Semi-detached from any genre there's been a buzz about West Coast Yank drummer/vocalist Louis Cole for years growing especially since Time in 2018 which had both Thundercat and Brad Mehldau on it. But usually that noise emanates from outside the jazz village and filters in from the big bad world via the so called hipster press to reach reliably unhip jazzers fed more on bebop and ballads habitually who couldn't give a stuff about what Pitchfork or whomsoever think is a hot cereal killer destined for the earpiece and a scroll over the shreddies and TikTok, probably never to be listened to again.
Metropole Orkest from the Netherlands are orchestral guns for hire. They crop up with all sorts of projects and with all sorts of top people. There's no real UK equivalent. And certainly you are in safe hands when they are about. But they aren't stiff like symphony orchestras playing jazz as is often the case so dispiritingly.
English conductor Jules Buckley whose best work of all was with the Heritage Orchestra in the mid-noughties is a Proms regular. You might be thinking given all this - and turning to Nothing - so what? Because this certain ''something'' you say is for eclectics - people who like great music but flounder about like wounded soldiers. '''Tis but a scratch,'' as the Black Knight had it. It's as if Cole and chums at his own court of Camelot are saying, cutting off their critics at the pass, ''Now stand aside, worthy adversary.''
Smörgåsbord of sounds
And these folk grazing at an ever moveable musical buffet usually shy well away from most jazz. Right? Sort of. But Cole and co are more core. They are good at subverting your fixed notions by presenting that very smörgåsbord of invariably flavoursome choices in a curveball way. If a swinging daddio type - and aren't we all? - then 'Cruisin' for P' cleverly riffs like an old swing band that Buddy Rich might have put together. The twist is to put a vocal and arrangement on top that modernises it without being arch.
Specialists in all styles
Playing Cole's tunes the top banger - again not a very jazz thing to say but it is what it is - happens to be 'Things Will Fall Apart'. If you hear nothing from the album locate that bit of serious welly. The Jazz Emu strain in the lead vocals win you over in the end but there's nothing cod about the album at all. Crispy too is the title track that has an Elgarian strings dimension to it a factor that comes as a surprise at that point of the album. But the Jacob Collier-esque 'Who Cares' tracks I happily skip in contrast to the shall we say ravier 'Weird Moments' tracks. As you can tell suddenly the whole centre of gravity of the album has shifted. It's so various you need a personal navigator. That restlessness is both to the album's credit but also given the odd maverick detour something of a flaw.
The opening orchestral passage on 'These Dreams Are Killing Me' is the sort of segment you get introducing a montage on BBC end of year staple Sports Personality of the Year. (Why am I thinking skiing?) 'Doesn't Matter' however at over 11 minutes is another real achievement of the album. That's not just because it is longer. But because the orchestra paints pictures better than anywhere else. An invigoratingly sprawling release, treat yourself to a few of its free wheeling thrills and spills.
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