There is a rush to judgement which often skews reviews. Sometimes of course you have a gut feeling and write it down and it is as true as anything. But I didn’t want to rush to react this time around.
I have been living with Serendipity by contrast for longer than usual before writing about it. And yet it only came out recently. I had a few ideas about what to write. But somehow the words didn’t really reflect what I was feeling.
But now I think I know what I want to say.
So here goes. It was good to begin with. It gets better and better the more you return to it and discover its hidden byways, discreet corners, interesting asides, private language and sometimes even a blues connotation.
Serendipity is a very unproduced affair, the antithesis of happy, shiny pop music where production values are far higher but sometimes where results can be vapid and crass and the results totally throwaway.
The fact that there are no massive post production additions, overdubs, added electronics, 16 producers or however-many involved is as so often becomes a plus factor rather than a fear of not throwing the kitchen sink at its seemingly underdressed lack.
You get a direct impact from the duo of pianist Alex Ho and and alto saxophonist Donovan Haffner that can’t be muted by a fog of electronics or the committee decision.
Haffner’s Alleviate was refreshing last year. I think I like Serendipity even more. The South Londoner emerged through the Tomorrow’s Warriors development programme.
The title track sounds very different here. It’s one of 8 instrumental pieces. I’m not a fan of acronyms so was baffled by ‘FYBSPG’ and frankly I am still baffled to learn the letters stand for “Fending Your Buoyancy in a Swell of Pure Garbage.”
No me, neither but yeah it’s hard not to be ground down by this vale of tears we all live in on planet earth. I stopped worrying about tune titles a long time ago. Musically there’s a Monk-ish feel perhaps in Ho tune ‘Odd Humour’. The gruffness in Haffner’s sound is far more distinctive than the piano part, however.
Ho has been in the Gary Crosby Quartet and has played in Zara McFarlane’s band.
The effect overall isn’t clinical nor overly cerebral. There is an earthiness to the timbre of Haffner’s individualistic sound. He is also refreshingly loud and not a weedy player at all. And isn’t individuality what’s at the heart of all jazz that actually remains with you?
Ho’s accompaniment makes me think of Kenny Barron a few times and there is a rapport here that Barron achieved with Dave Holland on an album called The Art of Conversation a dozen or so years ago which isn’t a million miles away idiomatically to what’s here if you make the leap in the instrumentation. But if Serendipity has a fault it – unlike what masters like Barron and Holland never neglect to remember – forgets to reflect sheer joy and doesn’t swing enough.
Other observations. Do we need two takes of ‘Dusk Over Dystopia’? But yep: it is a super piece and the best thing here.
