Last I heard him was two years ago at Chelsea venue the Pheasantry in singer Tessa Souter’s band with her husband Billy Drummond and Conor Chaplin.
The standards selected for this upcoming release include jazz choices Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘The Nearness of You’, Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round Midnight’ Johnny Green’s ‘Body and Soul’ and ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ by Rodgers and Hart plus pop and rock covers of Paul Simon’s ‘Old Friends’ and The Band’s ‘The Weight.’
A studio album this was recorded during three days of the early half of May in 2023. It’s pretty middle of the road fare and I don’t mean that as a criticism. These aren’t weasel words, it’s just what it is.
If you want the more pulsating side of Watson it isn’t here – go hear that on his album released more than a decade ago with Manu Katché Live in Concert.
But with the eye more on the sparrow and what’s to expect for me ‘The Nearness of You’ and ‘Body and Soul’ work best of all.
I suppose if you are a rock fan and then a jazz fan (with me it’s the other way round) you will go to the Paul Simon and The Band tracks first. They are quite manicured but then most solo piano albums in the jazz idiom covering anything respectfully are quite manicured. Again that isn’t a criticism just an observation.
As for his own originals Watson’s sentimental side is certainly expressed. You get an Abdullah Ibrahim quality to the lilting title track ‘Calling You Home’ which works very well. The fat clusters of notes that spread all over ‘Tetrad’ streaming ahead of release also coagulate into brightly voiced evocative splodges of sound and cadential passion. Stylistically Watson is like Acoustic Ladyland’s Tom Cawley a bit and also reminds me of the sound of Nick Ramm (known for his work with flautist Finn Peters).
I’m a Billy Jenkins fan more than a Katie Melua one – both artists with whom Watson has worked.
So just by these examples you can see how versatile Watson is whether accompanying a songstress, playing jazz on his own self squired releases or the blues.
The album I like that he is on most is Guy Barker 2002 Provocateur classic Soundtrack.
Watson’s jazz chops can be heard on an album like The Loop probably even more than on this new work.
I’d say on this new one at the risk of stating the obvious that Watson has assimilated a lot of his interests and past experiences musically into both his subtle writing and playing style. But that means he isn’t a ventriloquist or even more subtly going down the esque-is-more route not that there’s anything wrong with that. (That’s playing in the mould of someone else or doing a tribute to them.) So Calling You Home is an original conception even bearing in mind the familiarities of the framing. It’s highly decorous, very easy on the ear, classy and on the basis certainly a connoisseur choice of clout with the only caveat that if you’re looking for a little edge you’ll have been misdirected. No animals were hurt in the making of this recording. But equally there’s no need at all for Watson to kill his darlings given the concision and clarity of these carefully carved out renderings.
- Hear Watson back in Chelsea next month at the 606 on 8 July.
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TUBE’S, GRAZ, AUSTRIA – Upcoming acts include Seamus Blake, Eleonora Strino and Tim Armacost
Hidden away in the heart of an area called Grieskai, Tube’s stands as a testament to the vibrant, beating cultural heart of Graz. Calling the spot “just a jazz club” feels like an understatement. Walking into Tube’s – according to insiders – you’re immediately hit by a vibe that is equal parts trendy cafe and legendary basement haunt. They say it is intimate, cosy, and purpose-built for people who actually want to hear the music rather than say watch football, or the paint dry, same difference, on screens. Big warning for music fans everywhere: the World Cup is coming up which usually is massively disruptive and even if you hate football you end up watching it during breaks if out and about. Sigh.
The venue serves as a bridge between local talent and international heavyweights. It’s not a game of two halves! But you may well be over the moon if starved of real top jazz action and decide to go along.
It’s not uncommon, apparently, to see students from the nearby University of Music and Performing Arts (KUG) rub shoulders with world-class touring artists.
Beyond the music, the bar offers a solid cocktail list and snacks. It’s the kind of place where live sessions are frequently recorded, capturing the high-calibre musicianship that has become the venue’s trademark. With affordable student rates and a commitment to accessibility, Tube’s remains one of the most welcoming spots in the city for anyone looking for an authentic unplugged experience.
Check out Tube’s website. To get to Graz if not local, international visitors can fly directly into Graz Airport, take a three-hour train or bus from Vienna Airport, or arrive via the main railway station or the A2 and A9 motorways. Tram travel within the historic Graz city centre is free.
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Knats, A Great Day in Newcastle, Fontana ***
There’s been a lot of hype and co-ordinated push about this homage to Newcastle and the north-east. I read this article in The Guardian prior to release for example and a piece run in Music Week about Universal getting behind Knats. I’m baffled really given how so many other acts on the UK scene are far more interesting but remain unheralded beyond the support of the usual suspects. I’ll be very interested to see if the hype actually means something beyond a few helpful high profile articles. To be frank I don’t like A Great Day in Newcastle – the title, much adapted down the years, riffing on a famous Art Kane 1950s photograph – at all. Reader: I have tried to convince myself otherwise!
Shouty spoken word, a gritty local storytelling angle that probably means something more locally than if like me you are not from the area, the opener ‘7 Bridges to Burn’ tries to be too cinematic.
There’s little grace to the approach. And the band are better when they stick to instrumental passages.
‘Gainsborough Grove’ with its brassy beefiness I preferred. But ‘Wor Jackie’ again riffs off dialect and shares something with the less than ideal opener.
The thematic instrumental section is more interesting than what has gone before, however. The core members of Knats who are essentially a jazz-rock fusion outfit at heart include Stan Woodward on bass, King David-Ike Elechi on drums, Ferg Kilsby on trumpet, Sandro Shar on keys, and George Johnson on saxophone. ‘Messy In’ is a swamp of keys to begin and ‘Azure Blues’ is dancier. But ‘Bigg Market Scrappa’ is far too shouty for my taste. ‘Carpet Doctor’ has a bluesy boogie-ing feel but again I am not at all won over by the spoken word story telling aspect. Pick of the tracks? I’m struggling to find one! I hope I am proved wrong, it all catches on and I radically change my mind about the band in the future and all this proves a roaring success despite my reservations expressed above. But hand on heart and I can only be truthful: it’s not my cup of tea at all.
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Lorikeet, Woven, Babel ***1/2
You can’t quite categorise the fine plumage of this interesting folk-improv band. Info on it is sketchy. I am not parroting a press release. A lorikeet is a parrot, fact, any old excuse for a pun, but seriously and without swearing like a sailor in exasperation I have no idea if that’s why the band is so named. Ventriloquising other people’s publicity material brings me out in a rash. It’s marlbank, not Orville.
But I am not allergic to conducting a little rudimentary online research. So, from what I gather – and do erect a gallows if I am wrong – Lorikeet hail from the Frome scene in Somerset where all this fruit of the loom was recorded at the Bert Jansch studio a couple of years ago and just released by the resurgent Babel label.
‘My Mother Is A Leader’ according to the band who formed four years ago is “a song about mothers stepping into their power as leaders.”
Written by Lorikeet’s English singer-guitarist Rosanna Schura known for her work with the Andrews Sisters-loving close harmony act the Puppini Sisters, the band also has American cellist Heather Truesdall best heard on the improvisation called ‘Fell Line’ and English drummer Dave Smith, known for his work with Robert Plant.
Under the latter name English folk rockers Steeleye Span recorded the song on their second album Please to See the King (1971).
Lorikeet’s treatment is quite a bit jollier! And overall the humour on this bucolic clebration is upbeat rather than doom laden.
Woven has several improvisations that hook in my interest. Truesdall is quite Shirley Smart-like on ‘Unspool.’
But in the end I liked Schura’s ‘Dandelion Seeds’ even more. She is quite Sandy Denny like on this.
There’s a 1920s song interpreted called ‘Sugar Baby’ a lament of a henpecked man that has a chorus line: “I’ll rock the cradle when you’re gone.” Sam Amidon is among artists to have covered the song in fairly recent years.
What else? There’s jazz trumpet from Laura Jurd in a ‘St James Infirmary’ vein on Schura piece ‘Hot Slow June’. Jurd is also a presence on Puppini Sisters album The Birthday Party released earlier this year. Other Woven guests include violinist Theo May on 3 tracks.
Also good on Woven is a take on the mid 19th century folk song ‘Cuckoo’ that the Hastings born folk eminence singer Shirley Collins – now in her nineties – interpreted in the 1950s on Sweet England.
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