John Law’s Re-Creations, Music Spoken Here, The Marr’s Bar, Worcester, 26/06/2025.

John Law – keyboard, Sam Crockatt – tenor & soprano saxophones, cabasa, Henrik Jensen – double bass, Alex Goodyear- drums, percussion

Music Spoken Here’s final event of the current season welcomed pianist and keyboard player John Law to the Marr’s Bar with his Re-Creations project. On a hot summer’s evening a superb performance from the band ensured that the first half of 2025 ended with a bang, with a large and enthusiastic audience responding warmly to Law’s ingenious jazz re-imaginings of an eclectic range of material incorporating pop and rock tunes, classical compositions and more.

Law has been a regular presence on the Jazzmann web pages for many years. I first encountered his music back in 2009 when he appeared with his trio at Black Mountain Jazz in Abergavenny. At that time he had been working on his “Art of Sound” series of albums, all of which were recorded at the famous Artesuono Studio in Italy with the celebrated recording engineer Stefano Amerio. Over the years Law has recorded frequently in the solo piano format and the second and third volumes in that series were solo piano recordings. Volumes one and four featured him with a trio featuring bassist Sam Burgess and drummer Asaf Sirkis.

The fourth album in the “Art of Sound” series was released in 2009 and was titled “Congregation”.  This was a more extrovert, hard driving album than the others in the series and featured the trio experimenting with electronics for the first time.

Law then resurrected the Congregation name for the ambitious 2014 double set “These Skies In Which We Rust”, credited to John Law’s New Congregation and featuring a new band comprised of saxophonist Josh Arcoleo, bassist Yuri Goloubev and drummer Laurie Lowe. 

Also credited to John Law’s Congregation was the superb “Configurations” recording, released in 2020 and featuring another new line up saxophonist James Mainwaring (of Roller Trio fame), bassist Ashley John Long and drummer Billy Weir.

The Art of Sound and Congregation series of recordings have focussed on original material and Law has consistently proved himself to be an intelligent and imaginative composer. But he also enjoys putting his own stamp on the music of others, among them jazz composers such as Thelonious Monk or classical composers such as J.S. Bach, Frederic Chopin and Erik Satie. In addition to this Law has produced many inventive jazz arrangements of well known pop and rock and tunes.

I first encountered his innovative interpretations of outside material when his Opt Trio, featuring Sirkis and Goloubev, appeared at Abergavenny. In this instance the word ‘Opt’ stood for “other people’s tunes” and although there was never a formal Opt Trio release Law did sell an “official bootleg” at gigs for a while.

In time the Opt Trio evolved into the “Re-Creations” project with Law officially releasing three volumes of this series between 2017 and 2019. The second of these was a solo piano disc but Volumes One and Three introduced a new quartet featuring tenor saxophonist Sam Crockatt and two young graduates of the Jazz Course at Birmingham Conservatoire, bassist James Agg and drummer Billy Weir.

When Weir moved to live and work in France and Agg was forced to retire from full time music due to injury  Law formed a new version of the Re-Creations quartet. This saw him and Crockatt joined by  the experienced Danish born bass player Henrik Jensen, a composer and bandleader in his own right who is now based in the West of England.  Also new to the fold was Alex Goodyear, a fairly recent graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) in Cardiff and an increasingly busy and in demand presence on the UK jazz scene. This engagement with Law represents his highest profile gig thus far.  It’s fair to say that Jensen and Goodyear  have helped to breathe new life into the Re-Creations project, bringing a fresh energy and impetus to the band.

In March 2023 I saw the current edition of the Re-Creations quartet give an exceptional live performance at a Shrewsbury Jazz Network event at The Hive Music & Media Centre. That show is reviewed elsewhere on this site, as is the album “Many Moons”, which was released later in that year. These reviews provides the basis for much of the above biographical detail.

In addition to the Re-Creations live show and album mentioned above The Jazzmann has reviewed numerous other live performances and recordings featuring John Law. I may know Law’s music fairly well but Music Spoken Here’s regular Piece Talks series which features MSH promoter / instigator Dave Fuller interviewing forthcoming visitors to the Marr’s Bar revealed more valuable insights as Fuller talked at length with Law about the pianist’s musical career and about the Re-Creations project.

Law’s mother was a pianist and the young John began playing the instrument at the age of four or five, “I was destined to be concert pianist”, he told Fuller, “but took a different turn”.

Attracted by its rhythm and groove that turn was into jazz, and typically Law threw himself in at the deep end as part of the freely improvising trio Atlas, featuring improv heavyweights Paul Rogers (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums), releasing the album “Trio Improvisations” in 1989.

The members of the Atlas trio later recorded under the leadership of saxophonist Jon Lloyd, with 1992’s “Syzygy” credited to the Jon Lloyd Quartet. Law has maintained his links with Lloyd and both Law and Goodyear are members of Lloyd’s current quartet, which sounds very different to the band of 1992.

Lloyd and Law also work together in the duo Naissance, an offshoot of Lloyd’s earlier Renaissance project. My review of the Naissance album can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/jon-lloyd-john-law-naissance

Law has been writing music since the age of seven and following his early free jazz recordings later projects such as Art of Sound and Congregation placed a greater emphasis on composition and structure, with his early classical influences also returning and becoming an increasingly important component in his music making.

Law has been recording since 1989 and has amassed a large, impressive and highly varied back catalogue that embraces jazz, improv, classical and electronic music. Please visit his website http://www.johnlaw.org.uk for details of his full back catalogue.

Law also spoke of working with the recently deceased South African drummer Louis Moholo Moholo and emphasised the importance of the influence of Moholo and his fellow Blue Notes on British jazz musicians.

Also discussed was Cornucopia, Law’s eleven piece ensemble that featured saxophonist Andy Sheppard alongside members of the London Sinfonietta as elements of Law’s jazz and classical worlds came together.

He talked about his current Congregation and Re-Creations projects, and the fact that the irrepressible Goodyear is a member of both. With Goodyear increasingly getting into electronic drums and sampling he’s likely to become involved with the Naissance / Renaissance project too.

The Re-Creations project sees Law and the quartet transforming well known pop, rock and classical tunes into vehicles for jazz improvisation, “you can be really creative with music that is sometimes banal” he explained, while also emphasising that the band aren’t trying to be “clever, clever”.  He was interviewed seated at his piano and demonstrated his point with a quick alternative take on Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”.

With Re-Creations the emphasis is very much on fun, with Law describing the excitement he feels when he sees audience members finally recognising a tune that the quartet have been improvising around. Law was clearly having a ball tonight, sometimes whooping with delight and talking excitedly to the audience. Playing with this band has certainly brought him out of himself, he’s a much more outgoing character than he was when I first saw him play all those years ago. One suspects that having the youthful energy of Goodyear in the band has had a lot to do with that.

And so on to tonight’s set, which was very different to the one played in Shrewsbury a couple of years ago. As is the way with jazz musicians the band’s repertoire is in constant flux and Law has since come up with yet more brilliant and ingenious arrangements. 2023’s “Many Moons” albums had something of a lunar theme, with many of the tunes played on the record having the word “moon” in the title.  Tonight’s set list didn’t appear to have any discernible ‘theme’, but the arrangements and the playing were as dazzling as ever.

Tonight’s show saw the leader playing a Yamaha electric keyboard that was capable of generating a wide array of sounds – piano, synths, Rhodes, organ and more. Law and Goodyear ushered in the first number, with keyboard bass sounds and Rhodes sounds combining with brushed drums. The addition of double bass and tenor sax eventually brought that spark of recognition from the crowd, it was “You And The Night And The Music”, via a brief detour into “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise”. Law took the first solo, continuing to deploy an electric piano sound, followed by Crockatt on tenor sax, with both soloists probing deeply, far beyond the main melodic theme.

Law explained that “You And The Night…” was one of the first tunes he had arranged for this project, indeed it had been played two years ago in Shrewsbury, but next up was a new tune to the project. This proved to be a very heavily disguised version of “House Of The Rising Sun” in an arrangement that featured Goodyear wielding some kind of shaker and Crockatt a cabasa. Crockatt also featured on soprano sax, again probing searchingly as he shared the solos with Law, who incorporated note bending techniques into his sound.

A solo keyboard introduction that mixed piano and string synth sounds ushered in an arrangement of the Stanley Myers composition “Cavatina”, best known as the theme music for the film “The Deerhunter”. The addition of tenor sax, double bass and cymbal shimmers eventually steered us towards that famous melody and that spark of recognition. This featured a more delicate side of the quartet, with Jensen’s melodic double bass solo complemented by Goodyear’s sensitive brush work. This melded into an ‘acoustic’ piano solo from Law, this followed by a more forceful tenor sax statement from Crockatt. The closing stages saw a return to the former lyricism, crowned by a tenor sax / keyboard duo coda.

“Cavatina” appears on the “Many Moons” album, but the first set concluded with another song new to the Re-Creations repertoire. This was a surprisingly powerful rendition of the Abba song “Mama Mia”, arranged in 7/8, with Crockatt blasting out the theme on tenor sax and stretching out expansively with the group temporarily in saxophone trio mode, with Goodyear also featuring strongly. Law’s solo featured him deploying a synth sound and the piece climaxed with a dynamic Goodyear drum feature. The crowd absolutely loved this as an interesting and highly enjoyable first half came to a close. Four tunes may not sound like a lot but the Re-Creations quartet stretched them to breaking point and soloed at length, to engrossing and thrilling effect. Nobody was feeling in any way short changed.

The second set started with a tune that Law described as “a jazz classic”. Introduced by the sounds of keyboards, with soprano sax, double bass and drums subsequently added. Eventually the famous melodic motif of Miles Davis’ “So What” emerged. It shouldn’t be possible to do anything new with such a familiar and well loved tune at this late date, but Law and Re-Creations managed it, this inventive 7/8 arrangement certainly wasn’t ‘real book jazz as repertory’.  Law adopted an electric piano sound for his solo and Crockatt switched to tenor for his. Again there was a period when the leader sat back and enjoyed watching his group in sax trio mode. Eventually Law returned to the fray for a series of closing piano and tenor sax exchanges.

From a jazz classic to a rock anthem and a brilliantly imaginative arrangement of Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water”, introduced by the combination of Law’s keys and Goodyear’s cymbals. The addition of bass and tenor sax saw the famous, or even infamous, riff emerge, but Law’s arrangement was notable for its effective use of dynamic contrasts as he and Crockatt shared the solos.

The Purple song appears on “Many Moons”, but new to the Re-Creations repertoire was an arrangement of the Italian folk song “Bella Ciao”. Historically I’ve always heard it played as a jolly tune by Hot Club style bands, but its lyrics have a political edge and it was adopted and adapted by the Italian partisans during World War 2. Ushered in by tenor sax and double bass Law’s arrangement was fairly straight ahead at first but veered off into more exploratory territory via extended solos from piano and tenor sax as Re-Creations brought a welcome degree of gravitas back to the song.

Law’s classical heritage wasn’t entirely forgotten and next we heard an arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane”, introduced by Law at the keyboard and featuring solos from Jensen on double bass and Crockatt on soprano sax. This was one of the most gentle and lyrical performances of the night, a delightfully delicate take on Ravel’s composition that again featured Goodyear’s sympathetic brushwork. For all his showmanship behind the kit on the uptempo arrangements Goodyear is also a player capable of great sensitivity.

Goodyear was back to his dynamic best as he introduced the quartet’ s take on the aforementioned “Eye Of The Tiger”, which featured a suitably punchy arrangement incorporating a Law keyboard solo that quoted liberally from other popular tunes. Crockatt made a powerful contribution on tenor and Goodyear unleashed another dynamic drum feature at the close.

This was scheduled to be the last number of the night but the band were clearly up for more, and so was an audience that represented one of the biggest MSH turnouts of recent weeks, pretty impressive on a hot summer night.

The encore was a second dip into the classical canon with an arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s “Cello Sonata”, another new piece for the quartet. An unaccompanied keyboard intro was later augmented by double bass and mallet rumbles and Crockatt’s melodic tenor sax statement was underpinned by Jensen’s pedal bass. Lyrical and melodic solos came from Jensen on double bass, Law on piano and Crockatt on tenor sax. An excellent choice to send a happy audience on their way,  with CD sales reflecting the success of an excellent evening of music that had rounded off the current MSH series on a high note.

My thanks to all four band members for speaking with me and to Dave Fuller for putting MSH together and for getting Worcester on to the jazz map. The 2025 / 26 series, which begins in September,  will be very keenly anticipated.

IAN MANN

MSH promoter / instigator Dave Fuller offers his own take on the event below;

Re-Creations Wrap Up Our Summer Program

Huge thanks to everyone who came through for our last show of the Summer season with the brilliant pianist John Law and his Re-Creations project, featuring Sam Crockatt, Henrik Jensen and Alex Goodyear. It was lovely to see so many of you there and thanks to all who brought friends along, in particular our longest standing Club Member Tim Walton, who I think brought most of his family along for this one and they all enjoyed it!

Re-Creations promised to bring us familiar tunes played as never heard before, and they did not disappoint! The set kicked of with a fast-paced electric piano and simple bass riff, emerging as “Let’s Face The Music And Dance” that featured John alternating between electric and acoustic piano sounds from his Yamaha keyboard and a hearty dose of thrilling improvisation from Sam on the tenor saxophone.

An acoustic piano introduction, with some perfectly placed pitch-bend, took us on a somewhat ambiguous journey into an unusual arrangement of “House of the Rising Sun”, which featured Sam on soprano sax. We also heard intriguing arrangements of “Cavatina” (the theme from The Deer Hunter) that featured Henrik with a delightful bass solo, and a lively rendition of “Mama Mia” in 7/8!

The second set was a wonderful mixed bag of jazz, rock, pop and classical, opening with Miles Davis’ “So What”, again in seven time, with Sam featuring on soprano sax again, followed by Deep Purple’s “Smoke on The Water”, “Bella Ciao”, Ravel’s “Pavane” and closed with the eighties pop classic “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor that was the theme to Rocky III. All of these were delivered with exceptional creativity, enthusiasm and musicianship from this hugely talented quartet.

The time was already approaching 11pm but there was time and appetite for one more. John selected Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata - an unusually calming choice for an encore that brought the warm summer evening and our summer season of exceptional music to a restful close.

Re-Creations’ third album “Many Moons”, released in 2023 and featuring this line-up, was snapped up on CD by a few of the audience on the night, but for those that missed out, you can buy it on Bandcamp.
https://johnlawjazz.bandcamp.com/music

DAVE FULLER

 

 

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