Brad Mehldau (*)’s reconnection with Jorge Rossy, the drummer in his piano trio for a decade until the early noughties, goes along with a reconsideration of some of his older writing – looking back at it, perhaps, and finding it good.
This Cheltenham date on the trio’s current European tour – a welcome catch for the organisers – saw the Town Hall packed from top to bottom. Their single 75 minute set opened with ‘August Ending’ from the trio’s 2004 release House on the Hill, and closed with an encore of the title tune from the same session. Two other titles from that Mehldau-composed album also featured mid-set, along with ‘A Walk in the Park’ from 2000’s Places, adding to the sense of a turn to earlier repertoire, written with Rossy in mind.
This performance affirmed that it was a good decision. Bassist Felix Moseholm is a brilliant successor to the peerless Larry Grenadier, but for all his flair perhaps does not quite have the deep understanding the drummer shows of Mehldau’s methods. Rossy was simply phenomenal throughout, offering a different but perfectly complementary style for each number.
There was new material on offer as well, and the Paul Bley-ish romp of Blues Impulse had the drummer channelling Paul Motian’s rattles and cymbal flicks to brilliant effect. But that was only one of the ways he added an ever present petillance to the leader’s piano explorations. On ‘Boomer’, piano and bass generated a powerful flow of rhythmic energy, but the drums lent enough extra heft to conjure some of those moments when the performers seem to have risen slightly higher than the stage.
The pianist, as ever, used the trio as a springboard for some intense, richly figured soloing, glancing back on occasion there, too, with some ‘Giant Steps’ flavours on John Coltrane’s ‘Satellite’, and a dreamy rendition of an old live favourite, ‘Secret Love’. But he looks forward too, of course, and the set closed with a new Mehldau piece, ‘Generator’, which was “on the wonkier side”, he reckoned. No doubt this new/old partnership will have more new work to offer soon, but the earlier compositions were given such rich new life this afternoon, that there is no hurry.
There were new compositions aplenty later on Saturday evening from Dave Douglas and Trish Clowes in the intimacy of the Parabola theatre. The trumpeter, and Cheltenham regular, released an album from Clowes’ quintet on his Greenleaf label in 2022, and was so taken with the music he determined they should perform together.
Clowes’ regular quartet – Ross Stanley on piano and organ, Chris Montague on guitar and powerhouse drummer Joel Barford taking over what used to be James Maddren’s stool – has been christened Eyes Up to mark the expansion to a two horn quintet, and trumpeter and composer split the writing evenly between them. They road tested some of their new pieces exuberantly in a brisk set, that bristled with energy and invention. Both writers clearly relish the challenge of writing for the paired horns, and the two played off each other in the open portions of these pieces so well that their artistic partnership seemed simply a logical extension of earlier work. Stanley’s Hammond organ and Montague’s electric guitar thickened the texture nicely, and both enjoyed ample solo space, Montague especially strikingly on the bluesy Douglas-penned closer ‘The Night Has 500 Eyes’. There was just time for a quick go at the trumpeter’s earlier song, For Trish, written for an exploratory gig last year, before the Parabola’s hour was up. A pity, as a transatlantic collaboration may not be destined for regular new instalments, though a show at the Bray Jazz festival the following day, then a recording, will allow more listeners to enjoy this vigorous music at greater length.
(*) This concert has also been covered in a Photo-Essay by John Watson
