| BDK and Kevin Figes reviews
Read reviews of Kevin Figes and Bourne Davis Kane.
Revied by Massimo Ricci on his website Touching Extremes www.touchingextremes.org – described in the New York Times as a valuable read for “finding out about recordings of music that transcend the predictable”
KEVIN FIGES QUARTET – Circular Motion (Edition)
In the artistically enlightened area that’s Great Britain one can make a decision of undertaking the study of saxophone at 22 and find Elton Dean (RIP) as a first tutor, just by chance. This happened 20 years ago to alto saxophonist Figes, who went on to take part in diverse frameworks, including Keith Tippett’s Tapestry. Figes, who until that moment in time had only played in rock bands and never heard a note of jazz, was captured by a book given to him by his mother as a present. The kid learnt swiftly: his music is in fact a captivating integration of influences – he quotes Wayne Shorter, Chris Potter, Kenny Wheeler and Dave Holland – communicated with poise and empathy, nonchalantly neat but not at all inconsequential. The timbre is warm and charming, always in charge of the whole textural perspective, and the rest of the band (Jim Blomfield on piano, Riaan Vosloo on double bass and Tim Giles on drums) performs a laudable work of support, being also allowed a fair share of soloist evidence – a beautiful piano reflection opening the elegiac “Pastoral scenes”, for example – that not once gets wasted for egotist, look-ma-no-hands purposes. A lovely experience throughout, an album that accentuates level-headedness in your chance transits through mild unhappiness.
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BOURNE / DAVIS / KANE – Lost Something (Edition)
In recent times the protagonist of a great piano duo, “Dismantling the waterfall” with Edition’s chief Dave Stapleton, Matthew Bourne is here in company of drummer and percussionist Steven Davis and bassist Dave Kane, both oddly featured as composers in the album, which Bourne – probably the most evident voice – is not. “Lost something” is fairly idiosyncratic indeed, alternating original material with covers of tunes by Annette Peacock, Carla Bley and John Surman, plus an unsettling version of Thelonious Monk’s “Round midnight” including stuttering babies and hysteric screaming. The atmospheric conditions seem to vary from a piece to the next: one moment we get dissonance a go-go, contrapuntal fusillades and cascades of uncontrollable notes, only to be subsequently treated with smoother amalgamations of characteristic jazz elements in the ensuing track. The record is a fascinating attempt to crack some rules of probability in a genre that’s progressively approaching clinical death, and just because of cultivated youngsters such as this trio’s members one can still look forward to hearing stuff fresher than the umpteenth revisiting of “Autumn leaves”. The unquestionably elevated technical level of the concerned parties doesn’t hurt in placing this music halfway through the reverence towards tradition and the will of subverting certainties without being automatically world-shattering. Entertaining enough for a series of dutiful listens, even though not a chef d’oeuvre.
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