BMJ Collective with Alex Hutton, Black Mountain Jazz, Melville Centre, Abergavenny, 11/05/2025.

Jack Mac (Jack McDougall) – tenor sax, Nick Kacal – double bass. Ryan Thrupp – drums
with guest   Alex Hutton – piano

PROLOGUE

BMJ Collective is essentially the house band of Black Mountain Jazz.  Originally formed in 2021 for that year’s ‘hybrid’ Wall2Wall Jazz Festival the line-up has undergone a number of personnel changes and currently features founder member Jack Mac on reeds and occasional vocals, together with Nick Kacal on double bass and Ryan Thrupp at the drums.

Mac, Kacal and Thrupp also act as tutors at the BMJazzKatz sessions which bring young people  together for regular jazz sessions at the Melville Centre, with the intention of forming a youth big band. Mac is heading the programme and the Katz, together with their tutors, have already made three public performances, two of which have been covered elsewhere on this site.

The idea of the tutors then performing for the public in the evening following the Sunday afternoon sessions is not only for ticket sales to contribute towards the teaching costs, but also for the students to see their tutors performing at their best and embodying the JazzKatz motto of “work, play, inspire”.

As these BMJ Collective gigs have now become regular events it is intended that a different guest musician will be invited to perform with the group each time. To date the   ‘BMJ Collective With’ series has featured vocalist Sarah Meek, pianists Ross Hicks Michael Blanchfield, Tom Berge and Anders Olinder, trumpeter Gethin Liddington and guitarists Chris Cobbson, Denny Ilett and John Close  Founding member Alex Goodyear also returned for a guest appearance at the drum kit, temporarily replacing Ryan Thrupp. All of these performances have been hugely enjoyable events and each has been reviewed elsewhere on The Jazzmann.

Every performance in the series has included an interesting selection of material sourced from the jazz canon and beyond, the majority of it chosen, or written, by the guest performer. All of the gigs have exceeded my expectations, representing far more than the usual obligatory or perfunctory ‘house trio with guest soloist’ session.   As I have previously observed,  “this is a series of events that continues to punch well above its weight”.

BMJ COLLECTIVE with ALEX HUTTON

The majority of BMJC’s guests have been based in South Wales or the Borders, many of them with close affiliations to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) in Cardiff. The March 2025 event saw them expanding their geographical horizons with a visit from the London based pianist and vocalist Hilary Cameron, whilst April saw them reaching out to Bristol and guitarist Denny Ilett, Both of these shows are reviewed elsewhere on this site.

May saw the Collective welcome Windsor based pianist and composer Alex Hutton. BMJC bassist Nick Kacal lived and worked in London for many years before moving to South Wales and his association with Hutton dates back some thirty years. However Hutton had only met Mac and Thrupp for the first time on the afternoon of tonight’s gig, although one would never have guessed it on the evidence of tonight’s scintillating performance. The rapport that Hutton and Kacal had developed all those years ago was still very much in evidence, whilst the collective affinity that BMJC have established during their many shows together also helped tonight’s one off aggregation to gel remarkably quickly.

Yorkshire born Hutton is no stranger to the Jazzmann web pages. He first made his name on the national jazz scene with the release of two albums for 33 Jazz, “Cross That Bridge” (2005) and the critically acclaimed “Songs From The Seven Hills” (2008), the latter a musical portrait of his native Sheffield. Both these albums were recorded in the piano trio format alongside bassist Michael Janisch, with Simon Lea occupying the drum chair for “Crossing” and Enzo Zirilli taking over for “Seven Hills”.

As a fan It was the “Seven Hills” album that first brought Hutton to my attention and in 2012 I got to review his third album “Legentis”, which was released on the F-ire Presents imprint and introduced a new trio featuring Russian born bassist Yuri Goloubev and Israeli drummer Asaf Sirkis. There were also guest appearances by Heidi Vogel (voice), Jim Rattigan (French horn) and Keith Thompson (flute & cor anglais). This was an excellent album that featured some superb playing allied to some excellent writing from Hutton, his compositions drawing on an admirably broad and eclectic sphere of musical influences. Tonight’s programme reflected something of that range, albeit with the focus on music written by others. My review of the “Legentis”  recording can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/alex-hutton-trio-legentis

In 2013 I enjoyed an excellent live performance by the trio of Hutton, Goloubev and Sirkis at a Shrewsbury Jazz Network event at The Hive, Shrewsbury. It was a show that largely featured material from the “Legentis” and “Seven Hills” albums and is reviewed here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/alex-hutton-trio-the-hive-shrewsbury-11-05-2013

Hutton’s next release, also for F-ire Presents, was “Magna Carta Suite”, again recorded with the core trio of Goloubev and Sirkis. Also featuring guest appearances from Liz Palmer (baroque flute), Liesbeth Allart (cor anglais) and Neil Sparkes (voice) this was an ambitious, conceptual work written to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. It was an appropriately noble effort but a little fragmented and ultimately fell a little short of the glories of “Legentis” and “Seven Hills”. My review of this album can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/alex-hutton-trio-magna-carta-suite

Unfortunately the “Magna Carta” album appears to be the last to be released under Hutton’s own name. However he continues to perform live on a regular basis and I saw him play as part of guitarist and composer Nicolas Meier’s World Group at the 2024 EFG London Jazz Festival. Other musicians with whom Hutton currently works on a regular basis include saxophonists Frank Griffith, Brandon Allen, Benn Clatworthy, Chris Biscoe and Alex Garnett, trumpeters Bruce Adams, Steve Waterman and Enrico Tomasso and vocalist Lily Dior.

Right from the start of tonight’s performance it was obvious that the classically trained Hutton is a virtuoso pianist with a formidable technique. He’s also adventurous and playful, a musician willing to take chances and to have musical fun, all positive qualities for a jazz musician. The lively, upbeat opener a quirky take on the bebop standard “Bouncing With Bud” included solos from Mac on tenor sax, Hutton on the Melville Centre’s acoustic upright piano, Kacal on double bass and finally a series of drum breaks as Thrupp ‘traded fours’ with Hutton and Mac.

The classic Bill Evans composition “Waltz for Debbie” was performed in the piano trio format as Mac sat out. Introduced by a passage of unaccompanied piano this presented a gentler, more lyrical side of Hutton’s playing, with Kacal and Thrupp providing sensitive support via double bass and brushed drums. Kacal took the first solo, his bass playing articulate and dexterous. Hutton followed at the piano, gradually increasing the momentum of the music as Thrupp graduated to sticks. The performance concluded with an unaccompanied piano cadenza.

The personnel was pared back even further for a duo performance of the standard “I’ll Be Seeing You”, featuring just Hutton at the piano and Mac on tenor sax. An unaccompanied piano introduction was followed by Mac’s tenor solo, his playing soft and breathy at first, but becoming more assertive as things progressed. A second passage of solo piano followed, superseded by a second duo episode that featured a restatement of the theme followed by a series of variations. Considering that the pair had never worked together before this was a performance of remarkable quality and one that was very well received by the discerning Abergavenny audience.

With the full quartet reassembled Hutton took the “spontaneous decision” to perform the standard “Fine and Dandy” in an arrangement inspired by a version performed by pianist Bud Powell and alto saxophonist Sonny Stitt. Hutton promised a “slice of pure bebop, in the spirit of Sonny Stitt”. It was a challenge that certainly appealed to Mac who took flight on tenor, accompanied by Hutton’s skilled comping, allied to Kacal’s propulsive bass lines and Thrupp’s crisp drumming. Hutton followed at the piano, then Thrupp at the drums, his extended feature periodically punctuated by Mac’s sax interjections.

At Shrewsbury the Hutton trio had encored with an arrangement of the traditional Welsh folk song “Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn” (“Watching the White Wheat”), a song that some members of the audience could remember having sung at school. Tonight’s rare Welsh date for Hutton saw him bringing the song back, once more in a trio arrangement as Mac again sat out. Performed in the style of a jazz ballad it was ushered in by a passage of unaccompanied piano, with bass and drums eventually added, with Thrupp deploying a combination of brushes and mallets. A second solo piano passage then featured a series of jazz variations on the familiar folk melody. Again this was an item that proved to be particularly popular with the Abergavenny crowd. An inspired choice, Alex.

I mentioned that Hutton’s influences were both diverse and eclectic. There was further proof of this in evidence as the quartet closed out the first set with Hutton’s jazz arrangement of the pop song “Rather Be”, a hit for Clean Bandit featuring Jess Glynne.  Unaccompanied piano introduced the melodic hook, prompting Thrupp to set up a hip hop style brushed drum groove that was also reminiscent of E.S.T. as Mac embarked on an expansive tenor solo, really digging in as he surfed the propulsive rhythms. Thrupp graduated to sticks to deliver an extended drum feature, seemingly the climax of the performance, but there was unexpected twist with a surprisingly gentle coda that included Kacal’s use of the bow at the close. This was another piece that was very well received, perhaps because of the energy and virtuosity of the performances.

There was no letting up in terms of energy levels at the start of the second set as the quartet began with a rousing version of “Del Sasser”, a tune written by Cannonball Adderley bassist Sam Jones. This featured an exceptional piano solo from Hutton, arguably his best of the night, this fuelled by Kacal’s rapid bass lines and Thrupp’s dynamic drumming. Mac was also featured on tenor and Thrupp at the drums, the latter in a series of exchanges with Hutton and Mac.

Hutton’s folk leanings were again revisited with an arrangement of the American folk tune “Shenandoah”, which was performed in the piano trio format. Hutton’s intro, with piano accompanied by Kacal’s bass and Thrupp’s mallets offered a series of subtle variations on the familiar melody while Kacal delivered a gorgeously melodic double bass solo. During the course of the tune Thrupp variously deployed mallets, brushes and sticks as the pace of the music demanded. I seem to recall US guitarist Bill Frisell performing a stunning version of his song.

I didn’t catch the Portuguese title of the next piece, a song from Brazil introduced by the combination of piano and Thrupp’s hand drumming, with sax and double bass subsequently added. Mac’s melodic theme statement was followed by a highly dexterous bass solo from Kacal, before the saxophonist took over to solo on tenor. Hutton’s solo introduced Afro-Cuban flavourings while Thrupp contributed a remarkable drum feature that incorporated rolling patterns on the toms variously played with hands and mallets, and eventually sticks as his playing became more dynamic. Mac’s tenor vamped behind Thrupp before moving up front to deliver a final them statement.

The Hutton original “Clouds”, which appears on the “Legentis” album was one of the pieces performed by the trio at Shrewsbury back in 2013. Described by its composer as a “simple, melancholic folk theme” it resurfaced here, again as a trio item, and featured Hutton’s expansive but lyrical piano meditations and Kacal’s melodic double bass soloing. The ending featured Kacal’s sonorous bowing, underpinned by Hutton’s rippling piano arpeggios and Thrupp’s delicate cymbal embellishments. A beautiful trio performance.

The set closed with Hutton’s second dip into the pop universe and “Don’t You Worry Child”, a song by the Swedish group Swedish House Mafia that the pianist described as “an anthem from the dance world”. Hutton set up the tune with an unaccompanied piano introduction, instructing the rest of the band to “just come in where you like”. Miraculously it all seemed to work with Thrupp establishing a suitably EDM style drum groove to accompany Hutton’s increasingly percussive piano – for jazz listeners GoGo Penguin might provide a suitable reference point.  This proved the jumping off point for solos from Mac on tenor and Hutton at the piano, plus a colourful drum feature from Thrupp that saw him deploying a wooden stool situated by the drum kit as a form of auxiliary percussion – a pre-planned move I suspect.

Of course the audience loved this unusual but highly energetic final number and the quartet remained on stage to deliver an encore that saw them going back to the jazz repertoire for a playful rendition of “Tea for Two”.  This included features for all four musicians, with Mac, Hutton and Kacal followed by a series of brushed drum exchanges as Thrupp traded phrases with Mac and Hutton.

With its combination of interesting and unusual tune selections covering jazz, folk, pop and electronica, allied to some brilliant and highly adventurous playing it was the general consensus among the members of the audience that this was the best BMJ Collective with… performance thus far.  This represents quite an accolade given the quality of some of the previous guests and the quality of some of the performances that have resulted. Make no mistake tonight’s show was a brilliant jazz performance, full stop, as good as anything given by more regular and established line ups and striking that supreme balance between tightness and spontaneity. After a slightly predictable start the creative sparks really did begin to fly and between them the quartet delivered something quite special, albeit with Hutton’s hand very firmly on the tiller, steering the good ship BMJC into highly creative waters.

It’s going to take some following, that’s for sure, but next month’s BMJC collaboration with New Orleans style pianist Dom Pipkin should also produce musical fireworks, albeit in a very different jazz style.

Meanwhile Alex Hutton remains as talented and inspiring as ever. We just need another album of original material from him now, something that is long overdue. My thanks to him for speaking with me after the show and recalling that Shrewsbury gig. Tonight’s exciting performance saw the creation of more priceless musical memories.

 

 

 

 

blog comments powered by Disqus