It was a minute or two before the instantly recognisable sound of Andy Sheppard’s tenor drifted across the stage at the start of the gig on the last day of the Bristol Jazz Festival. There was an almost audible collective sigh of appreciation from the capacity audience welcoming him back to his hometown.
The simple, slow moving melody of Elevation seemed to drift up through the rich-with-a-bitter-edge layer of harmony woven by Rita Marcotulli’s introduction on the piano. As the tune developed, a fluttering fill from the bass of Michel Benita was picked up and completed by the tenor; atmospheric flurries of notes from Sheppard were anticipated by complementary, rippling phrases from the piano. It was a spellbinding start.
The trio had moved seamlessly through two more tunes before we heard from the leader. The bass brought in the dark brooding swirl of Salgado. A dancing pulse and urgent, propulsive figures had an Iberian flavour to them. Then a steady piano vamp introduced Encantos. The attractive melody and satisfying harmonic shifts brought Bacharach to mind momentarily. Melodic lines doubled between bass and piano left hand, between piano and sax, all served to evoke a big, spacious sound. An exploratory solo from Marcotulli, bending the harmony again injected tension into the sound.
By his own account, Sheppard conceived the idea for this trio as a way of continuing the type of setting he’d experienced through a thirty-year association with Carl Bley and Steve Swallow, a drumless lineup with the piano as a foil. The material, mainly written during the lockdowns is quintessential Sheppard. The underlying structures and melodies are grounded in simple folky tunes and hymn like elegies but threaded through with subtle complexities of rhythm and form. In the performance, there’s a stillness and serenity at the core, even in some of the more frenetic, dancing pieces, that requires a special chemistry between the players.
Benita was introduced, with wry humour, as the third bass player to have joined the trio, this being only his second outing with them, as he dove into an extended introduction to I Draw You In The Stars another evocative, balladic piece. To this listener’s ears, the chemistry is at work between these three. They are long term collaborators in a variety of combinations and Sheppard’s writing gives them space to work together here and weave a spell. They launched into the finale, Salt Catchers, a swirling, cavorting piece, tenor and piano chasing headlong over a bristling pulse to bring the set to an exuberant close and a tumultuous response from the now captivated audience.
During an engaging ‘in conversation’ session after the gig, Sheppard recounted meeting Manfred Eicher who had declared him ready to record with ECM. The result has been a string of recordings with the iconic label. On the evidence of the set in Bristol, this current line-up of the trio is cooking nicely and if it’s ready soon, a recording of this band will be a treat to savour.
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