Iain Ballamy’s IBQT, Music Spoken Here, The Marr’s Bar, Worcester, 04/04/2024.

Iain Ballamy – tenor saxophone, Rebecca Nash – keyboard, Nick Pini – double bass, Jeremy Stacey – drums

It represented something of a coup for Music Spoken Here to be able to present a performance by saxophonist & composer Iain Ballamy’s new IBQT group at The Marr’s Bar. The event was part of a short tour of West Midland jazz venues facilitated by the Jazz Midlands promoters’ consortium with the financial support of the Arts Council.

I have followed Ballamy’s career since his days as one of the principal soloists in the fabulous Loose Tubes big band. I dug him with Bill Bruford’s Earthworks and have enjoyed his solo releases including “Balloon Man” (1989), “All Men, Amen” (1995) “Acme” (1996) and “More Jazz” (2007), the latter recorded with his still ongoing Anorak group, currently featuring pianist Gareth Williams, bassist Steve Watts and drummer Martin France.

Ballamy has featured on the Jazzmann web pages on numerous occasions in a variety of musical contexts. These have included Loose Tubes, his solo projects, and his work with Food, an electro-improvising duo featuring Ballamy and the Norwegian drummer / electronic musician Thomas Stronen.

Ballamy also comprises half of a very different duo, Little Radio, another Anglo-Norwegian alliance that teams him with the accordionist and vocalist Stian Carstensen. On occasion the pair perform with additional musicians as the Pepper Street Orchestra.

He is also part of the jazz-folk trio Quercus which finds Ballamy and pianist Huw Warren collaborating with the distinguished folk singer June Tabor. Like the Food duo Quercus is signed to the ECM label and their second album “Nightfall” (2017) is reviewed elsewhere on this site, as is a wonderful live performance at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton from 2015.

In addition to numerous engagements as a sideman Ballamy has also been part of trio with vocalist Ian Shaw and pianist Jamie Safir.

These are all very different projects and Ballamy is clearly a musician who is reluctant to be pigeon-holed and whose playing embraces a range of jazz, folk,  electronic and world music styles. He has amassed an impressive back catalogue of recorded material with a broad variety of line-ups, but remains relatively under recorded as a bandleader. In an age when musicians now have to undertake the majority of administrative and promotional work themselves he’s happy just to concentrate on playing and composing.

The son of a jazz pianist Ballamy was brought up on the jazz and bebop tradition but has since steadfastly ploughed his own eclectic furrow as the above biographical details suggest. But Ballamy has never abandoned the jazz tradition entirely and it’s in the bands Anorak and IBQT that he stays closest to his jazz roots, but at the same time placing his own unique stamp on the music.

The line up of IBQT would seem to be fairly fluid, with a previous edition of the group having included pianist Jason Rebello, bassist / trumpeter Percy Pursglove and drummer Mark Whitlam. Ballamy now lives in the ‘musicians’ colony’ that is Frome in Somerset and hosts a weekly session at the Bar Lotte venue that has featured several other versions of IBQT / Anorak with musicians such as pianists Gareth Williams, Rebecca Nash and Elliot Galvin, bassists Nick Pini, Henrik Jensen and Conor Chaplin and drummers Jeremy Stacey, Andrew Tween and Dave Smith passing through the ranks.

Tonight’s as advertised IBQT line up saw Ballamy specialising on tenor sax in the company of Rebecca Nash on Nord keyboard, Nick Pini on double bass and Jeremy Stacey at the drums. Stacey, who had previously visited MSH in January with Jason Rebello and FNUK, was one of the drummers in the latest edition of King Crimson and his presence on the stand resulted in another famous face being glimpsed in the audience. Rock royalty was in the house in the shape of the Crimson King himself, local resident Robert Fripp.

Like the rest of the crowd Mr. Fripp seemed to enjoy the performance on what was one of the best attended MSH events thus far, coming in just behind FNUK in terms of audience numbers. Is it mere coincidence that Jeremy Stacey was behind the kit on both occasions? Maybe it was the ‘Crimson Connection’, but I’d like to think that most of the audience were there for Ballamy, a musician who is very much ‘Jazz Royalty’. And of course Ballamy did famously play with another ex King Crimson drummer, the great Bill Bruford.

Tonight’s programme featured a mix of Ballamy’s original compositions and jazz and bebop standards, but with the saxophonist and his colleagues putting their own distinctive stamp on the proceedings. An extended passage of unaccompanied tenor saxophone introduced the Joe Henderson composition “Black Narcissus”, with Ballamy eventually joined by the shimmering sounds of Nash’s Nord, plus double bass and drums. Ballamy took the first ‘conventional’ solo, stretching out fluently above a fluid, rolling bass and drum groove. Nash, a bandleader in her own right, elected to deploy an electric piano or ‘Rhodes’ sound all night. “I only play acoustic on a proper acoustic piano”, she told me later. Her keyboard solo was followed by a feature for Pini at the bass, with Ballamy making the occasional saxophonic interjection off mic, and indeed off stage.

In the lead up to tonight’s gig I dug out my ancient cassette copy of “Balloon Man” and thoroughly enjoyed hearing it again. Released in 1989 when Ballamy was concurrently a member of both Loose Tubes and Earthworks the album featured Django Bates on piano, keyboards and tenor horn, Steve Watts on bass and Martin France at the drums. Largely comprised of Ballamy originals it represented an excellent leadership debut from the then twenty five year old Ballamy. I was therefore delighted when IBQT played the wonderfully quirky Ballamy composition “Strawberries”, a tune later described by Nash as being both “difficult and fun” to play. A playful and joyous tune the piece has something of the Loose Tubes spirit about it and here included solos from Ballamy on tenor, Nash at the keyboard and Pini at the bass. Stacey was also featured with a highly musical solo drum interlude that saw him making particularly effective use of the bass drum. The piece then concluded with an unaccompanied tenor sax cadenza from the leader.

Jointly inspired by the Bristolian ‘trip-hop’ band Portishead and the American jazz pianist Brad Mehldau the Ballamy original “Portisbrad” ultimately ended up sounding nothing like either – although it did sound pretty damn good. Solos here came from Nash on keyboard and Ballamy on tenor, with the latter later describing Nash’s solos as being alike “to a naughty kitten playing with a ball of wool”, a typically idiosyncratic piece of imagery from Ballamy, who also described Gareth Williams’ more robust to the piano as being like “a bulldog straining at the leash”.

A return to the standards repertoire and “Aurora Borealis”, a beautifully melodic composition written by the late great drummer, vibraphonist and bandleader Lionel Hampton (1908 – 2002).  The solos of Ballamy, Pini and Nash brought out the full beauty of Hampton’s melody, with Stacey providing sensitive and sympathetic brushed drum support.

Introducing the last number of the first set Ballamy described fellow saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s enduringly popular composition “Footprints” as being “malleable”. This was certainly a quality that IBQT brought to the piece, with the familiar melodic motif taking some time to finally emerge. Ballamy’s tenor solo was accompanied by an intricate web of interlocking bass, drum and keyboard rhythms, with Nash eventually taking over as the soloist. Stacey was featured at the drums, with Ballamy again playing off stage, the saxophonist eventually returning to restate the theme. An excellent conclusion to an absorbing and entertaining first set.

The 2007 Anorak album “More Jazz” features a series of wittily titled ‘contrafacts’ written by Ballamy i.e. new melodies written over the chord sequences of well known jazz standards. Something similar opened the second half with a heavily disguised version of the Cole Porter song “So In Love” with solos From Nash and Ballamy and something of a drum feature from Stacey.

The Ballamy original “Floater” represented a musical depiction of weightlessness, with an arpeggiated intro followed by the sounds of sax melodies and shimmering keyboards suspended above a backdrop of double bass and mallet rumbles, with Stacey delivering a finely nuanced performance.

Ballamy paid a warm and heartfelt tribute to one of his mentors, the late, great pianist and composer John Taylor (1942-2015), describing Taylor as being “much missed”. The quartet paid further homage with their version of the Taylor composition “Rosicelli” with its strong melodic theme providing the basis for solos from Ballamy and Nash, these followed by an astonishingly dexterous bass solo from the excellent Pini, plus an exuberant drum feature from Stacey.

If the Taylor piece had represented a celebration of a life well lived the mood was far more sombre on a gently brooding arrangement of the Antonio Carlos Jobim song translating as “Portrait In Black and White”. This commenced with the sounds of Ballamy’s tentative sax ruminations and Stacey’s sympathetic drum colourations. Eventually a more recognisable bossa nova rhythm began to emerge, this providing the backdrop for solos from Ballamy and Nash and an extended double bass feature from Pini. Stacey’s innately musical drum feature presaged the return of Ballamy for a final theme restatement.

The second set concluded with a typically individualistic treatment of a standard and Ballamy’s version of “Without A Song”. This was ushered in by a combination of tenor sax and double bass with the subsequent addition of drums and keys leading to a sudden quickening of the pace. Rapid, propulsive rhythms fuelled the soloing of Ballamy and Nash before Stacey enjoyed a series of fiery exchanges with the leader’s tenor.

This high energy finale drew an excellent response from a supportive and enthusiastic crowd and IBQT remained on stage to cool things down again with a beautiful version of the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides Now”, an increasingly popular vehicle for jazz musicians. Of course Ballamy was to put his own spin on it, describing the quartet’s interpretation as being “encrypted”. Given the song’s “clouds” imagery the suitably diaphanous arrangement included an ethereal keyboard solo from Nash and some delightfully delicate brush work from Stacey. A luminously beautiful way to conclude an excellent evening of music making.

This evening represented my first live sighting of Ballamy for quite some time and served as a welcome reminder as to just what a brilliant musician he is. As a saxophonist he is a superb technician, but it’s not just about the ‘chops’, Ballamy has developed a style that is very much his own, fluent, imaginative and inventive and also very idiosyncratic. No other saxophonist sounds quite like him and nobody else approaches jazz standards in quite the same way that he does. In addition to this he’s also a highly distinctive and talented composer and his own pieces reflect the breadth of his musical experiences and influences.

In tonight’s version of IBQT he had the perfect vehicle for his distinctive musical vision, with Nash adopting a like minded approach at the keyboard and with Pini and Stacey representing a highly talented and adaptable rhythm section, capable of responding instantly to the rhythmic challenges of Ballamy’s compositions and arrangements. After previously seeing Stacey performing in the more rock oriented environs of King Crimson and FNUK it was interesting to see him playing something closer to straight ahead jazz, a challenge he rose to with considerable skill and sensitivity.

My thanks to Rebecca Nash and Iain Ballamy for talking with me at length during the interval and after the show, it was a pleasure to converse with such lovely people. And thanks to Iain for signing my thirty five year old copy of the wonderful “Balloon Man”.

 

 

blog comments powered by Disqus