UK Jazz News

Bedmakers – ‘Passe Montagne’

(Robin Fincker / Mathieu Werchowski / Fabien Duscombs / Dave Kane)

Bedmakers is an occasional Anglo-French quartet of improvisers associated with the Toulouse based collective Freddy Morezon. They use the strapline “Tribute To An Imaginary Folk Band”. The album title, as well as meaning the mountain pass shown on the album cover, also translates as balaclava!

What Bedmakers do is to take fragments of folk tunes, and melodies that might once have been folk tunes. They interweave strange sounds and free improvisation into the melodies, and they turn them inside out in a unique way.

The French-born clarinet and saxophone player Robin Fincker was well known on the London scene in the 2000s as a co-founder of the Loop Collective, and in some fine bands such as Outhouse and Blink. Mathieu Werchowski is French violinist operating in the field of contemporary music and as a composer/sound designer. Dave Kane is a Leeds based improvising bass player and producer. Fabien Duscombs is a Toulouse based drummer associated with several Freddy Morezon groups.

The music isn’t really folk music at all, although it does contain the ghosts of folk melodies. On the other hand its possible to spend as much time debating “what is folk” as it is on the definition of jazz – and its equally pointless!

The album is very definitely a bit of both, and probably needs labels like contemporary and experimental as well. For example “Wheel Reels” starts out as a straightforward Celtic reel over a thunderous drum rhythm. The saxophone melody is intertwined with a violin countermelody that might be considered the harmony were it not so delightfully discordant.

The track “Folks” is the most intriguing. It starts with assorted breaths and squeaks and pizzicato sounds above which Fincker gradually evokes ephemeral fragments of tunes including echos of the well known song “Scarborough Fair”. The melody is never played, just hinted at by saxophone and then by the violin and with both interacting.

Other tracks include the French traditional ballad “Le Jardin des Amours” the gentle Cajun tune “Bonsoir Moreau”, and “Charivari” which only occasionally lives fully up to its title (noun: a discordant mock serenade to newlyweds, made with pans, kettles, etc.)

When I reviewed their previous album in 2021 (link below) I said that the music was pretty well guaranteed to horrify most fans of folk music and that’s still true. But these melodies, however distorted or fragmentary, lend a novel background to the improvisation of these fine musicians in a way that more conventional jazz melodies might not. The result is a fascinating and intriguing album.

Peter Slavid broadcasts a programme of European Jazz on mixcloud.com/ukjazz and various internet stations.

Passe Montagne is released today 31 January 2025

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