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009 Dan Forshaw Quartet

‘No Jazz Please, We’re British’ 4shaw Music (c) 2009

By David BeattiePersonnel: Dan Forshaw (tenor sax), Jonathan Geyevu (piano), Jerelle Jacob (bass), J Hoy (drums)

This latest release by the Dan Forshaw Quartet was recorded live as part of the ‘Jazz in the Chapel’ series at LST in March 2009.

Immediately thumbing its nose at the album title, the live set launches vigorously into Sonny Rollins’ St. Thomas with the Quartet soloing back and forth and, by the sound of it, having at least as much fun as the audience. Breathless brio is then followed by calm, assured control in the face of the more subtle challenges posed by A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square – that nostalgic conceit of lovers everywhere in 1940 – and by recently deceased (†October 2008) Basie trumpeter Neal Hefti’s Li’l Darlin with its slow, simple theme that tends to die if it isn’t played at exactly the right tempo. The Quartet doesn’t blink or falter here. Caravan, an Ellington classic, combines Afro-Cuban elaboration over a repeating rhythmic vamp section with interspersed passages of more harmonic variety. While this provides ample scope for the more up-front contributions of Dan and Jonathan, the excellent groundwork of J and Jerelle is in no way overshadowed (and deserves mention in dispatches here and throughout the album).

The centrepieces of the set are the opening and closing movements from John Coltrane’s hymn to spirituality and his undeniable masterpiece, A Love Supreme. In Acknowledgment, after the fulsome invitation, Dan leads us into a solo of emotional depth and urgency that builds as each musical statement is either developed or countered with a response. The culmination is a magisterial exploration of a wide spectrum of tonalities echoing a central 4-note leitmotif. In Psalm the suite resolves with the saxophone hovering over a stratum of tranquil sounds from Jonathan, Jerelle and

J; the tempo has now slowed, but intensity levels are maintained superbly. No genius is needed to tell that the Love Supreme project is dear to Dan’s heart, reflecting the final words in Coltrane’s original liner notes: ‘Elation – Elegance – Exaltation’. And let it be emphasised that all this is not just about the saxophone: the whole Quartet together is paying sincere homage to one of the landmark creations of 20th-century jazz.

The appeal of this No Jazz Please, We’re British collection is very much rooted in the excellent choice of material and specifically in what the Quartet does with it. Often this is primarily a matter of unusual chord voicings which open up wider harmonic perspectives for improvisation and embellishment, as in the probing and highly un-Disneyesque reading of Someday my prince will come. Or else adjustments of rhythm and phrasing are made to familiar tunes: the Quartet’s propulsive take on Summertime creates an emotional feel that is entirely different from the effect achieved when the song is sung.

This feast from the canon of jazz standards is rounded off by an original Dan Forshaw composition, Lipstick on a pig. With his keen ear for topical idiom, Dan has latched on to this phrase used

back in September 2008 by Barack Obama (just Google it for the background) to inspire an intelligent, sophisticated and – eventually, after its complex intro – good old-fashioned 12-bar blues.

On No Jazz Please, We’re British the Quartet under Dan’s leadership displays a deepening maturity, assurance and inventiveness in its handling of frequently well-known material. Clearly, familiarity has engendered the kind of respect that is a potent springboard for productive exploration and experimentation. And when we remember that these guys are all still in their 20s, we can only say: ‘More jazz please’ – whether we’re British or not!

No Jazz Please, We’re British is available via www.danforshaw.com or via the i-tunes store

“The Quartet display a deepening maturity, assurance and inventiveness in it’s handling of frequently well-known material”

David Beattie