MARTIN ARCHER - Sunshine! Quartet / Felicity's Ultimatum
Discus: Discus 59 CD (Sunshine! Quartet)
Discus: Discus 60 [Felcity’s ultimatum]
Sunshine! Quartet
Martin Archer: alto and sopranino saxophones; Corey Mwamaba: vibraphone; Seth Bennet: double bass; Peter Fairclough: drums
Recorded 14th October 2016, at Chairworks, Casteford
Felicity’s Ultimatum
Martin Archer: alto, sopranino, baritone saxophones; Graham Clark: violin; Stephen Grew: piano; Johnny Hunter: drums
Recorded 23rd October 2016 at Chairworks, Castelford
Discus: Discus 59 CD (Sunshine! Quartet)
Discus: Discus 60 [Felcity’s ultimatum]
Sunshine! Quartet
Martin Archer: alto and sopranino saxophones; Corey Mwamaba: vibraphone; Seth Bennet: double bass; Peter Fairclough: drums
Recorded 14th October 2016, at Chairworks, Casteford
Felicity’s Ultimatum
Martin Archer: alto, sopranino, baritone saxophones; Graham Clark: violin; Stephen Grew: piano; Johnny Hunter: drums
Recorded 23rd October 2016 at Chairworks, Castelford
Martin Archer has, since the 1980s, ploughed his own furrow in the UK free jazz scene. These recordings, released on his own Discus label, bring together musicians who record for the label but also brings together some of the ideas and approaches to the creation of music that Archer has been experimenting with during his career. On these CDs, Archer works with musically gifted members of the Discus label family to create two very different sorts of music. To give the CDs a sense of relatedness, both feature some evocative cover art by Gonzalo Fuentes, which seem curious sketches of hybrid animals, robots and faces, done in what looks like heavy pastel. Musically, both CDs involve a quartet of musicians who meet, write, rehearse and record over a single session. The sessions are separated by a week and the only constant in personnel is Archer. Another thing they have in common is the way that they encapsulate so perfectly the joy of improvisation when it is played by quartets that have such rich chemistry and such command of their instruments.
I first encountered Archer’s music when he played with a band called ‘Bass Tone Trap’ in the early 1980s – this was a hybrid punk-jazz band that mixed experienced jazzers with (to be kind to them) people who were still developing musical ability; needless to say, the band made a fairly uncompromising and exciting racket. In the early 1990s, his ‘network’ project merged 50 or so short pieces into a single flow, and the Hornweb Saxophone Quartet wove together some interesting and ‘unquartet-like’ sounds. Throughout these groups, and the recordings that Archer has been building up through his Discus label, there is a purity in the way in which improvisation is approached and the ways in which musicians are given freedom and space to fully explore sounds and textures.
On ‘Sunshine! Quartet, there are four pieces and each is credited to one of the members of the quartet. The credits are not obviously related to the particular role that an instrument had in producing the piece. Indeed, I wondered if there was some mischief in having the opening track, ‘For free to one’, credited to a drummer whose main role seemed to be to provide a grumbling backdrop to the other players. As this piece opened, Archer introduced a couple of themes on saxophone and then the other players worked in their own directions, with the bass playing some running lines and the vibes providing chords in support. The drums kick off on the second track, ‘It’s not finnished’ (pun intended), and Archer and Mwamba trade licks mid-way through before pulling apart into two contrasting melodic lines. The piece closes with Archer playing something approaching a mournful blues, with Bennett’s arco bass emphasising the lament. Throughout this, and the rest of the set, the pieces create a logic in their perversity – players working against the grain laid down by their colleagues, but doing so in a way that feels collaborative and conversational, rather than argumentative or antagonistic. In a sense, you feel that as soon as the players find a definite frame of playing, one of them will make sure that there is a shift to keep them from being too settled.
On ‘Felicity’s Ultimatum’, a different blend of instruments produces a different set of musical patterns. On first listen to this, I wasn’t aware that the quartet lacked a bass, so compelling was the rhythmic drive across the 10 pieces. Here, Archer works with the violin on Clark (a member of Archer’s ‘Engine Room Favourites’ small big band, as well as Gong and the Magick Brothers), the piano of Grew (who, amongst other projects, duets with saxophonist Trevor Watts and plays in the improve-electronic ensemble Grutronic) and Hunter (also of Engine Room Favourites) on drums. On several tracks, saxophones and violin work together as one pair, and drums and piano as another. So, on ‘Jane’s Ruin’, track 2, sax and violin provide a sort of drone as backdrop to the punchy exposition of the theme by piano and drums, or on ‘Bessie’s Greens’, track 3, sax and piano play a sort of blues theme, punctuated by piano and drums. What I enjoyed was the ways in which Grew and Hunter were often exploring the shadows around the main themes in wonderfully rich detail. It is interesting to note that Hunter, as well as a skilful improv-jazz drummer, is also involved in dub reggae and this might have come into some of the ways that he found space between the different instruments for his drum patterns. Of course, this makes it sound as if there was a clear demarcation of roles and it is quite clear that each player has equal contribution to make (not just in terms of the credits on the track listing) but also in terms of when and how they take solos across the pieces; occasionally two solos collide and then bounce off each other, at other times an instrument comes to the fore and the others drop back to leave it space. What is delightful about the way that the quartet works here is the way in which there never seems to be any hesitation as to when to play or what to play. There is sense of instinctive collaboration in the ways that each piece develops. Bearing in mind that this set, like that on the first CD, was planned, practised and recorded in a single session, there is a lot to admire in the ways that the players are able to create music. What is even more impressive is that the pieces are of such quality and are so memorable. One of my favourite pieces on this CD was ‘Amanda’s Drum’, track 1, which begins with a sort of saxophone fanfare over jagged piano and skittering drums before dropping into a violin piece that carried the elegiac air of a sonata. The piece felt so well structured that it was difficult to get any sense of the performance being ‘free’. But, what you get on these CDs is the way that Archer (as he’s often done in the past) is able to work with musicians to blur the boundaries between the composed, the improvised, the random and silent spaces in between each of these.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
I first encountered Archer’s music when he played with a band called ‘Bass Tone Trap’ in the early 1980s – this was a hybrid punk-jazz band that mixed experienced jazzers with (to be kind to them) people who were still developing musical ability; needless to say, the band made a fairly uncompromising and exciting racket. In the early 1990s, his ‘network’ project merged 50 or so short pieces into a single flow, and the Hornweb Saxophone Quartet wove together some interesting and ‘unquartet-like’ sounds. Throughout these groups, and the recordings that Archer has been building up through his Discus label, there is a purity in the way in which improvisation is approached and the ways in which musicians are given freedom and space to fully explore sounds and textures.
On ‘Sunshine! Quartet, there are four pieces and each is credited to one of the members of the quartet. The credits are not obviously related to the particular role that an instrument had in producing the piece. Indeed, I wondered if there was some mischief in having the opening track, ‘For free to one’, credited to a drummer whose main role seemed to be to provide a grumbling backdrop to the other players. As this piece opened, Archer introduced a couple of themes on saxophone and then the other players worked in their own directions, with the bass playing some running lines and the vibes providing chords in support. The drums kick off on the second track, ‘It’s not finnished’ (pun intended), and Archer and Mwamba trade licks mid-way through before pulling apart into two contrasting melodic lines. The piece closes with Archer playing something approaching a mournful blues, with Bennett’s arco bass emphasising the lament. Throughout this, and the rest of the set, the pieces create a logic in their perversity – players working against the grain laid down by their colleagues, but doing so in a way that feels collaborative and conversational, rather than argumentative or antagonistic. In a sense, you feel that as soon as the players find a definite frame of playing, one of them will make sure that there is a shift to keep them from being too settled.
On ‘Felicity’s Ultimatum’, a different blend of instruments produces a different set of musical patterns. On first listen to this, I wasn’t aware that the quartet lacked a bass, so compelling was the rhythmic drive across the 10 pieces. Here, Archer works with the violin on Clark (a member of Archer’s ‘Engine Room Favourites’ small big band, as well as Gong and the Magick Brothers), the piano of Grew (who, amongst other projects, duets with saxophonist Trevor Watts and plays in the improve-electronic ensemble Grutronic) and Hunter (also of Engine Room Favourites) on drums. On several tracks, saxophones and violin work together as one pair, and drums and piano as another. So, on ‘Jane’s Ruin’, track 2, sax and violin provide a sort of drone as backdrop to the punchy exposition of the theme by piano and drums, or on ‘Bessie’s Greens’, track 3, sax and piano play a sort of blues theme, punctuated by piano and drums. What I enjoyed was the ways in which Grew and Hunter were often exploring the shadows around the main themes in wonderfully rich detail. It is interesting to note that Hunter, as well as a skilful improv-jazz drummer, is also involved in dub reggae and this might have come into some of the ways that he found space between the different instruments for his drum patterns. Of course, this makes it sound as if there was a clear demarcation of roles and it is quite clear that each player has equal contribution to make (not just in terms of the credits on the track listing) but also in terms of when and how they take solos across the pieces; occasionally two solos collide and then bounce off each other, at other times an instrument comes to the fore and the others drop back to leave it space. What is delightful about the way that the quartet works here is the way in which there never seems to be any hesitation as to when to play or what to play. There is sense of instinctive collaboration in the ways that each piece develops. Bearing in mind that this set, like that on the first CD, was planned, practised and recorded in a single session, there is a lot to admire in the ways that the players are able to create music. What is even more impressive is that the pieces are of such quality and are so memorable. One of my favourite pieces on this CD was ‘Amanda’s Drum’, track 1, which begins with a sort of saxophone fanfare over jagged piano and skittering drums before dropping into a violin piece that carried the elegiac air of a sonata. The piece felt so well structured that it was difficult to get any sense of the performance being ‘free’. But, what you get on these CDs is the way that Archer (as he’s often done in the past) is able to work with musicians to blur the boundaries between the composed, the improvised, the random and silent spaces in between each of these.
Reviewed by Chris Baber