Last Friday (29th Feb) the Brighton Jazz Club hosted a trio that I had been eagerly looking forward to seeing. A bit of a 'supergroup' really. It was led by drummer Bryan Spring together with Mark Edwards on piano and Andrew Cleyndert on double bass.

Things got off to a bit of a shaky start for me when I found that I was struggling to hear the bass. I asked one of the organizers if it was possible to turn the bass up a bit and he told me that they had no control over the mix and that was set by the musicians themselves. Maybe that's fair enough for a fairly small venue but I had hoped that there might have been hand signals made to request him to turn up. Unfortunately that didn't happen so I thought that perhaps (as a hobbyist bass player myself) I as just being biased wanting the bass to be louder. After a couple of tunes (Nardis and Softly as in a morning sunrise) I was joined by a couple of friends who both agreed that the bass was too low. As a big fan of piano trios (Bill Evans, Hampton Hawes, Oscar Peterson) I felt that this made it difficult to hear the interplay between the instruments except in the relatively few places where both the piano and the drums played more quietly.

Unfortunately this wasn't the only disappointment for me. The musicians didn't appear to be that well prepared for this gig (perhaps they were winging it completely? Obviously not a heinous crime in jazz but a little preparation goes a long way). The set began to lose direction a little and seemed to have a little too much 'modal noodling' going on. Bryan Spring is an exciting drummer and I had hoped that the music would reflect that but, for me, I'm sorry to say it did not. I would still be happy to pay to see this lineup play again but will hope that next time the mix is better and that a few more exciting tunes are selected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would be interested to hear if anyone disagrees with me about the levels or the choice of material. Please feel free to comment.

 

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.