Dave Storey Trio, Circeo, Clonmell Jazz Social ****

Dancing in the dark: raw, bohemian, graceful tenor from James Allsopp is the sort of sound ideally you might hear mysteriously. Picture standing outside a club. You can't get inside. Stranded, barred by a bouncer who doesn't like the cut of your jib

Published: 5 May 2023. Updated: 30 days.

Dancing in the dark: raw, bohemian, graceful tenor from James Allsopp is the sort of sound ideally you might hear mysteriously. Picture standing outside a club. You can't get inside. Stranded, barred by a bouncer who doesn't like the cut of your jib - for having the temerity to breathe in other words. Suddenly there is that sound coming from somewhere. You end up stopped dead in your tracks. The vents allow the sound to escape and rebel against the jobsworth that scuppered your plans. Next day back in the squalid office cubicle you call home and where you spend most waking hours you are somehow changed because of that fleeting experience of having heard some kind of truth that came out of someone's saxophone, one in collision with the ever seductive numbers mingling in the ever open spreadsheet in front of you.

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The feeling when there is a person in a given room, on a given record, who has that mysterious attribute, charisma and yet doesn't really seem to do very much but certainly inspires everyone else to be themselves is a factor here. Dave Storey, the very one, isn't much known. He sounds a bit like Paul Clarvis, the expert at less-is-more percussiveness and succinct distillation of emotion. Most of the tunes are Allsopp's, a much better known player than the leader, and they are very well gathered, little vignettes that don't claim to be a symphony or anything grand but somehow are just that. Allsopp isn't being ever so 'umble to the point of humdrum - it just sounds natural. Anything bassist Conor Chaplin is on, completing the trio, is a good sign of quality. Allsopp the more he goes on enters a Mark Turner universe but into the near-freeness on 'Gemelli' there are three ''voices'' one song, the tumble of tom, slight tonal shifting amid a velvety softness of saxophone, fabulous jingling of sax keys from Allsopp when you get to the meat of the improvisation and gutsy emoting all part of the recipe as Allsopp - Geronimo - reaches almost to the altissimo heights. The icing on the cake is the very moving take on 'Body and Soul' that Coleman Hawkins made jazz history with in 1939. Waltz irrespective of time signature in the wonder of why we're here at the sheer sorcery and winning audacity of it all. Out today

Dave Storey, photo: Clonmell Jazz Social

Tags: reviews

Scott Flanigan, Clouded Lines, SF ***

Long in the offing we first wrote about the prospect of Clouded Lines in 2019 and now out, a lot has happened since in Scott Flanigan's career. The pianist and composer runs a weekly club in Belfast on Fridays which has quickly added profile to …

Published: 5 May 2023. Updated: 21 days.

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Long in the offing we first wrote about the prospect of Clouded Lines in 2019 and now out, a lot has happened since in Scott Flanigan's career. The pianist and composer runs a weekly club in Belfast on Fridays which has quickly added profile to the local scene. Flanigan, as we have commented before we see as a James Pearson like player meaning specifically he is essentially a modern mainstreamer with a prodigious technique like the Oscar Peterson and George Shearing loving Pearson crucially grounded in swing, bebop and the art of the ballad. Flanigan is also soaked in the blues having toured earlier in his career a lot with Lisburn blues icon of the Northern Ireland scene the formidable Ronnie Greer.

As for records Clouded Lines arrives eight years after Point of Departure which was a trio album with bassist Neil Ó'Lochlainn and drummer Steve Davis and which included standards such as ‘Moonlight Serenade’, ‘I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face’ and ‘Stars Fell On Alabama’ proving a very mature and compelling start.

His best work we think even bearing in mind this latest album is in a different role when he plays organ with His Royal Higness on 2019's fabulous O’Higgins & Luft Play Monk & Trane.

Clouded Lines is a co-commission from Belfast promoter Moving On Music working with the PRS Foundation and has London based guitarist Ant Law and the pianist-leader's fellow Irish players bassist Dave Redmond and drummer Kevin Brady from down south on it and begins almost with a quasi-Romantic 'Prelude' (the piece topping and tailing the album) and is formed mainly by a Flanigan suite. Law is an incredible, world class, player and steals the show - as he did live in trumpeter Henry Spencer's band Juncture last year reviewed here. Flanigan's writing proves darker than his debut album and just as ingeniously conceived possibly showing some Brad Mehldau influence in touches here and there.

But generally speaking the cheerful, sentimental side of his approach is never far away and he happily swings particularly on the third part of the suite. 'I've Got A Crush On You' is an old fashioned sort of piece which seems a bit dated. Much preferable is 'If It's Not Yourself' with its bebopified scurrying dash. Brady - excellent live with Seamus Blake, Redmond and Bill Carrothers a couple of years ago as Ireland emerged out of Lockdown reviewed here - comes into his own on 'She Has Music'. Overall, easy on the ear, venturing straightahead and beyond, there is plenty to dive into and Flanigan launches the album tonight with Law, Redmond and Brady in Belfast - click for further details. Scott Flanigan, above, photo: press