York drummer Dave Smyth and double-bass collaborator Paul Baxter joined saxophonist Iain Ballamy for a rare jazz event at the Basement.
Students are often absent from York gigs, but the town/gown nature of this Spring Festival concert resulted in a packed audience, probably 60/40 student-weighted.
Ballamy came to international attention with the iconoclastic Loose Tubes and Human Chain with Django Bates in the 1980s, and is now an established international saxophone star, increasingly active in Scandinavia. Still boyish after all these years, his virtuosity as a performer was man-sized, as were his compositions on the night.
Opening tune Strawberries is from an early Human Chain album, a tortuously playful melody inviting wide-ranging octave leaps from Ballamy’s tenor, homeboys Smyth and Baxter providing a relaxed partnership. Smyth’s tune Perpetual Motion was in 5/4 rhythm and the drummer’s scene-setting was evidence of how jazz drumming has progressed over recent years.
During successive improvised sections, the saxophone briefly took over rhythm duties, as Smyth coaxed an intriguing range of sounds from the drum kit and cymbals.
Convolution was a Latin-tinged Ballamy tune dedicated to Dudley Moore, with changing tempos throughout and an imaginative bass solo. Paul took centre stage to open This Is It, with flamenco-style chords on the big bass.
Section two focused on jazz standards, East Of The Sun, How About You and an I Got Rhythm inversion entitled I Got Rid Of Them. Only a supremely confident musician would end with a low-key ballad, The Man I Love, the closing notes a mere, breathy whisper. Ingenious.
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