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“You see, mon ami, the voices of the little grey cells have begun to sing to Poirot”
Hercule Poirot in Appointment with Death (1938) by Agatha Christie
Work out the clues
Among a cornucupia of delights Blame It On My Chromosomes is something of yet another way by another route to approach the music of the guesting Ambrose Akinmusire.
It’s a different context – a lighter, but more communicative, aspect to what the Californian trumpeter can do. And we relished that realisation too when he worked with singer Mette Juul winningly on There is a Song.
Belgian-Japanese pianist, composer, singer Alex Koo doesn’t take himself too seriously and there is a novelty fun aspect to some tracks here even when he wets his whistle as it were. Perhaps. But make no mistake there is also the serious piano virtuoso side and a bag full of strong ideas that can as easily leap from a silky lick and riotous riff to a throbbing intensity in the space of just a few bars.
Koo’s a one-off
Rather than rip up the room with sheer power that someone like piano wiz Hiromi is so adept at doing, Koo’s superpower is the catchiness of his compositions that really add life to the complexity and which he can magnify into a far bigger edifice. He has his own bespoke sound which you can’t say about everyone.
Quick witted, alert
The quirky whistling on ‘Eagle of the Sun’ sends me for one to a Ennio Morricone spaghetti western type soundtrack whereas on ‘Desert Messiah’ you find yourself in a feverishly driving scene pushed on by great drumming from Dré Pallemaerts, a feeling that wouldn’t be out of place on Mehliana’s Taming the Dragon.
Koo can even squeeze in some sour, chromatic deliciously bitonal passages set against a far squarer tonally centred bass line that works within the main thrust of his secondary motifs that then unleash themselves to venture more avant-garde.
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‘Slowly’ is hypnotic – the vocals just a tool really and the lyrics part of a spell rather than meaningful in themselves as the narrative shapeshifts in and out of a scene of no little mental turbulence and an altered reality.
Tangled up in blue
‘Elements’ which has an almost Satie-like sense of repose to it in essence if not language is one of my favourites among these pieces even though it is only a tiny snapshot in the bigger picture. ‘Idiosyncratic Moving of Feet and Body’ (the jagged dance track, if that’s what the title is possibly finding synonyms for) is even more rewarding. An antidote to replace the usual plea that goes ”put your hands in the air like you just don’t care” maybe. Sure I bet that you look good on the dance floor. But ”dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984” as Sheffield’s finest had it surely not. After all it’s jazz, Jim, a different kind of Alex at work.
Defiantly cool but not at all overly smart Alec shaped around a trio of Koo, Pallemaerts and bassist Lennart Heyndels it’s a winning formula and Akinmusire fits right in on the tracks he’s on – one of these is dedicated to a dearly departed childhood friend of the pianist’s that has some superbly tender soloing from Akinmusire sensitively accompanied by Koo. All of the above then to conclude as positive factors in the album’s favour. Fact rather than fiction, a lurve of jazz and its demonstration of gained learning worn lightly feed the imagination given the sheer flow of the expostulation. There may be little friction. But a dearth of pizzazz isn’t an issue at all. And there isn’t a dull note anywhere to be found on this remarkably engaging spirit lifting recording.
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Callum Allardice
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