Rachael Cohen Trio, Dempsey’s, Cardiff, 26/05/2015.

The young alto saxophonist and composer Rachael Cohen made a big impact in 2013/14 with the release of her début album “Halftime” on Michael Janisch’s Whirlwind Recordings label. Cohen impressed as both musician and writer with a fine set of mainly original tunes as she led a quartet featuring bassist Calum Gourlay, Birmingham based drummer Jim Bashford and the vastly experienced and highly respected guitarist Phil Robson. This quartet have made a number of prestigious festival appearances including London and Cheltenham but somehow I’ve contrived to miss them, the realities of festival life dictating that I’ve been elsewhere covering other performances at the time.

I very much enjoyed the music presented on “Halftime” (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity of seeing Cohen perform in Cardiff. Initially she was advertised as bringing a quartet including Bashford plus pianist Bruno Heinen and bassist Mark Lewandowski. In the event none of these actually appeared, Heinen was appearing at St. Ives Jazz Club in Cornwall with his “Postcards to Bill Evans” duo project with guitarist Kristian Borring. I was more than a little disappointed to miss out on seeing Heinen, another musician I’ve set to see play live despite reviewing a number of albums with which he has been involved.

I assume that Bashford and Lewandowski were also otherwise engaged so instead Cohen brought along a youthful trio featuring bassist Nick Jurd and drummer Lloyd Haines, recent graduates of the Jazz Courses at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal Welsh College of Music respectively. Both of these young musicians are now living in London and making a name for themselves on the capital’s jazz scene. The Dempsey’s gig represented a homecoming for Haines and the audience was swelled by a good number of students from the RWCMD’s current jazz intake. Cohen made much of Haines’ status as a Welsh/Dempsey’s legend but the crowd also got behind both Jurd and Cohen herself as the trio delivered two enjoyable sets of improvisations based on some of their favourite jazz tunes, many of them standards. It was all very different to the “Halftime” album which places a much greater emphasis on Cohen’s original compositions but it was still a very satisfying evening of contemporary jazz.

Originally from the Shetland Islands Cohen studied jazz at Birmingham Conservatoire (Jurd was a fellow student) and is a former member of the Scottish National Youth Jazz Orchestra. She began playing saxophone at the age of nine and studied with the respected Scottish saxophonist Martin Kershaw. Her playing so impressed label owner Michael Janisch that he made her Whirlwind Recording’s first female band leader.

In my review of “Halftime” I commented that Cohen’s fluency, purity of tone and sense of melodic purpose was rare for such a young musician. All of these qualities were present tonight in a performance that saw all three musicians responding well to the exposed trio setting. The performance was almost entirely acoustic, no mics or pick ups and just the simplest of amplification for Jurd’s bass. There was very little evidence of sight reading either with the trio treating their chosen tunes as jumping off points for some impressively interactive group improvising but without ever losing their melodic focus. This wasn’t free jazz but it was jazz with plenty of freedom. 

At the time of the release of the “Halftime” album Cohen cited a diverse range of fellow alto players as influences, from Ornette Coleman to Paul Desmond and with Art Pepper and the UK’s own Martin Speake somewhere in between. I’d probably include Lee Konitz too, particularly in the light of this evening’s performance which also suggested that we could add tenorists Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane to the list alongside pianist Thelonious Monk.

Speaking to Jurd after the gig he told me that he and Cohen had jammed together on a regular basis during their time as students in Birmingham and that they had recently picked up again where they had left off following his move to London. Something of the informality of those sessions was evident at tonight’s gig with the group deciding their set list as they went along. I’m not sure how familiar Cohen and Jurd were with Haines’ playing prior to this evening but the trio quickly seemed to gel as they tackled Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan” with Cohen’s fluent and beguiling alto pointing the way. Jurd took the first of several excellent bass solos and the Cardiff audience responded to his playing with great enthusiasm.

Haines came into his own on a rather more forceful take on Thelonious Monk’s “Bye Ya”, the clatter of his sticks on rims locking in neatly with Jurd’s bass as Cohen stated the theme and took the first solo. Jurd followed her at the bass prior to a colourful and well constructed drum feature from Haines that saw him making imaginative use of the bass drum.

The Monk theme continued with “Ask Me Later”, Cohen’s own composition based loosely upon Monk’s “Ask Me Now”. It was the only tune played tonight to appear on the “Halftime” album and its roots in an existing composition may have accounted for its inclusion. Again it was an impressive performance with Cohen and Jurd the featured soloists.

Cohen cited John Coltrane’s version as the inspiration behind the trio’s performance of “I Love You” which embraced bop, swing and Latin influences with solos from both Cohen and Haines. The young drummer has already made two impressive performances on disc, appearing on the albums “Journeys” and Resonance” by Port Talbot based pianist and composer Dave Jones.

As Cohen pointed out it was perhaps a touch ironic that “I Love You” should be followed by “You Don’t Know What Love Is” which concluded a very good first set with solos coming from Cohen and Jurd. I’d previously seen the young bassist perform several times before during his Birmingham days in a variety of different line ups including the Jonathan Silk Quartet, Matt Ratcliffe Quartet and Mike Fletcher Trio. Perhaps his most important association was with pianist, keyboard player and composer David Austin Grey who included Jurd in both his Greyish Quartet and Hansu Tori ensembles with Jurd appearing on albums by both line ups. The recent Hansu Tori album “An Improvised Escape” is particularly highly recommended.

Set two commenced with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Chega de Saudade” or “No More Blues” with the trio once more stretching the fabric of the tune with solos from Cohen and Jurd.

The liberty taking continued with a skewed version of “These Foolish Things” which culminated in a series of lively Haines drum breaks following introductory solos from Cohen and Jurd.

Any saxophone trio inevitably invites comparisons with that of the great Sonny Rollins. It was therefore perhaps appropriate that tonight’s group should include a Rollins tune in their set. This was “Blue Seven”, the final track from Rollins’ seminal 1956 album “Saxophone Colossus”, a recording that also included a ballad version of “You Don’t Know What Love Is”. “Blue Seven” has been a popular jamming vehicle for jazz musicians and Jurd and Haines took great delight in its powerful grooves and clearly relished the opportunity to build up a head of steam as Cohen’s alto danced above and around them. Both rhythm players enjoyed extended features towards the end of the tune.

Cohen’s own “Green Screen” maintained the momentum, a piece that sounded as if it might have been a standard. Following Cohen’s opening solo Haines almost seemed to assume the lead with his drums, culminating in a powerful but well constructed solo.

Cohen warned us that the closing number, Tadd Dameron’s “Good Bait” would definitely be the last tune of the night and so it proved. Nevertheless it was a great way to end with Cohen playing Dameron’s infectious melody above Haines’ brushed drum grooves. Her subsequent solo saw the drummer switching to sticks and we also heard a final solo from the excellent Jurd.

This was an enjoyable evening of highly accomplished jazz in a very informal setting. The improvising by this young trio in an exposed instrumental format was consistently imaginative and the choice of material brought the best out of the players. It was also interesting to see Jurd and Haines in this context and to see how much they’ve both developed as musicians.

I’ll admit that I’d rather have seen a more formal presentation of the material on the “Halftime” album by a quartet but that can wait for another time and probably another festival appearance. In the meantime, and to continue Halftime’s sporting analogy, this was a more than adequate substitution.   

blog comments powered by Disqus