Ed Cherry, Are We There Yet? Cellar Live ***1/2

Some one said: ''The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.'' Precisely, and they are that which we know. – T. S. Eliot Apply notions of tradition and the individual talent to jazz, why not. There's nothing …

Published: 30 Jan 2023. Updated: 14 months.

Some one said: ''The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.'' Precisely, and they are that which we know.

– T. S. Eliot

Apply notions of tradition and the individual talent to jazz, why not. There's nothing pretentious here or over-demanding for the listener beyond proper gratitude for the conjuring of a certain contentedness. Custom made for lounge listening in a proper jazz club that knows against the odds and sage counsel of the TikTok generation programmers that it is still cool to play 1960s-esque soul jazz Are We There Yet folds in the classic sound of Kansas City born Blue Note organist Big John Patton (1935-2002) a sound that you used to hear a lot during the acid jazz era - acid jazz being a mostly London DJ rebranding of gems from the earlier definitive soul jazz days.

A new version of 'Ding Dong' from Patton's Understanding is here working wonders. Ex-Dizzy Gillespie player guitarist Ed Cherry, Kyle Kohler crucially on Hammond B3 and drummer Byron ‘Wookie’ Landham plus vibist Monte Croft do the vital necromancy. Hard bop paterfamilias, the ultimate primus inter pares Jeremy Pelt, produces and acts as séance master. If anything the new version is even bouncier and dammit zanier than the original. Landham keeps the style of Understanding's Harold Walker closely in mind. If you like Nigel Price on the UK scene then Wes' 'Mr Walker' is where Cherry is closest to His Nigeness. Carla Bley's 'Lawns' from the 1980s gets covered a lot these days and yet has not reached saturation point and fits in well with the much earlier period feel that dominates here.

Cedar Walton's 'The Holy Land' that first surfaced blissfully on the David 'Fathead' Newman Atlantic album House of David in 1967 has a superb organ intro from Kohler but overall the cover isn't a patch on Newman's or for that matter Milt Jackson's late period mastery exhibited on The Harem. You win some you lose some especially when the bar is set as high as it is on this album overall. So to wrap and cut the chat to a minimum: think when you are down at the crossroads and stare at the signs going different places seemingly that say in faded paint ''Art'' one way and lit up in a bright colour ''Entertainment'' another and you are too unsure to know which to choose here you realise that they may be different roads but they go eventually - somehow - to the same place of infinite pulchritude.

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Moss Freed and Union Division, Micromotives, Discus Music ***

Union Division generate their own tonality and sense of time. If you appreciate conduction, an underlying soundworld that springs to mind, a systemised hand signal triggered improvising style championed by Butch Morris (1947-2013) then this is a …

Published: 30 Jan 2023. Updated: 14 months.

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Union Division generate their own tonality and sense of time. If you appreciate conduction, an underlying soundworld that springs to mind, a systemised hand signal triggered improvising style championed by Butch Morris (1947-2013) then this is a must. ''Micromotives'' is the name for guitarist Moss Freed's own music theory and is according to his website ''a compositional system and set of pieces that is as flexible as the players, retaining levels of freedom akin to those found in small group free improvisation.''

Improvised via Micromotives thinking, either including but just as easily ignoring entirely set suggestions, the communitarianism is navigated by hand signals. And the pantheon to whom the collective doffs its hat to involves composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton, electronic music experimental composer Pauline Oliveros, the Stravinsky, jazz and minimalist-influenced composer Louis Andriessen, free-jazz saxophonist composer John Zorn, the Cagian Christian Wolff, godfather of minimalism Terry Riley and avant bassist Barry Guy. The dedicatees tell a certain story and what their music - a sound not heard on any typical Jazz FM playlist - stands for in combination if you create in your own mind a thought experiment palimpset locates this remarkable endeavour up to a point. And yet the final leg of the listening journey, the end user loop if you like when all influences are packed away once their role as a kind of sonic realia is over, is uniquely Union Division's home signal.

Played by a medium sized group of advanced UK jazz and non-aligned improvising musicians, Freed is best known for his work with Let Spin and in this very different gathering alongside him - the group is the ultimate instrument of all adhering to an idea borne through method - are trumpeters Laura Jurd best known for the band Dinosaur, Mopomoso leading light Charlotte Keeffe, Zorn specialist Sam Eastmond, trombonist Tullis Rennie, saxophonists Rachel Musson, George Crowley, Chris Williams (Freed's Let Spin bandmate), flautist Rosanna Ter-Berg, cellist Brice Catherin, double bassist Otto Wilberg, pianists iconic Cagian Steve Beresford and radical improviser Elliot Galvin, drummers Will Glaser and James Maddren stunning in an entirely different context last year on Vermillion, plus on electronics and bass guitar Pierre Alexandre Tremblay.

Opener 'Union of Egoists' the Braxton homage is sprawling and maximalist and you immediately gain a sense of invigorating freedom. The role of piano is far more important on the dedicated to Oliveros piece while 'Left Leaning' has more a punk intensity. The opening section of 'Kilter,' the Zorn homage, is certainly one chief highlight but there is a lot here that works just as well.

Moss Freed, photo: publicity shot

Available via Discus Music