Drawn from this solo piano album to be released next month Calling You Home includes 6 originals of Watson’s.
”Experimenting with Piano/Rhodes on an original composition of mine, Tetrad,” says Watson, captioning this video.
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 trio album The Loop came out 20 years ago. It has the extraordinary bassist Orlando Le Fleming on it plus drummer Tristan Maillot. Le Fleming is on the upcoming Ant Law stormer, Unified Theories.
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.
Landing beyond immaculate into the no-safety-net mystic: l-r Martin Maretti Andersen, Karsten Dahl, Daniel Franck. Photo Carsten Dahl’s website
Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka in the 1970s film based on a classic Roald Dahl children’s novel from the 60s – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams”
Thoughts of another Dahl – a literary one – intrude. They are apt given the pleasure Komponistens Suite engenders in this one clip. Think about what Gene Wilder says in this clip. Take it literally whether an artist or a passive listener interconnected forever.
I did not think Into the Storm – the Danish pianist Dahl here with a couple of star American players – could be bettered.
A cosmic quartal harmony is part of the fabric
But bettered it is. Instinctively I know this “Composer’s” suite is just about the best thing I have heard thus far in 2026.
Firstly, committed Dahl-ings of any stripe forgive me, before getting to the heart of the matter a word on this particular Dahl as he still isn’t that well known beyond Denmark and the trainspotter community of specialist jazz journalism consumers of which dear reader you are possibly one. It just shows you how hard it is to gain instant familiarity even when you are as phenomenal a player as Dahl and have been around for yonks. Looking at his date sheet there are lots of concerts coming up. But again you’ll have to travel to Denmark to hear this extraordinary trio live up close and personal which is always the ideal.
The 58-year-old leader was born in Copenhagen and worked as a professional drummer before teaching himself the piano and formally switching instruments while studying at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory. He gained prominence in the 1990s as a member of the influential trio Ginman Blachman Dahl. Still doing it Plays Ballads last year was appealing. But this trio under review has the edge given the level of what comes over as spontaneity and “in the moment” hackneyed phrase – but you know what I mean – “inspired” creativity that shuts everything else out prostrate on the altar of art.
Over his four-decade career, Dahl has contributed to hundreds of albums apparently. Catching up is going to take a while – but then again there’s the World Cup to avoid so there’s no better time.
His achievements include winning the Ben Webster Award in 1997, the Jazzpar Prize in 2000, and the Django d’Or in 2006. He has also received two Danish Music Awards for Best Jazz Album. Alongside his performance career, Dahl is a former conservatoire professor and has expanded his portfolio to include classical orchestral compositions.
The trio in the video are playing a lot more straightahead at Copenhagen jazz club the Montmartre last year.
Here he is then, foreplay almost over, on Komponistens Suite with Swedish double bassist Daniel Franck 11 years his junior who came to live in Denmark in the late-1990s. His style reminds me of Palle Danielsson a bit. DF worked with singer Caroline Henderson on Lonely House, and on Swing Is the Thing tenor saxophonist Jesper Thilo, who sadly died in April, and leads his own quartet.
Completing the trio it’s drummer Martin Maretti Andersen who hails from Silkeborg in Denmark. He is a long time member of Pierre Dørge’s reliably wacky New Jungle Orchestra.
Another Carsten Dahl album you may like from earlier this year and again recommendable: Into the Storm mentioned earlier.
Tune titles are in Danish. I looked a few up – ‘Samtaler med mig selv’ where Dahl does a bit of Jarrett-like nasal “singing” along not at all annoyingly means ‘Conversations with Myself’ ; ‘En dag i Saties liv’ – ‘A Day in Satie’s Life.’ It isn’t pastiche.
There’s a lot here. I just let it play and play and tried not to think too much about what I was hearing instead attempting to absorb its intensity and go with the flow.
The rhapsodic side of the album is heard best on the unbelievably beautiful ‘Eftertanke’ a word that translates as “Reflection” or “Afterthought”. Given how much the power of the album overall lingers long the notion of afterthought is pertinent.
Certainly there is a compelling narrative urgency to what unfolds.
Highly abstract it’s not very avant-garde although at times there is a challenging dimension to certain passages. But it does feel highly creative in a pushing against boundaries way. I think of Keith Jarrett quite often and break off to go back to Dahl’s Jarrett themed album The Solo Songs of Keith Jarrett. That is rewarding.
It’s like being in the presence of a faith healer and I bow to the words of Philip Larkin in that regard given the solemnity and power on those treated in his poem ‘Faith Healing’ that can impact on a listener so much: “Like losing thoughts, they go in silence; some/Sheepishly stray, not back into their lives/Just yet; but some stay stiff, twitching and loud/With deep hoarse tears, as if a kind of dumb/And idiot child within them still survives.”
Incognito’s Bluey awarded an MBE – photo: Wikipedia
Jean-Paul Maunick, known as Bluey, longtime band leader of Incognito, has been awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours.
Long time regulars at Ronnie Scott’s where they regularly play New Year’s Eve, Incognito were formed at the tail-end of the 1970s by Mauritius born guitarist Maunick, who is 69, and Paul “Tubbs” Williams, growing out of the disco-funk ashes of Light of the World.
They debuted in 1981 with the album Jazz Funk, but the decade that followed was largely a quiet affair spent in relative obscurity or tinkering with various outside projects.
The real pivot arrived in 1991 when Gilles Peterson snapped them up for his Talkin’ Loud label, instantly positioning the band at the absolute vanguard of the roaring British acid jazz and club explosion of the time.
Over more than four decades, Incognito has behaved less like a conventional band and more like a fluid, ever-revolving musical collective. Led from the front by Bluey, the group has rotated through hundreds of world-class musicians and exceptional vocalists, including the likes of Maysa Leak, Jocelyn Brown, and Tony Momrelle.
Recent activity of Maunick’s in the 2020s beyond Incognito includes STR4TA with Gilles Petersons
The achievements over that span are significant. They scored major global chart success with their 1991 anthem-like cover of Ronnie Laws’ ‘Always There’ featuring Jocelyn Brown, and followed it up with a stellar reading of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing’ a year later. Their definitive 1993 album Positivity became a massive international crossover success, selling nearly one million copies worldwide.
BEM for Dave Cottle – photo: davecottlemusic.com
Also figuring in the King’s Honours list just announced is pianist, keyboardist and trumpeter Dave Cottle, from Swansea, awarded a BEM for services to Jazz Music. He has been a central figure in the Swansea live jazz scene since the 1970s, organising the weekly programme at the Swansea Jazz Club since the 1990s. Born into the famous musical Cottle brothers dynasty, he frequently collaborates with his siblings, Laurence and Richard. He has also directed the 18-piece Power of Gower Big Band and has co-lead The Louis & Ella Music Show touring tribute project. He also founded the annual Swansea International Jazz Festival in 2014.
Danny Keane has released ‘Time To Go’, the third single from his upcoming album Kinesis, due on the eve of assumption 14 August via MVKA.
The Grammy nominated, Anglo Irish multi-instrumentalist keeps the setting stripped back. He plays with Jon Thorne of Lamb renown on double bass, and Sarathy Korwar the tabla player known for his great run of work on the Gearbox label on drums. The trio settle into an acoustic, understated sound.
Closing track
‘Time To Go’ closes Kinesis. The album moves between contemporary jazz idioms, broader fusion touches. This piece brings a quieter, more direct ending.
“I lived in a ‘music house’ for twenty years with a lot of my best mates,” says Danny. “It was crazy – endless parties. We all played together, toured together, and wrote together. It was an amazing time in my life, but eventually, it became dysfunctional. I realised I had to leave that place.”
Keane has worked with Mulatu Astatke, Anoushka Shankar, Nitin Sawhney, Damon Albarn. He joins Astatke at the Royal Festival Hall on 17 June as part of Harry Styles’ Meltdown.
I loved Roamin’ back in the annus horribilis otherwise that was 2020. He was soukin’ diesel in gulps on that and successfully get the motor running. Read a marlbank mention above by clicking on the graphic & the album is below.
What to look out for on the new ‘un
The six-track album centres on ideas of movement, musical, personal. Alongside the core trio, Keane brings in England trumpet icon Byron [brother of classical composer, Errollyn] Wallen, who teaches on the same Swiss faculty as Tom Arthurs and Django Bates. Byron was also on Roamin’. Ruth Goller from Let Spin; James Arben, also a Mulatu head; and Adnan Joubran whose oud figures on ‘Cathartic Chaos are also on Kinesis.
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