In 2009, a riotously style-scrambling band of former Middlesex University jazz students called Led Bib made a big impression at that year’s Mercury prize. Like all the other jazz contenders who have ever made the shortlist, they didn’t win, but the sax-hollering, rhythmically wilful quintet managed to announce that dance-rooted music could risk improvisation and deliver edgy instrumentals with a vocal-like expressiveness, and that jazz could reach a wider fanbase without compromise if it only forgot about how cool it was supposed to be.
Led Bib’s bassist is Liran Donin, a Tel Aviv-born virtuoso who, after years as a sought-after player/composer, has now made an exceptional album of his own. Led Bib alto-saxist Chris Williams is part of a powerful improvising lineup, but the songlike repertoire is much closer to folk and world music. Tracks often end on exhilarating Led Bib-like thrashes, but their melodic warmth has already seduced the listener with sax harmonies recalling Carla Bley (The Story of Annette and Maurice), the earthy folksiness of Avishai Cohen (Alma Sophia, or Noam, Sea and Sand), or the joyous polyphonies of Hermeto Pascoal (Free). Williams’ biting alto sax is ruggedly complemented by the multiphonic tenor sax squalls of Josh Arcoleo, while Donin’s flying pizzicato bass improv constantly takes off on this kaleidoscopic music’s fast-changing hooks. Young Italian pianist Maria Chiara Argirò impresses, too, with calmly spun spontaneous lines and reflective chord melodies. It’s a treat both for those in the jazz backyard, and those looking over the fence.
This month’s other picks
Tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin reconvenes with fellow members of David Bowie’s valedictory Blackstar band on the hard-hitting and mostly anthemically vocal Blow – electronic art-rock that sporadically glimmers with Bowie’s sound-sculpting magic. Ever-engaging Bristol jazz-rockers Get the Blessing pay tribute to their home city with Bristopia, an imaginative sonic tour of honking sax grooves, sly trumpet asides, seagull-mimicking clamours and film-noirish atmospherics. And former Avishai Cohen piano prodigy Shai Maestro’s ECM Records debut as a leader is The Dream Thief – a deeply communal trio set touching on the jazz piano worlds of Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau or Tord Gustavsen, but with a sense of cinematic wonder all of Maestro’s own.
