David Preston

AT the risk of name-place-dropping, I first met guitarist David Preston at Abbey Road Studios, where he was recording with Ian Shaw and the late, much-missed Peter Ind, the Gandalf of the acoustic bass. Preston came across as a quite shy and retiring young man but who nevertheless chose his notes with precision and intelligence. He still works with Shaw (he co-wrote much of the excellent Lifejacket album and is part of the Greek Street Friday album and live ensemble) but also has a thriving career as a sideman and most recently a solo artist.

No longer so shy and retiring (or quite so young – that Abbey Road meeting was back in 2010, which makes me Methuselah), the intelligence and commitment are still there, bolstered by instincts honed by years of gigging live. All this is well demonstrated on his Purple/Black Volume 1 album, the first under his own name, which features a top-of-the-range band in pianist Kit Downes, Kevin Glasgow on bass and Seb Rochford on drums.

It was designed, in his words, as an “in the room” dialogue between the individuals. It isn’t, as many jazz debut albums are, a showcase for speed or stamina or the ability to cram as many chord and key changes as is humanly possible into five frenetic minutes. It is for the most part more reflective than that, the touchstones, if you need them, being Bill Frisell, the more introspective side of Pat Metheny and perhaps early John Abercrombie. Although they are merely suggested to these ears, rather than overt influences.

Not that Preston & Co can’t bust out the chops – Cassino Dream, for example, features fabulously fleet-fingered interchanges between Downes and the leader. The album opens with O’Winston, a reference to the great American photographer of railroads, O’ Winston Link, and is intended to evoke the feeling of riding a train through the mountains in Virginia (it begins with an insistently hooky ostinato bass from Glasgow, at once prowling and probing).

The title track is built on Preston’s favourite power chords, but as with so much on the album, it subverts any expectations from that statement, being both doomy and optimistic.

There is much to enjoy here even for those who don’t normally like jazz guitar, and I found that the record reveals more delights with each listen, especially when you home in on what Rochford is up to, nimbly driving or supporting the other players. Incidentally, the last cut, the lovely, quietly twisty Susie Q’s, is not a celebration of a well-known bass-playing pop legend – that’s Suzi Q – but north London’s jazz wunderkid Jacob Collier’s mum.

You can hear Purple/Black (and perhaps some of the yet-to-be-released Volume 2, recorded contemporaneously), with the same red-hot band, as part of the excellent Jazz in the Round series (expertly curated each month by Jez Nelson and Chris Philips) at the Cockpit Theatre, just off Edgware Road, on March 25.

Sharing the bill is the wide-ranging, genre-fusing trumpeter Mejedi Owusu (Xhosa Cole, SEED Ensemble) and the polymath pianist Robert Mitchel (just about everyone who is anyone) playing a solo set. I told you it is well curated. And it’s excellent value too – three bands for £15, half price for students and MU members. Incidentally, another fine guitarist, Rob Luft, whose album Dahab Days has been recommended in these pages, plays there on May 27.

Details for all shows including David Preston’s: www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/jazz_in_the_round.

Jazz in The Round is on Mondays once a month, so I should mention we also have the weekly Jazz at the Parakeet on that same day in Kentish Town. It goes from strength to strength in both audience numbers and the quality of the talent on show. Check out the latest listings on: https://jazzattheparakeet.com/

John Etheridge

Another guitarist, local John Etheridge, has also been busy. He has a powerful new album, Blue Spirits Live, which is his organ trio recorded at Peggy’s Skylight in Nottingham.

As the name suggests, the record features his bluesy/rockier side (although there is also a great version of Mingus’s Goodbye Porkpie Hat) which demonstrates yet again that he can blister the fretboard with the best of them.

Etheridge can soon be heard in two very different setting at Ronnie Scott’s. On May 1 he is playing with Indo-funk-jazz bassist Shez Raja, which will be a high-energy blast (see: www.ronniescotts.co.uk/find-a-show/shez-raja-featuring-john-etheridge), but before that, on April 10, he is there with the venerable Soft Machine (www.ronniescotts.co.uk/find-a-show/soft-machine). Some Canterbury Sound purists carp that the band shouldn’t use that name as there are no original members left but last year’s album (Other Doors) showed that the soul of the Softs is alive and well and living in this quartet. I’ll be there and reporting back.

Soft Machine were one of the many bands that only kept going during jazz’s many troughs in popularity during the 70s and 80s because of the thriving scene in Europe, with clubs, big bands, TV and radio happy to promote UK acts. I remember being largely ignorant of European jazz apart from celebrated sidemen such as Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Pierre Michelot (and maybe pianist Jacques Loussier, who was ubiquitous for a while) until ECM records came along and introduced us to Scandi Jazz and the likes of Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Marilyn Mazur and Palle Mikkelborg. The last pair are from Denmark – as was Ørsted Pederson – which has a thriving jazz scene thanks in part to DanmarkJazz, a government-funded body tasked with promoting Danish jazz at home and abroad. (Imagine a BritJazz.. no, me neither.)

The organisation is a partner, with Sue Edwards Management, of the 2024 edition of the Sounds of Denmark Festival, which runs at the Pizza Express Soho, from March 19-21 (see https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/sounds-of-denmark). It features the cinematic soundscapes of trombonist Lis Wessberg on the 19th. The next night is vocalist Karmen Rõivassepp and the jazztronics of the Abekejser quartet, paired with the killer homegrown horn section of Emma Rawicz, Damon Oliver and Freddie Gavita. The 21st is the turn of the piano duo Nikolaj Hess and Carsten Dahl, who also act as the opening act of the Steinway 2 Piano Festival, which pairs top jazz pianists, who sit on opposite sides of the stage and play off, for, with and against each other. It’s always hugely entertaining – see https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/steinway-2-piano-festival for a list of performers.

Sarah Jane Morris is not a pure jazz singer per se – she can cover soul, blues, R&B and contemporary pop with equal authority and verve – but her new album Sisterhood, released for International Women’s Day, certainly has a healthy dose of it in its DNA. Celebrating 10 of her female singer/song writing heroes, it features homages to Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Bessie Smith, Joni Mitchell, and Rickie Lee Jones (a track called Jazz Side of the Road) all delivered with her trademark commitment (there’s Annie Lennox, Aretha and Kate Bush, too). These are not cover versions but new compositions in the style of the subject with lyrics by SJM and music by her and guitarist Tony Rémy. You can hear them road-test this remarkable record at Alexandra Palace’s wonderful theatre on Saturday, March 9. Tickets: https://www.alexandrapalace.com/whats-on/sarah-jane-morris-sisterhood/

If you are a bass player and Marcus Miller invites you on stage to jam, you know you are doing something right. Well, Polish bassist Kinga Glyk is obviously hitting all the right notes: she duetted with Marcus, some of her bass explorations have gone viral (notably a soulful, finger-stretching re-working of Clapton’s Tears in Heaven) and on her album Real Life she successfully summons the groove of giants like Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius. Her music is, I suppose, classic jazz-funk with a modern spin, and you can catch her live, with full band, at The Jazz Café on March 11. Tickets: https://thejazzcafelondon.com/event/kinga-glyk/?accept=true.