This performance by Rob Cope’s ‘Gemini’ was the second half of the opening concert of the 15th series of concerts in Sandbach. Originally setup in 2010 by local musicians Andy and Lauren Scott, the momentum for the series has really grown, and an impressively large team of volunteers and trustees is now in place to make it all happen.
One of the special features of each concert is that it starts quite early – at 7PM – and each concert starts with a spotlight concert by young local musicians either performing solo or in small groups. The second part of the concert featuring professional players then carries on at 8PM with the concert finishing around 9PM, not too late for the younger players who performed earlier to stay and watch.
Lots of styles of music are featured in the concerts with at least one Jazz-related concert in the season.
The first half spotlight concert tonight featured several young pianists, a trombonist, an alto saxophonist, a singer, a drummer and then concluded with a performance by the Love Music Trust Senior Jazz Band led by Rob Cope and bassist Stan Scott playing a blues by Stanley Turrentine.
The second half of the concert featured Rob Cope’s band ‘Gemini’, a quartet with Rob playing soprano sax and bass clarinet, Andy Scott on tenor sax, Liam Noble on piano and Paul Clarvis on drums.
Rob referred to the fact that it had been a long term ambition to play with both Liam and Paul having been inspired by their album ‘Starry Starry Night’ from 2008. Liam has a very wide variety of Jazz styles at his disposal on piano from stride and swing through to Monk and more contemporary players. He’s always interesting to listen to. Paul Clarvis plays with a minimum amount of drum kit and brings all kinds of influences into his playing from early Jazz drummers like Baby Dodds through to more modern players. Both instinctively react to the soloist playing at the time.
The program mainly consisted of tunes from the album ‘Gemini’ released earlier this year on the Ubuntu label. This follows on from Rob’s previous album from 2019 ‘Gods of Apollo’. The names Apollo and Gemini being the names of space missions by NASA in the 1960s and 70s. Gemini also has an astrological connotation relating to twins and it’s no accident that the band has a duo of horn players as its front line with another duo in the rhythm section.
The first piece ‘Voices’ was a slow lyrical melody with a South African Township quality about it, written as a way to introduce each member of the band.
‘Together’ started with a fiendishly difficult written passage by the two saxophones where they start of playing closely together and then gradually diverge. The piece then developed into an improvised section over a groove underpinned by Liam and Paul. Apparently this was written by Rob to reflect the way in which the teacher influences the student to start with but then the student finds their own voice. Andy Scott had been Rob’s teacher when he was studying at the RNCM.
‘Up’ was another challenging piece influenced by a saxophone duo seen on YouTube and was reminiscent of some of Chick Corea’s Latin American based tunes.
‘Across’ had a minimalist type structure to it where the tenor sax and bass clarinet lines weaved in and out of each other the piano joining in and then some improvisation taking place over the continuing figures.
Two pieces which reflected the Gemini theme of space were ‘The Dance’ and ‘Laika’. ‘The Dance’ is inspired by Gemini VI and VII which had the first crewed rendezvous in space 30cm apart. ‘Laika’ was an upbeat blues dedicated to dogs but in particular Laika the first dog in space.
The final piece was ‘Mr Mustafa’ from the film ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ written by Alexandre Desplat. Rob related the fact that when bringing the piece to the band he asked Paul if he could play like the drummer on the original recording. It turns out that the original drummer on the recording was Paul Clarvis.
A nice evening of music firstly by the young local players and then by four top jazz musicians at the height of their powers playing difficult original music.
LINE-UP
First half: Spotlight Concert : Charlotte Blake, Felix Dean, Izzy Landon, James Landon, Maiya Metcalfe, Daisy Millward, Tilly Pailthorpe, Niamh Wilson
Love Music Trust Senior Jazz Band
Second Half: Gemini: Rob Cope and Andy Scott (saxophones and bass clarinet) with Liam Noble and Paul Clarvis (piano and percussion)
