Photograph of Olie Brice and Nick Malcolm by Tim Dickeson

6th ANNUAL BATH JAZZ WEEKEND, WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB, BATH

SATURDAY 10th JANUARY 2026

OLIE BRICE QUARTET

Olie Brice – double bass, Rachel Musson – tenor saxophone, Alexander Hawkins – piano, Will Glaser – drums

The second day of the 2026 Bath Jazz Weekend featured five musical performances commencing with a quartet led by bassist and composer Olie Brice, who is something of a BJW regular. In 2025 he appeared as a member of alto saxophonist Dee Byrne’s Outlines sextet,  an excellent group performance that forms part of my BJW 2025 coverage.

This year he was back leading his own quartet before returning to the stage several hours later as a member of trumpeter Nick Malcolm’s quintet Out Front.

For this opening performance Brice was leading the quartet that featured on the acclaimed 2025 album release “All It Was”, recorded in October 2024 at the Fish Factory studio in London. Today’s performance featured some of the pieces from that recording plus one new, as yet undocumented, composition. We also heard “Blues for Johnny Dyani”, which appears on Brice’s 2022 release “Fire Hills”.

In his liner notes for “All It Was” Brice states;
“This music was written in a period of intense emotions, as the grief and pain of losing my father tangled and fused with horror and despair at the genocide in Palestine – but life is complicated, and the music also comes from joy and love.”

The quartet that appears on “All It Was” features some of the UK’s leading improvisers, all of them bandleaders in their own right,  making this something of a British ‘supergroup’. Brice is an accomplished free improviser and has often worked in this context but he’s a talented and intelligent composer too and for me his best work is music that straddles the boundaries between composition and improvisation, with “All It Was” representing a perfect example of this. As the quartet played I was variously reminded of the music of Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus, which represents praise indeed.

The performance commenced with “Listening Intently to Raptors”, the opening track from the “All It Was” album, a piece dedicated to the American bassist John Lindberg, the title deriving from an email conversation that the pair had during the lockdown period. Brice started things off from the bass, his tone deep and resonant. He was joined first by Glaser, deploying brushes, followed by Hawkins and Musson, with Glaser switching to sticks following the introduction of the latter’s muscular but expressive tenor sax. Hawkins’ piano solo was a torrential outpouring that variously recalled Thelonious Monk and Keith Tippett, while Brice’s bass feature was a welcome reminder of just what a physical player he can be with a combination of plucking and strumming.  Glaser responded with a brushed drum feature that included the charming filigree of chiming cymbals.

This marked the transition into “Morning Mourning”, written for Brice’s late father Tosh Brice, to whom the “All It Was” album is dedicated. Glaser’s cymbals were joined by Brice’s bass in a gentle dialogue, the beauty and serenity of which represented a welcome reminder that improvised music doesn’t necessarily have to be angry or confrontational, something emphasised by the lyricism of Hawkins’s piano solo. As the music gradually gathered momentum Musson picked up on the melody, using it as a springboard to probe deeply and sometimes turbulently as this study of the grieving process embraced a greater dynamic contrast, with Glaser moving from brushes to sticks. Finally the sound of Brice’s unaccompanied double bass brought this impressive opening segue to a close.

Also from the “All It was” album came “A Rush Of Memory Was All It Was”, effectively the title track. A dedication to pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, both sadly no longer with us, the piece takes its title from a phrase coined by the American writer Nathaniel Mackey. Introduced by the sounds of arco bass and brushed drums, but with Brice switching to the pizzicato technique as sax and piano were introduced, this was a powerful and uncompromising piece of work featuring Musson’s increasingly impassioned tenor sax soloing and Hawkins’ appropriately Taylor-esque pianistics. With the group still in piano trio mode Hawkins playing eventually cooled down as a more lyrical approach was adopted prior to Musson’s return towards the close of this free jazz tour de force.

The new tune “Wood or Sea” featured a more conventional jazz sound with Musson’s tenor taking the lead as she shared the solos with Hawkins. There was also something of a Coltrane-esque ‘spiritual jazz’ sound about the music, particularly in the latter stages of the piece, with sax, piano and bass underscored by Glaser’s mallet rumbles and cymbal shimmers.

A return to the album material for “And We Dance On The Firm Earth”, the title derived from a poem by the late Barbadian poet Kamau Braithwaite (1930-2020). This saw a rolling bass and drum groove gradually becoming established, this acting as the vehicle for Musson’s fluent and powerful tenor sax soloing. Drummer Glaser generated an impressive rhythmic power via the use of brushes alone.

The quartet concluded with “Blues for Johnny Dyani”, a dedication to the late, great South African bassist and composer, one of Brice’s all time bass heroes. An extended unaccompanied double bass intro saw Brice pulling out all the stops in a virtuoso display that deployed a range of techniques, including spectacular flamenco style strumming. Eventually a bass melody emerged, with the leader joined by Glaser’s brushed drums. The addition of piano and Musson’s growling tenor sax helped to give the music a genuine South African feel, with the leader’s bass very much at the heart of the music.

Although the music was a little challenging at times this was an excellent way to start the second day of the Weekend. Brice and his colleagues are acknowledged experts in this particular sphere of jazz, skilfully merging composition with improvisation and moving seamlessly between the two. On the evidence of this performance it was easy to see just why “All It Was” has been so well received by the critics. Under Brice’s watchful eye everybody in this ‘band of bandleaders’ performed well, both as individuals and as part of an impressively cohesive unit guided by Brice’s artistic vision.

ALISON RAYNER QUINTET (ARQ)

Alison Rayner – electric bass, Deirdre Cartwright – guitar, Diane McLoughlin – tenor & soprano saxophones, Steve Lodder – piano, Buster Birch – drums

The second set of the afternoon session offered a total contrast with the spiky acoustic jazz of the Brice Quartet followed by the melodic electric jazz of the Alison Rayner Quintet or ARQ, pronounced ‘Ark’.

ARQ have been featured regularly on the Jazzmann web pages and I have reviewed all four of their albums “August” (2014), “A Magic Life” (2016),  “Short Stories” (2019) and “Sema4” (2024), plus a number of live shows at a variety of locations. In other words I’m pretty familiar with their music, but it’s always a pleasure to see this consistently excellent live act in action.

Introducing the band BJW organiser Nod Knowles recalled that he had booked The Guest Stars, an all female band that included both Rayner and Cartwright, to play at the Bath International Music Festival back in 1986 as part of a now legendary double bill that also included Loose Tubes.

Nearly forty years on Rayner and Cartwright are still producing high quality music and ARQ have deservedly emerged as one of the most popular acts on the UK jazz circuit, a reputation justified by the consistent excellence of their exciting and engaging live performances.

Today’s performance focussed on material from ARQ’s two most recent albums, “Sema4” and “Short Stories” and the programme included compositions from Rayner, McLoughlin, Lodder and Cartwright. Rayner chose to specialise on electric bass throughout, the first time I’ve seen her do this with ARQ. With a grand piano in situ and with all the drummers at BJW playing a kit provided by Dave Smith, who was to appear later with Nick Malcolm,  I suspect that the members of ARQ may have travelled to Bath by train, making the electric the obvious choice.

Rayner’s writing is variously inspired by people or locations and today’s performance began with “Espiritu Libre”, the opening track from “Sema4” and a composition inspired by a road trip through the Basque Country and the Pyrenees. The title translates as “Free Spirit”, a phrase that was embodied by the colour, vibrancy and sheer joy of the music. Introduced by Birch at the drums the piece featured buoyant rhythms,  scintillating unison melody lines from soprano sax and guitar and concise but exciting solos from Cartwright, McLoughlin and Lodder.

Several of the compositions on the “Short Stories” album were dedicated to people who lost their lives too soon. It may sound a sombre concept but these pieces serve as celebrations of lives well lived rather than acting as dirges or laments. “There Is A Crack In Everything”, which takes its title from a Leonard Cohen lyric, is dedicated to Rayner’s niece Pippa Handley (1978 – 2018), a keen cyclist. The tune’s often complex rhythms imitate those of cycling, particularly the gear shifts, characteristic of long cycling journeys around the hills and lochs of Handley’s native Scotland. These were expressed in the guitar and piano arpeggios of Cartwright and Lodder and the complicated clicking of Birch’s sticks on rims. McLoughlin was featured as a soloist on soprano sax while Lodder delivered an extended unaccompanied piano episode.

Back to “Sema4” for McLoughlin’s self explanatory “Looking For A Quiet Place” with the composer continuing on soprano sax. A beguilingly melodic composition the piece featured a piano solo from Lodder and a soaring guitar excursion from Cartwright that saw her making good use of her range of electronic effects. Rayner also impressed with a short but melodic electric bass cameo.

From the same album Lodder’s “Hamble Horror” featured an extended unaccompanied piano intro, a relatively gentle start before the addition of bass and drums helped to kick start what was ultimately a fast moving piece with Lodder continuing as the featured soloist before handing over to McLoughlin on tenor and Cartwright on guitar.

From the same album Rayner’s “Trip Dance” was conceived as a kind of folk dance “with a little trip in it”. This was segued with “Elegy for Art”, a tune from ARQ’s debut album “August” and originally dedicated to Rayner’s late father, Arthur. The tune has now also become a homage to Birch’s father, also called Arthur, who passed away more recently.
Ushered in by Birch at the drums the quirky rhythmic patterns of “Trip Dance” acted as the catalyst for solos from Cartwright on guitar and Lodder on piano as McLoughlin continued on soprano sax.
Birch’s ebullient drum feature provided the link into the more considered “Elegy for Art”, introduced by a passage of unaccompanied guitar from Cartwright that evolved into a guitar / electric bass duet with Rayner. This gently lyrical piece also included the sounds of tenor sax, piano and brushed drums, the hymn like tune gradually becoming more anthemic, with Rayner delivering a liquidly melodic electric bass solo.

From the “Sema4” album Cartwright’s “Signals From Space” was inspired by the signals emanating from neutron stars and featured a solo guitar intro that included Morse code like rhythmic patterns. As the piece developed further additional solos came from Rayner on electric bass, McLoughlin on soprano sax and Lodder at the piano.

Rayner’s composition “Semaphore”, effectively the title track of the latest album, was inspired by the non verbal communications between musicians- the nod of the head, the raised finger etc. This commenced with a passage of unaccompanied electric bass before Birch joined to help establish a lively and quirky rhythmic groove. The subsequent exchanges between Cartwright’s guitar and McLoughlin’s tenor were examples of the “Sema4” principle in action, with Lodder also featuring as an instrumental soloist with a turbulent excursion on piano.

From the “Short Stories” album McLoughlin’s “Buster Breaks A Beat” was written as a feature for drummer Birch and in the composer’s words experiments with “broken beats, funk and retro dance music”. Birch’s broken beat grooves helped to inspire colourful solos from Lodder on piano, Cartwright on guitar, again making good use of various effects, and McLaughlin on tenor sax. This was a piece that included an additional element of humour from a group who always look as if they’re having fun when they play, with Birch rounding things off with a playful drum feature.

A sell out crowd at the WSC, we really were packed in cheek by jowl with the musicians sometimes struggling to actually access the stage, gave this hugely popular quintet a great reception and as this was the last act of the afternoon session ARQ were offered the opportunity of playing a brief encore.

This proved to be the as yet unrecorded Rayner composition “Portrait of Jaco” (look what she just did there), a tribute to the late, great Jaco Pastorius, Rayner’s first bass inspiration. This was an appropriately funky offering featuring solos from Lodder on piano, Cartwright on guitar, McLoughlin on wailing tenor sax and Rayner on appropriately Jaco-esque electric bass, with Birch finally rounding things off.

There was nothing here I hadn’t heard from the group before but this is a band that can always be relied on to deliver the goods and they did this in spades. I just loved it, as did many others.

ARQ combine excellent melodic writing with exceptional playing and present their shows with warmth and wit. No wonder audiences love them and their music. As Nod Knowles pointed out none of the band members is exactly in the first flush of youth, but nevertheless this is a group that is still at the peak of its creative powers.

ROBERT MITCHELL

Robert Mitchell – piano, electronics, voice

The first event of the evening session was a solo piano performance with a difference from Robert Mitchell.

Mitchell is something of a musical and cultural polymath, a gifted musician and composer but also a poet, educator and activist. His musical output has been broad, encompassing jazz, free improvisation, contemporary classical music, electronica, nu soul and r’n’b. He has recorded in a range of formats ranging from solo piano to albums with his six piece electric group Panacea. One of my favourite outlets for Mitchell’s music was his 3io group, a piano trio featuring bassist Tom Mason and drummer Richard Spaven that released the album “The Greater Good” back in 2008. More recently I enjoyed his duo with cellist Shirley Smart and their album “Zeitgeist²”, which dates from 2022.

Mitchell’s latest project is the trio Little Black Book, which sees him playing both grand piano and electric keyboards in the company of guitarist / bassist Zayn Mohammed and drummer Laurie Lowe. Essentially Mitchell’s ‘fusion’ outfit with Chick Corea, Allan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny and Jimi Hendrix among the many named influences, this trio released the album “Blueprint” on Whirlwind Recordings in 2025.

Tonight’s show was an immersive performance that mixed the sounds of sampled voices with piano and electronics, the samples largely derived from speeches by left leaning political and environmental activists. Mitchell dedicated the show to the memory of  Jacques Panisset (1948-2025), the founder of Grenoble Jazz Festival, whose brother Daniel was present in the audience. He also dedicated it to the memory of Renee Good, the thirty seven year old woman recently shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

Mitchell took to the stage wearing a Jean Michel Basquiat T-shirt, which reminded that the last time I’d seen him play a solo piano set was as part of a F-ire Collective double bill with Basquiat Strings in the Pillar Room at Cheltenham Town Hall back in 2007.

Introducing the performance he rattled off some of the pieces that he was intending to play, with an opening improvisation followed by “Breath of the Architect”, but one suspects that he soon wandered off piste during a lengthy opening sequence that mixed sparse but beautiful pianism with vocal samples plus an extraordinary passage that saw Mitchell deploying the body of the piano, plus his mic stand, as a form of percussion. He then lifted his voice to recite his poem “A Room In Which To Dream”, seeming to cut this short in order to play a solo piano piece featuring the unadulterated sounds of the Yamaha grand’s keys.

In 2012 Mitchell recorded the solo piano album “The Glimpse”, a collection of pieces performed using the left hand only. Far from being just a novelty the album is one of the most satisfying works in Mitchell’s diverse back catalogue. He performed three concise left hand pieces consecutively here, one augmented by sampled voices. In a blindfold test a musician would possibly pick up on the unusual nature of the performances, the average listener, such as myself, probably would not – but in this case Mitchell has alerted us as to what was about to happen.

An absorbing, intriguing and frequently beautiful performance concluded with the flowing, classically inspired lyricism of “Flight of the Heron”, which also incorporated Mitchell’s fragile whistling. He followed this by reciting his poem “Truth”, thus ending the performance with words rather than music.

Mitchell’s immersive solo set was very well received by an attentive audience – you could have heard the proverbial pin drop – a very satisfying reaction to an eclectic and sometimes challenging presentation of words and music. I had been expecting a kind of solo version of the Little Black Book project, but although that recording does include a couple of tracks that incorporate the spoken word there was nothing from that album here.

I have to say that I prefer Mitchell’s playing, which is technically brilliant, to his verbal proselytising but on the whole this excellent solo set was pretty much a joy from start to finish.

LOUIS SCLAVIS / BRUNO DUCRET DUO

Louis Sclavis – bass clarinet, clarinet, Bruno Ducret – cello

Nod Knowles is an avowed Francophile who has attended many French jazz festivals and clearly has a great love for the country and its music, and particularly its jazz scene.

BJW has always had something of an international flavour and this year’s overseas visitors were the French duo of clarinettist Louis Sclavis and cellist Bruno Ducret.

Sclavis, born in 1953 is French jazz royalty, and has recorded over thirty albums as a leader, several of these appearing on the prestigious German record label ECM. Although best known as a clarinettist Sclavis also plays various saxophones and his musical output embraces jazz, folk and contemporary classical music. He has also written extensively for cinema.

His duo partner Bruno Ducret was born in 1991 and is the son of bassist Hélène Labarrière and guitarist Marc Ducret. Not surprisingly Bruno plays some guitar too. Marc Ducret is a bandleader in his own right and has also worked with Sclavis. Marc has also enjoyed a long association with the American saxophonist Tim Berne and has also worked with the Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser.

Bruno Ducret has worked widely as either cellist or guitarist across a broad range of music genres and has also played for theatre and dance.

For many people this performance was the most keenly anticipated of the Weekend, it’s not often that either of these musicians performs in the UK. Despite the age difference Sclavis and Ducret have clearly established an excellent rapport and although Sclavis handled all the announcing duties this was very much a partnership of equals.

The material included compositions from both musicians but I’m not going to attempt to list the titles, which were delivered by Sclavis in heavily accented English. The music itself borrowed from jazz and also from the baroque and from contemporary classical music. It represented a heady and frequently highly complex melange with the duo reading from heavily notated scores. There was a lot of technique on show, with Sclavis largely specialising on bass clarinet and producing some extraordinary sounds from the instrument. Ducret’s cello was variously bowed, plucked and strummed in a thorough examination of the instrument’s sonic capabilities.

The first item, which actually incorporated two compositions,  included complex unison melody lines featuring bowed cello and bass clarinet. Elsewhere plucked cello took on the role normally associated with jazz double bass, Sclavis demonstrated the full range of the bass clarinet and Ducret’s own solo section incorporated all three cello techniques.

The next piece, which was still untitled, was both intense and complex, but appeared to include a degree of improvisation alongside the densely written sections as siren like cello was succeeded by guttural bass clarinet.

Sclavis’ agility and breath control on the bass clarinet was quite remarkable, he’s a true virtuoso on the instrument capable of producing some extraordinary sounds, sometimes reaching beyond jazz and classical and into the world of Arabic music.

Another piece featured a stunning example of Sclavis’  circular breathing on bass clarinet, producing an almost didgeridoo like vocalised growl, this contrasting effectively with the decorous bowing of Ducret on cello.

The final item was a type of suite that saw Sclavis alternating between bass clarinet and clarinet, also impressing on the latter during a series of unaccompanied clarinet episodes punctuated by passages of solo bowed cello. The closing section saw vigorously bowed cello underpinning Sclavis’ flights on both clarinet and bass clarinet.

A delighted Nod Knowles, who had only previously seen the duo members perform as part of a quartet, invited them to remain on stage for a brief but playful encore with Sclavis focussing on just clarinet.

There was much to admire here and for many listeners this was their favourite performance of the whole weekend. However, I used the word ‘admire’ advisedly – yes, I was often blown away by the duo’s obvious technical expertise, particularly Sclavis, but for me the music was often overly complex and busy and aside from the obvious skill of the players I found it hard to latch onto - actual melody seemed to be in relatively short supply. With its unusual combination of instruments maybe it was all little too ‘classical’ for me, although I don’t deny that it was a fascinating musical experience and I certainly found it interesting and intriguing. But from a personal point of view this was music to admire rather than actively enjoy. It’s a thin line between the two but I do know that there were others who felt the same way. Nevertheless I can still fully appreciate why so many people found this such a highlight.

NICK MALCOLM’S OUT FRONT

Nick Malcolm – trumpet, Jake McMurchie – tenor sax, Jason Yarde – alto sax, Olie Brice – double bass, Dave Smith – drums

Despite its members coming from various parts of the country this new quintet led by Bristol based trumpeter and composer is very much a BAND and their debut album “Buried Webs” is democratically credited just to Out Front.

Released in 2025 the album features seven compositions, five by Malcolm and one each from Yarde and McMurchie. We were to hear all of them tonight, albeit in a different running order to the recording.

During the course of the performance Malcolm explained that the band had first been formed in January 2020, just before the Covid lockdowns, and that its initial source of inspiration had been the music of trumpeter Booker Little (1938-61) and pianist Andrew Hill (1931 – 2007). Initially the group started out playing Hill and Little tunes but later began to write their own material. As with Brice’s quartet earlier in the day I also thought I could hear echoes of Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus in there too.

The quintet commenced with a segue of Malcolm’s tunes,  with “Mycelium” followed by album opener “The Roots That Clutch”.
Introduced by Smith at the drums “Mycelium” featured the fascinating blending of the three horns in a kind of chorale underscored by circling drum patterns. The addition of double bass led to the establishment of a rolling groove with a brief unison theme statement leading to solos from McMurchie and Yarde before the music veered off into more loosely structured, semi avant garde territory, the two saxes carousing above freewheeling bass and drum rhythms.

Malcolm took something of a back seat on the first number but was more prominent on The Roots That Clutch”, which was again ushered in by Smith, this time deploying cymbals. Again the three horns combined to state the melody before Malcolm embarked on the first solo, a welcome reminder of his fluency and adventurousness as a trumpet soloist. Yarde’s alto feature included an unaccompanied episode as the music again wandered into free jazz territory, featuring the fluid rhythms of bass and drums and the barking of the horns.

Malcolm explained that he felt that the first two items were linked by a kind of “forest floor mentality” and that jazz as an art form continued to thrive in similar conditions, dwarfed by the big trees of big business and corporate rock but a richly varied and fertile eco-system in its own right, creating valid work and loved by those alert enough to discover it. He looked around the sold out room and cited Bath Jazz Weekend as a case in point, a prime example of the ‘all in this together’ mentality of British jazz.
An aside – it’s interesting that the Scottish pianist and composer Fergus McCreadie called one of his recent albums “Forest Floor”. Maybe he was thinking along the same lines, although in the case of the nature loving Fergus I suspect that the title was probably a bit more literal – but who knows?

While Malcolm announced his tunes so Yarde and McMurchie introduced theirs. Yarde’s multi-part composition “Ever Before After Beyond” featured a fanfare like horn chorale above the sound of mallet rumbles, the horn stabs becoming increasingly staccato in nature. An unaccompanied drum passage then helped to establish a rolling groove topped by lengthy horn melody lines, the lead changing hands on a regular basis. A second solo drum episode re-introduced the staccato horn fanfares from earlier on before Brice came to the fore with a double bass solo softly underscored by the horns.

The next piece was unannounced but by a process of elimination it must have been Malcolm’s composition “The Preservation of Fire”, the second track on the album. Introduced by carousing horns it featured powerful solos from both McMurchie and Malcolm, these fuelled by Brice’s muscular bass, as mentioned previously he’s a very physical player, and Smith’s dynamic drumming.

McMurchie’s “Carmine at Crepescule” was named for the Carmine Bee Eater, a brightly coloured Zambian bird, although one suspects that the title might also represent a slight tip of the hat to Thelonious Monk. This was introduced by the sounds of double bass, brushed cymbals and hand drumming with Brice’s bass motif subsequently underpinning the feathery melody lines of the horns, these evoking mental images of the fluttering of birds. Subdued but warm textures imparted the ‘crepuscular’ element and the overall focus was on the collective creation of an atmosphere rather then on individual soloing. Malcolm occasionally made use of extended trumpet techniques while Smith is to be praised for a particularly delicate and sensitive drumming performance.

Malcolm’s “Song Unlimited” was actually dedicated to the late Andrew Hill, a musician with whom Yarde actually played. It was ushered in by a passage of unaccompanied double bass, to which were added unison horn melody lines as Smith continued to sit out. Even Brice dropped out eventually to leave the horns temporarily alone. Brice’s return to the bass also saw the introduction of brushed drums, this leading to an extensive bass / drum dialogue, with Brice shouldering the lead. Eventually Malcolm joined on trumpet to form a trio before the saxes returned. This was another beautifully controlled performance and a worthy homage to Hill, albeit one played without a piano.

The performance concluded with “Dark Dancing”, the final track on the album. Again introduced by bass and drums this developed to feature some ebullient unison horn riffing above increasingly dynamic drumming. The three horns continued to carouse, exchanging braying lines, even when the bass and drums temporarily dropped out. A rousing way to round off an excellent group performance that had generated plenty of musical fireworks on the quintet’s first gig of the year,  but one which had also produced moments of exquisite beauty.

Malcolm is an artist who is always at his best when bridging the boundaries between composition and improvisation as his quartet albums “Glimmers” (2012) and the excellent “Beyond These Voices” (2014), both of which feature Brice, prove. Both are reviewed elsewhere on The Jazzmann.

In 2025 both Brice and Malcolm appeared at BJW as part of saxophonist Dee Byrne’s excellent Outlines sextet. This year it was good to see them back and leading their own groups so effectively.

 

 

 

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