An attractive lilting melody pauses, and an urgent, pulse-quickening riff kicks in, spun out by the bass and the piano player’s left – hand. It’s an exquisite blend of what could be calypso melded with a swirling folk dance, but categories aside, it’s fresh, arresting and launches exuberant solos as the band seem to go up another gear mid-way through their first set.
It’s not a new band though. Aficionados would have instantly recognised These Foolish Times from Perfect Houseplants first album, released over 30 years ago. Huw Warren’s fluency at the piano is undiminished, his soaring runs and shapely lyricism transporting. They’d started the set with two tunes from Snap Clatter, their first album on Linn Records in the mid 90s. Mark Lockheart’s tenor, tracing out the melody of New Day, was like the warm embrace of an old friend. The elegiac melody that could almost be a hymn segued into Rag with another swirling riff, this one like a cossack dance with a beat missing. It was high energy and galloped along.
The Houseplant’s seamless blend of styles and ideas from folk, classical, latin, jazz and more sounds both perfectly natural, but wholly distinctive. It was a rare opportunity to see them perform live since they stopped recording in the early 2000s. The occasion was both celebratory and poignant. Ian Storrer, who has curated a season of gigs celebrating the 40 years he’s been promoting jazz in Bristol, sought out the band as they had been influential favourites in the 90s. With drummer Martin France’s death a couple of months before the gig, it also became a salute and celebration of the drummer’s music making. France was an integral part of the development of the band’s sound.
Dense, jigsaw-like arrangements with contrasting sections and interlocking parts conjured a beguiling complexity. Dudley Phillips’ bass was as often playing a singing melody line as anchoring with a bass line, and Tim Giles in the drum chair was colouring around and catching every accent and zig-zagging rhythm. The detailed writing evoked shifting moods and intricate tapestries in sound. Was it fanciful to hear an echo Debussy’s Sunken Cathedral in Dunwich and the Sea?”, Dudley Phillips’ homage to the now immersed town. It was a compelling, affecting moment before the twinkle-in-the-eye swirl of the wonky tango Salvador, then the hectic swirling clatter of Strictly for Dancing (surely written before the title could be a riff on a TV show) Lockheart’s soprano soaring and floating, brought the set to a dramatic conclusion. The just-one-more tune, a heart-felt, folk inflected melody over shifting harmony ballad followed and was the perfect reflective note on which to end.
This was a thrilling evening and the inclusion of some new tunes from the pen of Dudley Phillips hinted that there may be more in the future from the still Perfect Houseplants, let’s hope so.
