintonvillage.com
Tickets
Adult: £12.00
Child: £8.00
Buy tickets https://artsalive.co.uk/live-performances/show/checkout/?id=13851
 
Date & Time
Sat 05 March 2022, 7.30pm
Market Theatre, Ledbury
HR8 2AQ
South Herefordshire
Phone Enquiries
07967 517125; http://www.themarkettheatre.com
Tickets
Adult: £14.00
Please obtain tickets by phoning the enquiries number.
 

Sat 16 April 2022, 7.30pm
Conquest Theatre, Bromyard
HR7 4LL
North Herefordshire
Phone Enquiries
01885 488575; http://www.conquest-theatre.co.uk
Tickets
Adult: £10.00
Please obtain tickets by phoning the enquiries number.
 

For details of all Arts Alive productions please visit;
http://www.artsalive.co.uk

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