Perfect Stranger

“Unfinished Business”

(Spark! Records – SPARK011)

Chris Sanson – composer, conductor, Fretless bass guitar (5)
Adam Bishop – alto & soprano sax, bass clarinet, flute
Mick Foster – tenor, baritone & soprano sax, flute
Shanti Jayasinha – trumpet & flugelhorn
Tom Green – trombone
Alcyona Mick – piano, keyboards
Rob Millett – vibraphone, percussion
Eddie White – guitar
Paul Michael – bass guitar
Jonas Golland – drums

Perfect Stranger is the name given to the ten piece ensemble led by composer, bandleader and bassist Chris Sansom.

Born in 1950 Sansom studied music at King’s College Music and has enjoyed a long career that has seen him working across a variety of musical genres, predominately contemporary classical and jazz. Readers are directed to Sansom’s website if they wish to learn more about the artist and his previous works.
http://www.chrissansom.net

Sansom’s latest release, “Unfinished Business”, is credited to Perfect Stranger and is a work that was first conceived in 1974 when Sansom was studying for his degree.

Sansom’s album notes take up the story;
“in 1974, fifty years ago as I write, I composed some very difficult music and then formed a band to try to play it. I managed to assemble a group of highly talented young jazz musicians, but the music was hard to play, mainly due to frequent and irregular changes of time signature. Along with the problem of getting so many people in the same room at the same time to rehearse, it proved impractical and finally fizzled out”.

Sansom called the group Perfect Stranger and its ranks included a number of young musicians from the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Some members of the first Perfect Stranger line up are still active on the UK jazz scene, among them trumpeter Dick Pearce, trombonist Paul Nieman and multi-reeds player Chris Biscoe. Another prominent member of the original ensemble was the late pianist Pete Jacobson, who died in 2002.

Sansom continues the story;
“By the end of 1974 the scores were relegated to being forgotten in a drawer. Then a few years ago various stars aligned to help me to decide that after leaving this music to vegetate for all those years it was time to revive the project”.

With the help of Biscoe and others he assembled the current Perfect Stranger line-up featuring the stellar cast of contemporary jazz musicians listed at the top of this review.

Sansom is quick to remind listeners that this music is half a century old and that its influences include Frank Zappa, prog rockers Yes and various jazz rock and funk artists. With Sansom seeking to avoid conventional jazz and rock formulas the music also has a strong classical influence and the album commences with the four part “Life & Times (of a Perfect Stranger)”, a work based on the conventional structure of a classical symphony and which is also governed by the Golden Section or Golden Ratio. Various thematic elements recur throughout the work, often in altered forms.

The first movement of the suite is “Formative Years”, the only piece that was more or less fully developed by the 1974 band. It is retrospectively dedicated to the memory of the late Pete Jacobson. Written in the classical sonata form the piece includes numerous changes of time signature, some of these being very unorthodox. The piece is introduced by Golland at the drums, joined by Millett on vibraphone. The addition of reeds and brass makes for an authentically big ensemble sound and the rhythm section, with Michael on bass guitar, tackle some pretty complex signatures, many of them subtly funky. The arrangement includes instrumental cameos for most of the band members with White’s guitar prominent in the early stages. More substantial, but still relatively brief, solos come from Foster on baritone sax, Jayasinha on flugel, Millett on vibraphone, Bishop on soprano sax, Mick on piano and Green on trombone.

Sansom describes the second part, “Ankle Deep in Dust”, as “the slow movement, mostly a gentle jazz waltz with a few noisy outbursts”. The ensemble sound is gentler but more crepuscular with the sound of bass clarinet notable in the arrangement. Jayasinha delivers a velvety flugel horn solo, but those “noisy outbursts” find expression via Green’s rumbustious trombone interjections, these backed up by the rest of the ensemble. Mick’s lyrical piano solo restores calm and she’s followed by Bishop, who steps out of the shadows with a fluent bass clarinet solo. The music continues to alternate between flowing lyricism and more tempestuous outbursts as Sansom’s writing makes effective use of dynamic and textural contrasts.

Sansom has already taken this music out on the road at various venues in the south east of England and in live performance the second movement segues without a break into the third, “Midlife Crisis”, with Golland’s drums providing the linking passage. Sansom describes “Midlife Crisis” as “a hectic scherzo, much of it in 29/4 (9 3s and a 2), with interludes in 4/4”. Whatever the mechanics might be it’s a fast moving piece powered by Michael’s electric bass grooves and featuring the sounds of Latin percussion. Bishop takes the first solo on alto sax, followed by White on guitar. Mick deploys funky electric keyboard sounds and Green delivers a rousing trombone solo.

The final movement is “It’s Weird Being Th Same Age as Old People”, a recently applied title that Sansom borrowed from a t-shirt, declaring “in my mid 70s I believe it to be true”. Musically he describes the piece as;
“A fantasia, for want of any other designation, which moves through different tempi and styles leading up to something like a rock and roll version of the main theme from the first movement. This breaks off for a drum solo, then a kind of gentle hymn, and eventually the intro from the first movement, but backwards”.
As the man says there’s a lot going on as the piece commences with a series of huge crescendos before settling into a propulsive but consistently mutating groove that fuels the solos of Foster on tenor sax, Jayasinha on trumpet and Green on trombone. Mick excels with an electric piano solo, followed by Bishop on alto sax, accompanied only by Golland’s drums at one juncture. White’s guitar solo brings that rock and roll element and he’s followed by Golland’s drum solo as the first phase of the piece reaches an energetic peak. The gentler hymn like section follows, with Mick reverting to acoustic piano, the music gradually becoming more anthemic. The piece then concludes with the ‘backwards’ version of the intro, featuring vibraphone and drums.

Two further pieces complete the album, beginning with “Lugubrious Boots”, a piece that Sansom describes as sounding like its title. “It’s mostly slows and features the whole rhythm section, with my fretless providing the underpinning. It speeds up to a fast jazz waltz in the middle section, which then crumbles and settles back into a return of the slow material”.
There’s a heavy, doomy quality about the intro, and an element of funkiness too,  with Sansom’s fretless electric bass underpinning Michael’s virtuoso bass guitar soloing. For such a bass heavy piece Millett’s vibraphone occupies a surprisingly prominent role as it vies for attention with White’s FX laden guitar and Mick’s keyboards. And finally is the bell like tolling of percussion in the tune’s latter stages a tip of the hat to those masters of heaviness, Black Sabbath?

As its title suggests the final piece, the jokingly titled “Ludwig’s Van” is indeed based on a piece by Beethoven, the item in question being the “Great Fugue, Op. 133”, from the late string quartets. This is a twenty minute opus that sounds absolutely nothing like a string quartet! Much of the piece has a funky shuffle feel with Mick sometimes deploying a clavinet sound on keyboards. But as is typical of Sansom’s writing nothing stays in one place for long, there are semi-classical,  funk,  reggae and bebop episodes punctuating this consistently mutating composition. Around fourteen minutes in is an episode marked on the score as “Arnold’s Bebop”, which I assume to be a reference to Arnold Schoenberg -  in his album notes Sansom challenges the listener to work out the story behind the title. He also references “quite a long tempo-less and pulseless passage in the middle”. This proves to be surprisingly beautiful, although I suspect that much of it may be wholly improvised. This is followed by a grandiose ensemble section, followed in turn by a joyously funky up-tempo passage featuring strident horns, funky keyboards and a vibraphone solo. There are still plenty more twists and turns and thrills and spills before the close. With regard to solos Sansom states; “everyone has a solo, is involved in a duet, or takes part in a general improvisation at some point”. And indeed we do hear from everybody, with White, Mick, Millett, Bishop and Green particularly prominent among the soloists. Making light of its complexities and its stylistic variations this is thrilling, ‘seat of the pants’ stuff and a great way to end this splendidly eclectic album.

I have to say that I was impressed by, and very much enjoyed, “Unfinished Business”. Even after half a century the music still sounds fresh and exciting, qualities that are enhanced by the superb playing of Sansom’s hand picked, all star, contemporary jazz ensemble. Yes, there are inevitably still seventies tropes in the music, but that’s just fine with an old ‘progger’ like me. At times I’m reminded of the 70s output of UK based jazz composers such as Mike Gibbs and the late Neil Ardley. Gibbs’ ensembles invariably featured guitarists and White plays a particularly prominent role here. Meanwhile Ardley liked to experiment with electric keyboards and synthesisers, so it’s fitting that Mick also fulfils a vital role in the music of Perfect Stranger. Kenny Wheeler, Michael Garrick and John Taylor also wrote for large ensembles during that period and maybe there’s some influence from those artists too.

With regard to the complex use of time signatures I suspect that in addition to classical composers Sansom may also have been influenced by the late American trumpeter, composer and bandleader Don Ellis, an acknowledged influence on the Canterbury based prog rock band Caravan.

Whatever the sum of its influences “Unfinished Business” is an impressive work in its own right and more than justifies its release after a fifty year wait. And is if the release of the album isn’t exciting enough Sansom is also taking the Perfect Stranger ensemble out on tour again with live dates as follows;

2024;

25 October – Reading, Progress Theatre

1 November – London, Karamel N22 (album launch)

6 November – Southend, Royal Hotel

30 November – Norwich, Puppet Theatre

Seeing the music being performed live represents a very exciting prospect and although none of the performances are close enough for me to visit I am hopeful that Trevor Bannister, a regular contributor to the Jazzmann web pages, will cover the event at the Progress Theatre, Reading. Trevor reviews most of the jazz events at the Progress for this site and it would be great if the Jazzmann can also publish a live review of Perfect Stranger. It will also be very interesting to read Trevor’s perspective on this still remarkable music.

I’ll leave the last word with Sansom;
“This project has been a long time coming. The music on this album is exactly half a century old at the time of release, and it’s incredibly rewarding to finally bring it to life with such a talented group of musicians!

Hear, hear!

“Unfinished Business” is available here;
https://sparklabel.bandcamp.com/album/unfinished-business

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