Just for a moment, I thought I’d fallen through a wormhole and woken up in a Sonny Rollins/ Thelonious Monk gig at the legendary Five Spot in New York. A packed underground room with a bar in the corner, all attention focused on the band; warm but edgy tenor unfurling a hooky motif over a loose rollin(g) sequence; pianist with hat punctuating the flow with spiky chords; anticipation reflected in the leaning-forward posture of the audience.
Hang on, no, it’s 2024, not 1958, It’s the first night of the London Jazz Festival, we’re at Crazy Coq’s in central London, and that attention grabbing tenor is wielded by Denys Baptiste. Sultan Stevenson is at the piano and Baptiste has introduced this band as his new quartet with Larry Bartley on the bass and Joel Barford behind the kit. They were digging into a Baptiste composition from his first album released 25 years ago, Rollinstone, a tribute to Rollins that had a sprinkling of the elusive magic and magnetic energy with which Monk imbued apparently simple melodic and harmonic materials.
Baptiste hinted that this was one of the the quartet’s first outings as a unit, and there was just a sense of them stretching their legs and finding their way together through the first couple of Baptiste originals. They really began to hit their stride with Beatrice, the Sam Rivers classic. They slid and sketched their way into the theme, then Stephenson somehow conjured the sense of an epic poem with a solo over a few choruses. fragments of harmony and flurries of broken phrases gradually coalescing into an not-quite-restatement of the theme. Baptiste picked up the baton and really began to stretch out. He combines fire and fluency with a tender lyricism and reminded us why he’s been turning heads and making people stop and listen for nearly three decades as he let fly. Barford was spectacular goading him on.
They continued with some classics and standards. Chick Corea’s Bud Powell, the ballad Say It (over and over again), and a hypersonic tempo exit on rhythm changes, starting with The Theme and signing off with The Flintstones. Stephenson supplied another stand out moment with an exquisitely paced, sublime solo on Say It, holding back, scattering little motifs that seemed to seep through the harmony; Baptiste whispered intimately on the ballad, turned on the after-burners for The Theme, we didn’t want him to stop. Bartley, quietly, was the propulsive beating heart with Barford constantly colouring and nudging things on.
The quartet are individually remarkable musicians. On this showing they are rapidly forming into a collective that has its own special quality. It was a great start to our London Jazz Festival.
