The Golden Age Of Steam

“Raspberry Tongue”

(Babel Records BDV 1086)

TGAOS is the latest project from young reeds player and composer James Allsopp, one of the brightest and most versatile talents on the British jazz scene. Allsopp is probably best known for co-leading the ferociously loud avant jazz outfit Fraud but he is also a prolific sideman (often playing bass clarinet) who has appeared with many of the UK’s leading musicians, among them Richard Fairhurst’s Sextet and Rory Simmons’ Fringe Magnetic.

In some ways TGAOS is the natural successor to Fraud. The economics of keeping Fraud on the road with its unusual twin drums line-up plus the expense of flying guitarist Stian Westerhuis in from Norway led Allsopp to consider writing for a smaller unit. TGAOS continues the long-standing musical relationship between Allsopp and Fraud’s co-leader the drummer Tim Giles. The third member of the group is the much lauded Kit Downes who appears here on Hammond organ and Wurlitzer piano. Downes is also a member of Troyka (where he also plays organ) and leads his own acoustic piano trio. Still frighteningly young he has already achieved much and is generally considered to be one of the rising stars of British jazz.

“Raspberry Tongue” has something in common with Fraud’s methodology but sounds completely different. The programme consists of nine Allsopp originals and combines jazz improvisation with structures derived from avant garde classical composers such as Messiaen, Xenakis and Ligeti. Although the jazz element is deeply indebted to the New York Downtown scene there is still something splendidly British about TGAOS from Allsopp’s delightfully whimsical cover drawings to the surreal song titles. It’s a tradition that goes back through Django Bates and the Loose Tubes school to Soft Machine and the Canterbury scene and beyond. Allsopp’s idiosyncratic announcing style on the band’s live dates is a natural extension of the process. Maybe Monty Python would be a suitable non musical parallel to it all.

Not that TGAOS are entirely flippant. There’s also a seriousness and intensity behind the daft titles and the whimsicality. I saw the band live at the 2009 Cheltenham Jazz Festival when they very much appeared to be a work in progress. “Raspberry Tongue” was recorded a couple of months after that appearance but already they seem to have moved on. Allsopp sticks to tenor sax or bass clarinet throughout and the album opens with the ten minute magnum opus that is “Mr. Apricot/Imaginary Handbag”. Giles’ polyrhythmic drumming is a tour de force as Allsopp on tenor and Downes on Hammond extemporise around him. There’s also a more minimalist episode with Allsopp on brooding bass clarinet. Downes’ Hammond evokes the sound of a church organ here as it does through much of the album. There’s not a great deal of precedence for this in jazz and it’s refreshing to hear the instrument deployed in this way and deployed so imaginatively.

The opening of"Fox Fingers” sounds entirely improvised. Introduced by Giles’ colourful percussion percolations alongside the clucking of Allsopp’s bass clarinet and very minimalist organ it metamorphoses into an attractive, jaunty tune with Allsopp’s astonishingly nimble bass clarinet to the fore.

There’s an epic quality to “For No Raisin” that undermines the daft title. The tune grows from minimalist organ openings into something grandly Gothic, paced by Giles’ sparse drumming and   Allsopp’s lean tenor sax lines. There’s a malevolent bass undertow, presumably the work of Downes’ pedals and a general air of approaching menace. By TGAOS standards it’s relatively simple but hugely effective.

The title track is a thirteen minute smorgasbord that combines jazz saxophone, church organ and Giles’ restlessly inventive drumming. Allsopp digs deep with some powerful tenor soloing and Downes organ takes on a more conventionally jazz/gospel sound for his solo. He later coaxes ever more extreme sounds out of the instrument as he spars with Allsopp’s squalling tenor. After a more impressionistic interlude the band revert to more relatively straight ahead playing and there’s a thunderous solo from the excellent Giles before the piece is finally resolved.

The brief “Monocle” is a feature for Downes on deliciously delicate Wurlitzer with accompaniment from Giles’s shimmering cymbals. It’s a brief staging post before “300 Golden Bees/Monkey phonics”  an oddly compelling piece featuring woody bass clarinet ruminations, softly polyrhytmic drumming and quietly needling organ.

Like the earlier “Monocle”, “Solomon Daisy” is another delightful little cameo that acts as a pause for breath before the freewheeling “Eyepatch”.The latter incorporates the most full on playing of the set and is the track that comes closest to replicating Fraud’s methods. Downes tortures his Hammond in ways that recall prog rock extremists like Mike Ratledge, Dave Stewart and Hugh Banton. Giles’s drumming is volcanic, but still innately musical, and Allsopp gets to freak out on tenor paying homage to his self acknowledged saxophone heroes John Coltrane and Albert Ayler.
Once the storm has blown itself out the trio resolve the piece with a passage of impressionistic free playing that forms a segue into the closing “Oboe or Glockenspiel”. Naturally the piece doesn’t include either but it is a delightful, hymn like coda to a very good album with Downes featuring on both Hammond and Wurlitzer.

There’s a secret track too, a Coltrane like sax meditation over dense organ chords and economical drumming. It’s well worth hanging on for.

“Raspberry Tongue” is TGAOS at their best. Allsopp’s website states “to take quite a classic jazz sound like the organ trio and push the possibilities of it in an altogether more psychedelic area is great fun.” There’s no doubt that this is precisely what the trio have done here and the results are unique and fascinating and unmistakably British. Downes playing is more focussed here than it sometimes appears to be with Troyka and his wonderfully weird keyboard colourings give a uniquely Gothic feel to the proceedings. The classic “Hammond sound” is rarely reproduced as the   trio take the instrument into a much more experimental area.

Sometimes TGAOS sound like the instrumental core of Van Der Graaf Generator but the Banton/Evans/Jackson axis never had a composer with the ability of Allsopp. Nonetheless any VDGG aficionados reading this are encouraged to check out TGAOS alongside fans of adventurous, cutting edge jazz. “Raspberry Tongue” is consistently absorbing and the sound of a band living up to its considerable promise.

Allsopp has stated that he has amassed enough material for a second album and certainly there was music played at Cheltenham that is not included here. In the meantime visit http://www.jamesallsopp.co.uk for further information.

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