Ross Hicks – Three Elms
(Self-Release, Bandcamp. Review by Mike Collins)
Three Elms is a compelling calling card from Cardiff. Pianist Ross Hicks leads a trio completed by bassist Nick Kacal, now based in Cardiff after a couple of decades on the London scene, and drummer Alex Goodyear, fellow graduate of the Welsh College with Hicks, and increasingly in demand well beyond Cardiff. Five originals from the pen of Hicks mean this debut is a compact, ‘EP’ release. The hook-up within the trio makes the session electric.
Trek kicks things off with a furious momentum. Slowly shifting sections, of bustling even quavered patterns loop, a zig-zagging, arresting hook is doubled by piano and bass. Contrasting pieces Short and Sombre and Three Elms take the tempo and temperature down but not the intensity. Short and Sombre unfolds an elegiac melodic theme, Kacal’s bass singing and weaving counter melodies. Three Elms grooves viscerally, and there’s a country-gospel edge to the progression with some ear tweaking rhythmic hooks. Cuarentena turns the wick up again with a blistering latin groove before My First Time closes the set, a micro-epic starting as an attractive waltz and building to a swaggering climax.
There’s a lot packed into this short set with the full range of colours and emotion there, from whispering melancholy and introspection to full throated, exuberant roars. Hicks’ touch and feel are striking. There’s a clarity and fluency whether it’s a sizzling montuno or skating across the more classically tinged resonances in some of the pieces, but an instinct for a propulsive, swinging inflection is never far away and adds a little magic dust. Kacal and Goodyear are formidable partners both injecting finely judged fluency with virtuosic flurries, frequently with catch-the-breath musical imagination. The trio launched the EP with a couple of gigs in the South West, lacing the sets with some of the inspirations name-checked by Hicks. Hearing pieces from Dave Holland, Lars Danielsson and Oscar Peterson gave an intriguing insight, in live performances that were a marker for what the trio can do given space to stretch out.
Three Elms is a recording to seek out in its own right, as well as reason to hope there’s more to come from Hicks and the trio.
Mike Collins is a pianist and writer based in Bristol, who runs the jazzyblogman site https://jazzyblogman.wordpress.com/.
Twitter: @jazzyblogman http://www.twitter.com/jazzyblogman
LINK: Three Elms on Bandcamp
