KANSAS SMITTY’S - Things Happened Here
Ever Records: EVER101D
Giacomo Smith: saxophones, clarinet; Will Cleasby: drums; Joe Webb: piano; Ferg Ireland: bass; Dave Archer: guitar; Pete Horsfall: trumpet; Alec Harper: tenor sax
Resident in London since 2011 (originally from Montreal), Giacomo Smith is a bar-owner and saxophonist in a variety of bands in the capital. Kansas Smitty’s in the name of the bar and the revolving septet that plays there (and a host of festivals across the country). On this album, Smith’s compositions convey a warmth and intimacy of impressions recollected and an ‘overwhelming memory that you aren’t able to describe but that transports you immediately back to a time and space’ (as he puts it in the press release). As you might expect from this description, the pieces have a strong sense of narrative, conjuring images of 1960s France (‘Riders’, track 1) with the cool clarinet opening and languid horns; the American West (‘Dreamlane’, track 2) with its loping bass line; World War I Belgium (‘Sambre et Meuse’, track 4), the Mississippi delta (‘Sunnyland’, track 7), or the Middle East (‘Alcazar’, track 5, ‘Temple of Bel’, track 6). Each of these, and the other five tracks, also carry memories of classic jazz tunes or styles. For instance, in ‘Sambre et Meuse’ the saxes and trumpet will occasionally burst into a Mingus-inspired lines, or ‘Alcazar’ with its muted trumpet lines and rumbling drums has something of Ellington’s tunes. But Smith is too clever a composer to lean heavily on a single composer for his quotations or, indeed, a single musical style for his arrangements, and each piece presents a shifting pattern of rhythms and themes.
Across several of the tracks, Archer’s guitar provides the emotional and musical driver. So, for example, on the opening track, he plays a off-kilter edgy solo, he opens track 3 with a gently Spanish tinge and on the closing ‘Judgement’ works a slow country-blues. The guitar contrasts with Smith’s clarinet and saxophones (and the other horns) to great effect, taking the role that you might expect from a piano (although, of course, Webb’s presence is constant across all of the tracks), at times lending the septet the air of a gypsy-jazz troupe and at other times giving them the edge of a Chicago blues band.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Ever Records: EVER101D
Giacomo Smith: saxophones, clarinet; Will Cleasby: drums; Joe Webb: piano; Ferg Ireland: bass; Dave Archer: guitar; Pete Horsfall: trumpet; Alec Harper: tenor sax
Resident in London since 2011 (originally from Montreal), Giacomo Smith is a bar-owner and saxophonist in a variety of bands in the capital. Kansas Smitty’s in the name of the bar and the revolving septet that plays there (and a host of festivals across the country). On this album, Smith’s compositions convey a warmth and intimacy of impressions recollected and an ‘overwhelming memory that you aren’t able to describe but that transports you immediately back to a time and space’ (as he puts it in the press release). As you might expect from this description, the pieces have a strong sense of narrative, conjuring images of 1960s France (‘Riders’, track 1) with the cool clarinet opening and languid horns; the American West (‘Dreamlane’, track 2) with its loping bass line; World War I Belgium (‘Sambre et Meuse’, track 4), the Mississippi delta (‘Sunnyland’, track 7), or the Middle East (‘Alcazar’, track 5, ‘Temple of Bel’, track 6). Each of these, and the other five tracks, also carry memories of classic jazz tunes or styles. For instance, in ‘Sambre et Meuse’ the saxes and trumpet will occasionally burst into a Mingus-inspired lines, or ‘Alcazar’ with its muted trumpet lines and rumbling drums has something of Ellington’s tunes. But Smith is too clever a composer to lean heavily on a single composer for his quotations or, indeed, a single musical style for his arrangements, and each piece presents a shifting pattern of rhythms and themes.
Across several of the tracks, Archer’s guitar provides the emotional and musical driver. So, for example, on the opening track, he plays a off-kilter edgy solo, he opens track 3 with a gently Spanish tinge and on the closing ‘Judgement’ works a slow country-blues. The guitar contrasts with Smith’s clarinet and saxophones (and the other horns) to great effect, taking the role that you might expect from a piano (although, of course, Webb’s presence is constant across all of the tracks), at times lending the septet the air of a gypsy-jazz troupe and at other times giving them the edge of a Chicago blues band.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
