Avram Fefer, Juba Lee, Clean Feed ****

The fabulous Pleonid (2017) was the last time saxophonist Avram Fefer was on our radar. It is no reflection on the prolific and stimulating avant saxophonist but maybe an indication how territorial jazz appreciation can be when a leading light from …

Published: 2 Nov 2022. Updated: 17 months.

The fabulous Pleonid (2017) was the last time saxophonist Avram Fefer was on our radar. It is no reflection on the prolific and stimulating avant saxophonist but maybe an indication how territorial jazz appreciation can be when a leading light from a particular scene even a US one is pretty much little-known beyond even among specialist listeners.

Not so guitarist Marc Ribot famed for his work with Tom Waits and Eric Revis, from the Branford Marsalis Quartet one of the greatest jazz groups of the last 30 years particularly when Tain was still in the band, on this gem of an album the title track of which is streaming. A case once again of the democracy of the music when leaders become side players when the situation is right. Old news.

Completed by drummer Chad Taylor - begin if new to the quartet with Testament put out in 2019. Taylor thinking further back was magnificent in 2011 heard live at London's Bishopsgate over the road from Liverpool Street station playing Ayler in Ribot's trio with Henry Grimes.

On Juba Lee Fefer is on tenor and on bass clarinet and brings a righteous frisson and blues connotation throughout. Highlights include a new version of Fefer's Abdullah Ibrahim tribute 'Brother Ibrahim' that appeared in a different guise on 2004's Shades of the Muse. There's a sense of freedom throughout this fine album that simply can't be commodified which elsewhere is a faultline within a lot of contemporary jazz when cats do the right thing often for the wrong reason. There is no such bad faith anywhere here one of the reasons why it gets you deep within.

Avram Fefer photo: Clara Pereira

Out on 18 November

Tags:

Sizzling Inn, Street Sight, Hout ***

Pangs at missing sitting in a jazz club hearing an exciting new band if absent from one for oh more than a few weeks often rise up. Some acts don't sound like an authentic small jazz club band at all. But Sizzling Inn who boast a bassist in Banz …

Published: 1 Nov 2022. Updated: 17 months.

Next post

Sizzling+Inn

Pangs at missing sitting in a jazz club hearing an exciting new band if absent from one for oh more than a few weeks often rise up. Some acts don't sound like an authentic small jazz club band at all. But Sizzling Inn who boast a bassist in Banz Oester from the land of the Toblerone do.

On 'Street Sight' the third track and title-track here these pangs rain on down after beginning to listen with no expectations but soon enough launder the whole sound to be quickly enough completely hooked.

So chocs away - A guitar, bass, drums - Noé Tavelli is the tub thumper to hand - trio - think a more donnish version of Gateway from the 1970s to get in the zone.

And like the much missed John Abercrombie who clicked so well with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette Sizzling Inn leave their egos behind and play as one in a wistful, chord sensitive intellectually satisfying oblique space where nothing is remotely a cliché.

It's not chocolatier Theodor Tobler at the helm here. Feel free to whirlygig away at the fondue instead to 'Skepticism' and guitar boffin Théo Duboule is a great new name to discover as model citizen of this Abercrombian realm.

Let's hope Sizzling Inn appear at the jazz corner where you imagine yourself dun roamin' surrounded by wizened jazz relics or young guns with an amp or two to jolt you from a crafty nap this side of inevitable dotage. These sizzlers may not be about to play 'In Walked Bud'. More instead one to toast and wade in to commandeer copious sticky pud over during a celebratory yodel or an obligatory aside.