A very special night indeed. This was a one-off reunion of trumpeter Steven Nichols’s quintet, the group which recorded the album ‘From Dust’ in June 2022 (Ubuntu Music, 2024) when they were all students together at the Royal Academy of Music…
They haven’t met as a quintet since those days. So what happens when they play music which is a familiar context for all of them, and part of their individual and collective pasts? Only good things. The confidence, the momentum, the joy of being back as a one-time cohort shines through from first note to last. The most vivid impression I have of the evening is the extent to which each of the five musicians has grown, strengthened, deepened what he does in the intervening years.
Back then, like all students, they knew that whatever else was going on, an assessment would be descending on them at some point. So how different things are now. With the chocks cast aside, the threat is gone. And as the professional musicians they now are, their task is more straightforward: to create a powerful performance and imprint their musical presences and personalities on an audience. Is that easier? Harder? Simpler? More complex? All I know from deep is that all five were able do it magnificently. Those years under the cosh “in statu pupillari” now make sense in retrospect – when a former student cohort can get together and play as convincingly as this from the get-go.
Steven Nichols’s trumpet playing, fluent and graceful, now has a seemingly natural ease which allows improvised lines to combine and to form longer stories. John Jones’s bass playing and bass presence is bigger, stronger, and leaves an indelibly good mark. Amund Kleppan, whether subtly influencing textures or driving the bus, is joyfully impressive drummer who is rarely in London these days. Reuben Goldmark gave us a linking section between two tunes in the first half that had astonishing assurance, poise, natural flow and pacing. Perhaps the most transformed is our UKJN colleague Charlie Rees. Playing alongside the likes of trumpeter Alex Sipiagin in Germany has evidently taken him to a new level. The sound is now huge, he has a real capacity to draw an audience’s attention in and to hold it, he constructs long solos which have superb heft and weight. One fond memory of the gig was the rhythm trio playing with incredible power and weight in the final number, Richard Iles’s “All Good Things.”
It is uplifting and fulfilling to witness five musicians moving into their prime with such confidence.
BAND
Steven Nichols: trumpet & flugelhorn
Charlie Rees: tenor sax
Reuben Goldmark: piano
John Jones: bass
Amund Kleppan: drums
SET LIST
SET 1
1. April Fool(s) (Nichols/Rees)
2. Nebula* (Nichols/Rees)
3. When All Is Said and “Dunn”* (Nichols)
4. Treyarnon* (Nichols/Rees)
5. Every Cloud* (Nichols/Rees)
SET 2
1. Nichols Blues* (Nichols)
2. Wishing Wells *(Nichols)
3. I Know, It’s Late (Nichols/Rees)
4. From Dust *(Nichols)
5. Amazing Grace (Trad., arr. Nichols/Rees)
6. All Good Things (Richard Iles)
(*) Tracks from “From Dust” (Ubuntu Music, 2024)
