DAVE O'HIGGINS - It’s Always 9.30 in Zog
JVG Productions JVG018CD
Dave O’Higgins - tenor & soprano sax; Graham Harvey - piano, rhodes; Geoff Gascoyne - bass; Sebastian De Krom - drums
The attractively retro packaging on this record is copied from the classic era Blue Notes and the line-up is the classic horn-plus-rhythm format, but O’Higgins has chosen this album to expand beyond his customary repertoire of standards and contrafacts and showcase no less than eight original compositions, plus a couple of extras from Bheki Mseleku and accordionist Chico Chagas - an excitingly eclectic mix. The title track is a blues with a contemporary twist, with theme influenced by Jerry Bergonzi and a dab of free blowing in the intro, but once the band kick in for solos we’re in familiar territory, with O’Higgins doing what he does best - breathing real life and vitality into the tried and tested post-bop tradition. The band swing like the clappers as Harvey invokes the spirit of Wynton Kelly - O’Higgins follows with a seamless mix of bop phrases and angular modernistic obliquities, all delivered with his customary rhythmic panache and pure, crisply centered tone. There’s a walking solo from Gascoyne and a shout chorus with a tumultous Blakey-esque solo from De Krom, and that’s really everything you could want from a contemporary bop outfit delivered in a single immaculately executed package.
As you might expect, O’Higgin’s writing is as carefully and crisply delivered as his playing - ‘The Adventures Of Little Peepsie’ has some well-considered meter changes to keep things moving along, ‘Alien With Extraordinary Ability’ ranges further afield to invoke the rhodes-and-soprano samba sound of Chick Corea’s initial Return To Forever albums, and ‘Nothing To Lose’ has all the swagger and blues-drenched sophisitication of a Benny Golson chart. ‘Brixton’, the Chagas penned bossa nova, has an O’Higgins solo that is a lesson in clear construction and as it moves from melting romanticism to rigourous explorations of the changes and descends to a quiet finale - ‘Timelessness’ the stormingly upbeat Mseleku track, bears an interesting relationship to the version recorded by John Donaldson on his ‘Nearer Awakening” album, also well worth checking out. Elsewhere there’s an odd-number time signature jazz-rock inflected groover in ‘New Resolution’ and a couple of straight readings of standards to round things off.
The recording, in O’Higgin’s own studio, is as clear and warm as you could wish for and the band sound terrific throughout this high quality resume of one of our foremost players in the tradition - perhaps no new ground broken, but a thorough demonstration of mastery of the form. There’s an exhaustively comprehensive tour in support so you’re advised to check the website for your nearest gig.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
JVG Productions JVG018CD
Dave O’Higgins - tenor & soprano sax; Graham Harvey - piano, rhodes; Geoff Gascoyne - bass; Sebastian De Krom - drums
The attractively retro packaging on this record is copied from the classic era Blue Notes and the line-up is the classic horn-plus-rhythm format, but O’Higgins has chosen this album to expand beyond his customary repertoire of standards and contrafacts and showcase no less than eight original compositions, plus a couple of extras from Bheki Mseleku and accordionist Chico Chagas - an excitingly eclectic mix. The title track is a blues with a contemporary twist, with theme influenced by Jerry Bergonzi and a dab of free blowing in the intro, but once the band kick in for solos we’re in familiar territory, with O’Higgins doing what he does best - breathing real life and vitality into the tried and tested post-bop tradition. The band swing like the clappers as Harvey invokes the spirit of Wynton Kelly - O’Higgins follows with a seamless mix of bop phrases and angular modernistic obliquities, all delivered with his customary rhythmic panache and pure, crisply centered tone. There’s a walking solo from Gascoyne and a shout chorus with a tumultous Blakey-esque solo from De Krom, and that’s really everything you could want from a contemporary bop outfit delivered in a single immaculately executed package.
As you might expect, O’Higgin’s writing is as carefully and crisply delivered as his playing - ‘The Adventures Of Little Peepsie’ has some well-considered meter changes to keep things moving along, ‘Alien With Extraordinary Ability’ ranges further afield to invoke the rhodes-and-soprano samba sound of Chick Corea’s initial Return To Forever albums, and ‘Nothing To Lose’ has all the swagger and blues-drenched sophisitication of a Benny Golson chart. ‘Brixton’, the Chagas penned bossa nova, has an O’Higgins solo that is a lesson in clear construction and as it moves from melting romanticism to rigourous explorations of the changes and descends to a quiet finale - ‘Timelessness’ the stormingly upbeat Mseleku track, bears an interesting relationship to the version recorded by John Donaldson on his ‘Nearer Awakening” album, also well worth checking out. Elsewhere there’s an odd-number time signature jazz-rock inflected groover in ‘New Resolution’ and a couple of straight readings of standards to round things off.
The recording, in O’Higgin’s own studio, is as clear and warm as you could wish for and the band sound terrific throughout this high quality resume of one of our foremost players in the tradition - perhaps no new ground broken, but a thorough demonstration of mastery of the form. There’s an exhaustively comprehensive tour in support so you’re advised to check the website for your nearest gig.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
