Quercus

“Nightfall”

(ECM Records ECM 2522 Bar Code 574 3078)

“Nightfall” is the second album for ECM by the British trio Quercus featuring the esteemed folk singer June Tabor accompanied by instrumentalists Iain Ballamy (tenor & soprano saxophones) and Huw Warren (piano), two musicians best known for their work in a wide variety of jazz contexts.

The versatile Warren, a genre hopping musician, has acted as Tabor’s pianist and musical director for many years and invited his old friend Ballamy to appear on Tabor’s 2005 solo album “From The Wood’s Heart”. The three musicians quickly established a rapport and subsequently toured together as Quercus, the collective band name coming from the Latin for “oak” and acting as an oblique acknowledgement to the album that first brought them together. Tabor has spoken of their music reflecting their collective moniker thanks to its blend of “deep roots and new shoots”.

The busy musical lives of the three individual members has conspired against Quercus ever recording a studio album together. However in 2013 the group released its long awaited début album on the prestigious Munich based ECM record label, a live recording of a concert from 2006 captured at The Anvil in Basingstoke by sound engineer Paul Sparrow,

Ballamy, who records for ECM as part of the electro-improvising duo Food (with drummer Thomas Stronen), took the tapes to label head Manfred Eicher who liked what he heard and helped to mix the album at Oslo’s famous Rainbow Studio with engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug before acting as co-producer alongside Ballamy and Warren.

Simply titled “Quercus” the recording benefited from ECM’s typically fastidious production values and is a thing of beauty that has received considerable critical and popular acclaim and given the group a new lease of life. With the applause from the concert at which it was recorded duly edited out the album actually sounds like a studio recording, such is the pristine clarity and quality of the sound.

Quercus have taken a similar approach with “Nightfall” which was recorded in December 2015 at a concert at Cooper Hall in Frome, Somerset by engineer Mike Mower. This time round the album was mixed at the Soundhouse Studios in London with engineer Gerry O’Riordan presiding. The album is produced by Ballamy and Warren making this one of those rare ECM recordings not to have any direct input from Manfred Eicher. Nevertheless the sound quality that distinguishes ECM’s output remains and with the applause once more edited out the album again sounds like a studio recording.

Despite appearing to come from diverse musical backgrounds the members of Quercus are united by a sense of melody and beauty, a spirit of musical exploration that knows no boundaries, a love of words and literature and an underlying political conviction that leans inexorably towards the left, the natural inclination for all purveyors of adventurous or minority music.  These shared values lead them to interpret an eclectic variety of songs sourced from the British folk tradition, the Great American Songbook and the works of contemporary singer-songwriters. The album title “Nightfall” is derived from a line in the poem “In Memoriam” written by Edward Thomas at Easter in 1915.

Although regarded primarily as a folk singer Tabor has always recorded songs from other traditions and is widely regarded as one of best interpreters of a lyric around.  With Quercus emphasis is often placed on the “recontextualising” of a song and encouraging listeners to pay fresh attention to even the most familiar of material. A case in point is the opening track here, an ineffably melancholy interpretation of Robert Burn’s “Auld Lang Syne”. Here Tabor’s performance reminds us that this is a song about separation, departure and nostalgia. It sounds nothing at all like the drunken renditions you hear every New Year’s Eve. She’s sympathetically supported by Warren’s limpid piano and the gently brooding warmth of Ballamy’s tenor sax. The choice to schedule this piece first represents an oblique nod to the trio’s début album which commenced with an interpretation of Burns’ “Lassie Lie Near Me”.

Similar emotions are expressed in the 19th century broadside ballad “Once I Loved You Dear (The Irish Girl)”, a tale of love, loss and emigration and a close relative of the folk staple “Blackwaterside”.

The album’s traditional songs are all jointly arranged by Tabor, Ballamy and Warren. A particularly evocative example is “On Berrow Sands”, a piece collected by the Somerset folklorist Ruth L. Tongue. The sparse lyrics and haunting instrumental arrangement conjure images of the bleakness and loneliness of a sandbank in the Bristol Channel, the site of a fatal shipwreck. The words Tabor sings speak of how gulls were once believed to embody the souls of drowned sailors and fishermen.

Warren’s pastoral ballad “Christchurch” represents a delightful instrumental interlude with its liltingly lyrical folk tinged melodies. The pieces emphasises the composer’s lightness of touch at the piano and features the pure sound of Ballamy on soprano sax, his first appearance on the instrument after three previous outings on tenor.

Tabor’s deep contralto on the jazz standard “You Don’t Know What Love Is” ensures that Don Raye’s words carry the maximum emotional impact. There are few singers who can ‘get inside’ a song in the way that Tabor does. Tabor has said “as I get older I understand more the depth of sorrow and joy that make a song”  and that observation is borne out by her performance here with Ballamy’s smoky tenor sax acting as the perfect foil. With Warren’s piano anchoring the trio Tabor and Ballamy often seem to feed off one another, their vocal and instrumental lines dovetailing into one another.

The traditional “ The Manchester Angel” tells the story of a Jacobite soldier and his Lancashire lass. Predictably it doesn’t end well when the Jacobite army is routed. It’s another compelling vocal and instrumental performance.

In April 2015 I witnessed a brilliant concert performance by Quercus at the Arena Theatre in Wolverhampton. One of the highlights was the trio’s version of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” which is reprised here. Tabor’s conversational vocal adds a layer of ruefulness, tenderness, understanding and regret to Dylan’s caustic lyric.

“Emmeline” is Ballamy’s instrumental contribution, another delightful ballad featuring the fluent, lyrical sound of his tenor sax in gentle conversation with Warren’s piano.

The traditional “The Shepherd And His Dog”, another song collected by Ruth Tongue, presents a warmly bucolic picture of rural England. It’s arguably the happiest song on the album although I recall that at the Wolverhampton show Tabor commented on the Foot & Mouth epidemic of 2001 and the very different sights that were seen in the countryside at that time. 

Another of Tabor’s favourite sources of traditional material is Dorset gypsy folk singer Caroline Hughes (1902-71), also known as “the Queen of the Romany Gypsies” and  it’s her version of the well known folk song “The Cuckoo” that the trio tackle here. I’ve previously heard this song performed in a lively, upbeat manner but the Quercus arrangement, with Ballamy on soprano, slows the song down enabling Tabor to bring out some of the pathos inherent in the lyrics.

The album concludes with an arrangement of “Somewhere” from “West Side Story” with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Tabor invests Sondheim’s words with her customary gravitas and brings out their economical beauty. Ballamy’s tenor solo is exemplary, ballad playing at its best. A word too for Warren, whose intelligent, understated piano playing is so often at the heart of the music throughout the album. As his work in other contexts has shown he’s an astonishingly talented and versatile musician. 

The unique music of Quercus has attracted fans from both the jazz and folk communities. “Nightfall” is an album that will satisfy their many followers and matches the standards of the trio’s previous work. It has certainly attracted the same degree of critical acclaim as its award winning predecessor.

The generally melancholic mood and the studious ‘chamber music’ approach won’t suit all listeners but there are many moments of genuine beauty here and the vocal and instrumental performances are exceptional throughout with the typically pristine ECM production serving the music well. 
   

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