BENET MCLEAN - The Bopped & The Bopless
33 Jazz Records 33Xtreme008
Benet Mclean - vocals, piano, violin; Gareth Lockrane - flute; Noel Langley - trumpet; Duncan Eagles - tenor sax; Ashley Slater - trombone; Jonathan Harvey - bass; Donald Gamble - percussion; Saleem Raman - drums; Isabella-Maria Asbjornsen - harp; Aydenne Simone - vocals; Jason Yarde - alto/baritone sax
Mclean is a true polymath; pianist, guitarist, vocalist, violinist, writer, arranger and producer, he’s on a musical journey that’s included such diverse adventures as receiving mentoring from Yehudi Mehuhin at the Royal College of Music and touring with Brit-soul legend Omar. This album presents him unleashing the full strength of his musical personality in a set of muscular jazz-derived originals and a couple of unusual covers, delivered by a tight and punchy band and crisply and cleanly recorded for maximum impact. The title track sets out his stall - his full, fruity, jazz-inflected vocals deliver a powerful lyric decrying social inequality, before the band takes flight for a virtuosic swing-time piano solo complete with Monk quotes. “I Waited For You” sets off at a canter into full-on fusion territory, with the piano evoking Hancock and Corea over Harvey and Raman’s top-draw rhythm section as overdubbed strings and brass create sweeping orchestral textures.
‘Babylon’s Burning” creates an unlikely punk-jazz hybrid, with McLean’s snarling vocals over the dense twisting arrangement recalling the kind of virtuosic mash-ups you’d find on a Frank Zappa record. It’s unashamedly flashy, totally excessive and brilliantly bonkers. Like his fellow Brit multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier, McLean is bursting with seemingly limitless talent and utterly uninterested in restraint or understatement. “Lucy” sees him create a choir of multi-octave voices in dazzling harmony, then allows Harvey to stretch out on a prodigious solo, followed by scat and piano from the leader over triumphant brass and woodwind. “Polly” is a lachrymose ballad enlivened by unexpected key shifts and vocalese effects; “Electric Bopland” delivers on it’s title exactly; “Shizannah” reworks Faure into a work of high drama that could sit well as a piece of musical theatre. Credit goes to Mclean, and to his truly outstanding band, for pulling all these diverse strands together into a work that’s as strong and cohesive as it is dazzlingly, even bewilderingly, adventurous. Don’t miss the live shows.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
33 Jazz Records 33Xtreme008
Benet Mclean - vocals, piano, violin; Gareth Lockrane - flute; Noel Langley - trumpet; Duncan Eagles - tenor sax; Ashley Slater - trombone; Jonathan Harvey - bass; Donald Gamble - percussion; Saleem Raman - drums; Isabella-Maria Asbjornsen - harp; Aydenne Simone - vocals; Jason Yarde - alto/baritone sax
Mclean is a true polymath; pianist, guitarist, vocalist, violinist, writer, arranger and producer, he’s on a musical journey that’s included such diverse adventures as receiving mentoring from Yehudi Mehuhin at the Royal College of Music and touring with Brit-soul legend Omar. This album presents him unleashing the full strength of his musical personality in a set of muscular jazz-derived originals and a couple of unusual covers, delivered by a tight and punchy band and crisply and cleanly recorded for maximum impact. The title track sets out his stall - his full, fruity, jazz-inflected vocals deliver a powerful lyric decrying social inequality, before the band takes flight for a virtuosic swing-time piano solo complete with Monk quotes. “I Waited For You” sets off at a canter into full-on fusion territory, with the piano evoking Hancock and Corea over Harvey and Raman’s top-draw rhythm section as overdubbed strings and brass create sweeping orchestral textures.
‘Babylon’s Burning” creates an unlikely punk-jazz hybrid, with McLean’s snarling vocals over the dense twisting arrangement recalling the kind of virtuosic mash-ups you’d find on a Frank Zappa record. It’s unashamedly flashy, totally excessive and brilliantly bonkers. Like his fellow Brit multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier, McLean is bursting with seemingly limitless talent and utterly uninterested in restraint or understatement. “Lucy” sees him create a choir of multi-octave voices in dazzling harmony, then allows Harvey to stretch out on a prodigious solo, followed by scat and piano from the leader over triumphant brass and woodwind. “Polly” is a lachrymose ballad enlivened by unexpected key shifts and vocalese effects; “Electric Bopland” delivers on it’s title exactly; “Shizannah” reworks Faure into a work of high drama that could sit well as a piece of musical theatre. Credit goes to Mclean, and to his truly outstanding band, for pulling all these diverse strands together into a work that’s as strong and cohesive as it is dazzlingly, even bewilderingly, adventurous. Don’t miss the live shows.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
