The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 8JH | Bookings 020 7254 4097 | Enquiries 020 7993 3643 | Email Info at Vortex

February 2007
gig reviews

Alex Bonney Quartet
Soren Norbo with Django Bates
Ian Shaw
MA
John Donaldson Trio
Bheki Mseleku
Fraud
Gwilym Simcock
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford

Gig reviews archive

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February 2007 gig reviews by Chris Parker

MA

Tuesday 13 February

'Fearsome and tranquil' might seem, on the face of it, a somewhat self-contradictory description of a band sound, but it turned out to be spot on for MA a trio comprised of tenor player Tom Challenger, keyboardist Ross Stanley and powerhouse drummer Dave Smith.

Slowly building tension into pieces that begin as almost dreamy meditations, MA appear to rely heavily on the musical rapport between Challenger (a skilful, thoughtful sculptor of his saxophone sound) and the rambunctious Smith, but Stanley is the mortar that holds the structure together, an undersung but crucial role in an arresting band performance that clearly delighted a respectably sized crowd.

The matter of musical influences in jazz is something probably of more interest to people who have to describe the music by somewhat arbitrarily pigeonholing players for the purposes of economy ('Coltrane-influenced saxophonist X' or 'Bix disciple Y') than to musicians themselves or to audiences; occasionally, however, they are so obvious as to be unavoidable.

 

 

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