Luke Annesley Quartet - Beginning (2002)

Tracklist

01. Six And Four
02. Daisy, Daisy
03. The Invisible Bridge
04. Toad On The Road
05. Straight Life
06. I Love You
07. You Do Something To Me
08. Waiting
09. Dishevelled
10. Beginning

Aveteran of the London and south-coast jazz scenes, Luke Annesley seldom ventures to more northern provinces. For his first visit to Nottingham he was joined by a fine band comprising bop guitarist Dave Cliff, drummer Simon Lee and double-bassist Simon Thorpe. From the off it was clear that this was to be a straightahead session, albeit with one or two interesting detours.

Annesley's saxophone playing summoned the ghosts of many a departed legend. There was a touch of bluesy Hank Mobley poignancy, a dash of Art Pepper's introversion and more than a little of Lester Young's whistling postman insouciance. But these were all filtered through Annesley's own curiously diffident approach to both instrument and material, and many of the tunes sounded like furtively whispered secrets.

The band opened with the standard It Could Happen to You, which bustled along like a 1940s Charlie Parker session, all cracking snare accents, crisp guitar work and birdsong trills from the leader. From there they took a sudden turn into the world of music hall with an ingeniously arranged bop version of Daisy Daisy, and then back into standards territory for All of Me. With Lee providing rustling brush work, Annesley and Cliff laid out an intricately syncopated sax-and-guitar melody, the instruments a fragment of a beat behind each other.

There was only one original on offer, a Bobby Timmons-like funk tune called Toad on the Road, which found Cliff's guitar doing a creditable impression of a Hammond organ behind Annesley's grainy minimalism. The second half brought a Sonny Rollins-inspired reading of The Sound of Music, and a beautifully rendered jazz ballad version of Fleetwood Mac's Songbird. A solid, well played set with some agreeable twists and turns, even if some numbers did sound like a tentative rehearsal for the main event.

Alto Saxophone – Luke Annesley
Guitar – Dave Cliff
Bass – Simon Thorpe
Drums – Matt Skelton

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