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Dudley Phillips

Life Without Trousers

Babel BDV 2453

One of the UK's most in-demand bassists (Perfect Houseplants, Colin Towns's Mask Orchestra etc.), Dudley Phillips reveals a taste for all kinds of music, from the country-tinged rock of the likes of Ry Cooder and the Doobie Brothers to the jazzy blues-funk of Phil Upchurch and swinging lope of stride piano, on this wide-ranging album.

All the tunes are Phillips's, and the core trio - Phillips on both electric and acoustic basses, Carl Orr on electric and acoustic guitars, Nic France on drums and percussion - transform themselves with apparent ease from a tight funk band ornamented by the snaking soprano of Mark Lockheart (the album's opening title-track), to a breezy jump-jive outfit (Waiting for Marco') or quiet pastoral balladeers (Brother') as required by their leader's eclecticism without unduly compromising the overall integrity of the album.

Particularly impressive is the restlessly probing drumming of France, which bristles with controlled power one minute, then restrains itself in the next to the subtlest of quietly propulsive touches, but the unifying sensibility is inevitably Phillips's, somehow managing to corral the many influences (which, along with all the above-mentioned, also include the tasteful twang of Duane Eddy and Maghrebi and Balkan tinges) into a coherent artistic statement.