QOW TRIO
Ubuntu Music: UBU0078
Riley Stone-Lonergan: tenor sax; Eddie Myer: double bass; Spike Wells: drums
Recorded by Ben Lambdin at the Fish Factory
This trio first got together to play a one-off gig celebrating Sonny Rollins, so it is no great surprise that the set opens with Stone-Lonergan’s unaccompanied tenor, playing the melody and interspersing this with guttural low notes in a way that nods to Rollins but also introduces his own tone – which develops smoothly across their version ‘A Slow Boat to China’. Throughout the set, all three musicians pay heartfelt homage to familiar tunes while also dismantling them with gusto. So, the themes are played every now and again (on sax or bass) but much of the playing improvises wildly and joyfully around these. As is often the case in a chordless trio, the role of the drummer is not simply to mark time but also to help mark the chord changes and Wells’ drumming is among the most ‘musical’ you’re likely to hear. Myer plays a deeply melodic bass, working tuneful lines even when not shadowing the melody, and Lambdin’s recording captures the richness of the double bass – nowhere more effectively than their gentle take on ‘God bless the child’.
The sense of heartfelt homage is even more apparent on the track from which the trio take their name. This is a tune from Dewey Redman’s 1974 album Coincide (also found on the 1989 CD ‘Ear of the Behearer’). The QOW Trio open their reading with a near identical drum pattern and bass line to Redman’s, but as their version runs at around half the original length, they take the mood of the piece and run with it, from bouncing rhythms at the start to more free-form sax-bursts at the mid-way point that segue into a rollicking drum solo before returning to the melody. As with the opener, Stone-Lonergan nods his hat to Redman’s style of playing but turns this quickly to his own sound.
Across tunes from Porter, Henderson, Parker the familiarity of the melodies is used as stepping off points for highly accomplished improvisations that become real-time rewriting of the tunes; so much so that at the end of their version of ‘Cheryl’, I went back to a couple of Charlie Parker versions to remind myself what the ‘original’ sounded like. Of course, jazz has the tradition of defamiliarizing well-known tunes, and when it is done right, like this trio, then the ‘new’ version becomes as strong, as valid and as immediately familiar as the original.
The set also includes a couple of originals, from Stone-Lonergan, ‘Qowfirmation’ and ‘Pound for Prez’, both of which showcase the tenor’s exuberance, and which (I thought) loaded many sly references to Charlie Parker tunes that they hadn’t included in their set here (although this might have come from immersion in the other pieces here, and his tendency to throw many other quotes into the pieces, another nod to Rollins, perhaps?). The spontaneity of their playing and the complexity of their improvisations in and around the melodies and chord changes remind you of the joy of ‘live’ music. More than this, their playing just reminds you of the joy of being alive, and in these troubled times there can be no better medicine than great music played well.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Ubuntu Music: UBU0078
Riley Stone-Lonergan: tenor sax; Eddie Myer: double bass; Spike Wells: drums
Recorded by Ben Lambdin at the Fish Factory
This trio first got together to play a one-off gig celebrating Sonny Rollins, so it is no great surprise that the set opens with Stone-Lonergan’s unaccompanied tenor, playing the melody and interspersing this with guttural low notes in a way that nods to Rollins but also introduces his own tone – which develops smoothly across their version ‘A Slow Boat to China’. Throughout the set, all three musicians pay heartfelt homage to familiar tunes while also dismantling them with gusto. So, the themes are played every now and again (on sax or bass) but much of the playing improvises wildly and joyfully around these. As is often the case in a chordless trio, the role of the drummer is not simply to mark time but also to help mark the chord changes and Wells’ drumming is among the most ‘musical’ you’re likely to hear. Myer plays a deeply melodic bass, working tuneful lines even when not shadowing the melody, and Lambdin’s recording captures the richness of the double bass – nowhere more effectively than their gentle take on ‘God bless the child’.
The sense of heartfelt homage is even more apparent on the track from which the trio take their name. This is a tune from Dewey Redman’s 1974 album Coincide (also found on the 1989 CD ‘Ear of the Behearer’). The QOW Trio open their reading with a near identical drum pattern and bass line to Redman’s, but as their version runs at around half the original length, they take the mood of the piece and run with it, from bouncing rhythms at the start to more free-form sax-bursts at the mid-way point that segue into a rollicking drum solo before returning to the melody. As with the opener, Stone-Lonergan nods his hat to Redman’s style of playing but turns this quickly to his own sound.
Across tunes from Porter, Henderson, Parker the familiarity of the melodies is used as stepping off points for highly accomplished improvisations that become real-time rewriting of the tunes; so much so that at the end of their version of ‘Cheryl’, I went back to a couple of Charlie Parker versions to remind myself what the ‘original’ sounded like. Of course, jazz has the tradition of defamiliarizing well-known tunes, and when it is done right, like this trio, then the ‘new’ version becomes as strong, as valid and as immediately familiar as the original.
The set also includes a couple of originals, from Stone-Lonergan, ‘Qowfirmation’ and ‘Pound for Prez’, both of which showcase the tenor’s exuberance, and which (I thought) loaded many sly references to Charlie Parker tunes that they hadn’t included in their set here (although this might have come from immersion in the other pieces here, and his tendency to throw many other quotes into the pieces, another nod to Rollins, perhaps?). The spontaneity of their playing and the complexity of their improvisations in and around the melodies and chord changes remind you of the joy of ‘live’ music. More than this, their playing just reminds you of the joy of being alive, and in these troubled times there can be no better medicine than great music played well.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
