Going into the studio tomorrow playing some of the tunes performed on this occasion, the surprise in the line-up was the welcome presence of dazzling bebopified Shetlander alto saxophonist Rachael Cohen (filling in for an unaccountably absent Michael Chillingworth) who sight read the part and meshed well with marvellously mellifluous tenorist and bass clarinettist James Allsopp who uncannily unglooms the gloomiest of tubes.
Italy born, double bassist and composer Andrea Di Biase’s approach bridges contemporary European jazz, classical influences and modern improvisation. Trained at the Milan conservatoire before completing postgraduate jazz studies at London’s Guildhall, he has worked with leading figures including Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone and Julian Argüelles.
A lot of the energy from the quintet was stoked by the rhythm section. Phronesis icon Ivo Neame man of Kent on piano, who has been working with ultra melodic old school Blue Note saxophone star Walter Smith III recently, reliably found just the right set of propulsion to fatten out the harmonic lines.
Jon Scott – superb in Adam Waldmann’s Kairos 4tet back in the day, a band Ivo was also in – nowadays JS is the drummer in the brilliant GoGo Penguin – was on exciting long time England residing Di Biase’s earlier album from 2012 Uncommon Nonsense that was a quartet affair. Listening to Ivo made me recall the night he jammed with Wynton Marsalis on the same piano in this very room in June 2010.
What I liked most about this “augmented” Oltremare [meaning from the Italian “beyond the sea”] configuration bolstered by an additional horn was ‘The Island of Instability’ – an edgy multi-layered elegy dedicated for Di Biase’s adopted Brexit scarred British homeland.
Di Biase is on one of 2026’s top UK jazz albums as part of Bruno Heinen’s The W on the Bartók and Chick Corea inspired Mikrokosmos.
The bass don’s approach last night in some of the more absorbing densely contrapuntal passages made me think of the touch of Henri Texier a few times; and maybe there are intimations of ex-Chick bass supremo Avishai Cohen too in the winning blend of asymmetrical time signatures that he has cultivated within his compositional profile. He’s a kindred spirit aesthetically to Frome scene Dane Henrik Jensen it’s worth noting.
It certainly will be interesting to hear the new Oltremare album when the work is complete and the time is right for the music to come out in the future. Tunes are convincing, it’s a dynamic vision certainly that traverses a stimulating array of ballsy chamber jazz directions underscored by a firm rhythmical imperative.
