Josh Lawrence, And That Too, Posi-Tone ***1/2

While US trumpeter Josh Lawrence so far on our listening journey flickered most on our radar in a different setting stylistically - the far more anarchic Tarbaby sound - here Lawrence corresponds with the Posi-Tone house approach to which he has …

Published: 22 Feb 2023. Updated: 14 months.

While US trumpeter Josh Lawrence so far on our listening journey flickered most on our radar in a different setting stylistically - the far more anarchic Tarbaby sound - here Lawrence corresponds with the Posi-Tone house approach to which he has contributed a lot as has bassist Boris Kozlov and pianist Art Hirahara. It's often an uptempo swinging-the-bejaysus out of the tune affair in some of its most stimulating passages - the whole thing zinging along. Drum duties on And That Too are split between the great Rudy Royston and Jason Tiemann.

And That Too is quite similar to Call Time (2022) issued last year but you get a traddier wah-wah Jungle quality to a track like 'Silver's Drag' that you don't get here on the upcoming release. 'Hole in the Wall' goes on a bit too much and yet Lawrence's pure and very personal speaking-to-you tone that recalls Ryan Kysor a bit is persuasive even when things become overly relentless. The muted 'Left Hanging' is a welcome bit of balladic balm that finds Lawrence melding well with tenorist Willie Morris III who takes a fine solo here in the JD Allen mould. Seek Morris wailing brilliantly on that earlier release, Call Time.

For horn arrangements look to 'Cantus Firmus' ''the fixed song'' if you like, given a lot of metaphorical licence in the ancient musical term to relocate its meaning, is the feeling of continuum in a jazz tradition that all these players do much to luxuriate in and explore sensitively. And That Too includes a respectful version of Wayne Shorter's 'Nefertiti' introduced lovingly by Hirahara. Lawrence never sounds like Miles as a copyist at all but keeps faithful to the 1960s idiom. He and the band take you tenderly to that destination that you will want to book a return ticket to pronto. Out on 24 February

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London Brew, London Brew, Concord Jazz *****

So far this year there have been only two major statements by jazz artists from the UK and Ireland. The first A Short Diary last month is from the Scotland born Sebastian Rochford and English born Kit Downes operating as a duo; the second, this, …

Published: 22 Feb 2023. Updated: 12 months.

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So far this year there have been only two major statements by jazz artists from the UK and Ireland. The first A Short Diary last month is from the Scotland born Sebastian Rochford and English born Kit Downes operating as a duo; the second, this, month, is by the Ireland born singer Christine Tobin where Returning Weather is like splitting the atom of jazz and Irish traditional music for the first time successfully. The third arrives in March - from London English Brits from a wide range of backgrounds often spanning the AfroCaribbean diaspora - London Brew (5-stars). It is significant because the Concord Jazz release marks a new chapter for post electronica post colonialist jazz-rock. Whether London Brew will tour as a band or not is unclear.

The album takes the Miles Davis jazz rock epic Bitches Bew as part of its creed and belief system as well as its nominative manifesto. But apart from Dave Okumu's role - the John McLaughlin of the project - there isn't any obvious or even any connection at all to the obvious style of Bitches Brew or more to the point any exact idiom. What you have here instead is a band of players in a state of the art studio with highly creative producers and engineers on hand telling their own truth, living their best lives in a post-post-post electronica alt-rock universe fed by jazz language when sadly much of the essential language out there has been mothballed to the museum or lives on only in the tribute band circuit. Rather like a book that has a dedication to a great one at the beginning the pages that follow are the interesting bit and completely London Brew's own narrative. Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, Okumu, Theon Cross , Benji B, Tom Skinner and more are involved most of whom are significant leaders in their own right and actually tear up the book only keeping a torn reference to Miles out of respect. Think of the project less as a thesis about the strength of the dynamic UK jazz scene because it is that but more quite simply a work of art because it certainly is. Photo: Nathan Weber. Out on 31 March

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