Zoe Rahman Trio

“Hull Suite Live”

(Manushi Records MANUCD008)

Zoe Rahman – piano, Alec Dankworth – double bass, Gene Calderazzo – drums

Pianist and composer Zoe Rahman has been a regular presence on the Jazzmann website for many years, with reviews of a number of previous recordings to be found elsewhere on these web pages.

Rahman was born in Chichester to an English mother and a Bengali father and initially studied classical piano at the Royal Academy of  Music and at Oxford University before turning to jazz. She subsequently attended the famous Berklee College of Music in Boston where she was tutored by jazz pianist and composer Joanne Brackeen.

Rahman released her début album, “The Cynic”, in 2001 but it was her second recording “Melting Pot” that really put her on the map, particularly when it was nominated for the 2006 Mercury Music Prize. Rahman has since become one of the most popular and consistent performers on the UK jazz scene releasing a series of acclaimed solo albums and collaborating with a broad range of other  musicians among them multi reeds player Courtney Pine, Czech born bassist George Mraz and ex Specials keyboard player Jerry Dammers as part of the latter’s Spatial AKA Orchestra.

Rahman’s 2008 album “Where Rivers Meet”, a project co-led by her brother Idris Rahman, explored the siblings’ Bengali heritage but filtered it through a jazz prism. It was a strand that was further explored on “Kindred Spirits”, a more obviously ‘jazz’ recording that helped her to win the 2012 MOBO award for best jazz act. Rahman’s mix of jazz, classical and Bengali influences and more has helped to make her one of the most distinctive jazz pianists in the UK. One of my favourite recordings of hers is a limited edition live album documenting a performance at London’s Pizza Express Jazz Club in 2007 which features the trio, plus Idris guesting on clarinet, stretching out on some of Rahman’s favourite tunes by a variety of outside composers, among them Joanne Brackeen. 

Rahman’s recorded output also includes the solo piano set “Dreamland” (2018) and the excellent “Colour of Sound” (2023), recorded with a hand picked octet of leading UK jazz musicians.

In addition to her Mercury nomination and MOBO award Rahman was also the winner of the Impact Award at the 2021 Novello Awards.

I’ve been fortunate enough to witness Rahman performing live on multiple occasions over the years in formats ranging from solo piano to octet plus appearances in bands led by Pine and Dammers.

Most of these performances have been with her highly interactive trio featuring drummer Gene Calderazzo, who has been working with Rahman for over twenty years. The bass chair in the Rahman trio has variously been filled by Oli Hayhurst, Mark Lewandowski and Alec Dankworth, the latter a regular fixture in recent years.

It’s the well established rhythm team of Calderazzo and Dankworth that accompany Rahman on this latest album release, a live recording documented at London’s Vortex Jazz Club on 21st June 2025.

“Hull Suite” was originally commissioned by Hull Jazz Festival for World Piano Day in 2024. It is based on themes of voyage, migration and family, taking inspiration from two statues in Hull: One which commemorates the 2.2 million people who passed through Hull as a port city between 1836 and 1914, and the other which looks out across the Humber to the sea and has a twin sculpture looking back towards it from Iceland, commemorating fishermen, seafarers and trade shared between the two countries.

The music is also informed by Rahman’s own Anglo-Bengali heritage as she explains;
 “When I was writing the music, the themes reminded me of my parents’ story of migration….My mother emigrated from England to New Zealand when she was 10, travelling for 6 weeks by ship. She later met my father when they were both at Sydney University - he had travelled by ship from Bengal. I found out only recently that after going back to visit his family in Dhaka, my father needed proof that he had the financial means to support his return to Sydney, so my mother sold her piano so that they could be together. While composing, I was thinking about how my own existence is strongly linked to sea travel and to the story of a piano!”

The ‘migration’ theme also resonates with the other members of the trio. Alec Dankworth, son of Sir John Dankworth and Dame Cleo Laine is of Anglo-Jamaican heritage while Calderazzo is an Italian American who has lived and worked in the UK for over thirty years, during which time he has developed an affection for Arsenal Football Club, but not for warm English beer!

With regard to opting for a live recording of the new work Rahman told Andy Robson of Jazzwise Magazine;
“I wanted to document the trio sound as it is now. I wanted to present music that feels ‘real’. It’s not trying to be ‘perfect’. Also we play better live. We never play with the same vitality and sense of risk when we’re in the studio. Making a live recording sharpens your senses”.

That’s a statement that’s borne out by that 2007 live album alluded to above, and now by “Hull Suite Live”.

The new recording features the seven movement “Hull Suite” plus three other Rahman compositions, beginning with opening track “Synergy”. It’s an apt title given how closely knit this trio is, with the musical relationship between Rahman and Calderazzo a particularly important component of the group’s music. This is very much in evidence on this exciting opener with Calderazzo responding to Rahman’s Tyner-esque pianistics with typical energy and invention. The pair often face each other on stage, although I’m not sure whether this would be possible at The Vortex, and are constantly involved in a series of exchanges that generate  the kind of musical fireworks that seem to stem from a mutual respect allied to a healthy sense of competition. It’s often left to the bass player to act as a kind of referee but “Synergy” also sees Dankworth stepping out of the shadows to deliver a fluent and expansive bass solo. He’s a musician with plenty to say on his own account.

Next we come to the “Hull Suite” itself, which commences with the short solo piano piece “Across the Humber”, a kind of overture featuring Rahman’s lyrical,  gently rolling piano chords. The music segues seamlessly into “Out to Sea”, still played solo at first but with Calderazzo subsequently adding subtle drum commentary, deploying brushes at first. Rahman’s piano soloing becomes more florid and expansive and one can envisage this piece as a musical depiction of a ship leaving the harbour and reaching the open sea.

Again it’s a seamless transition into “Piano Story”, which features the trio in full flow, with Rahman and Calderazzo continuing to spark ideas off each other as the music really builds up a head of steam. Rahman’s soloing combines great fluency with great intensity, her right hand providing some dramatic flourishes while her left adds to the already impressive rhythmic drive of the music. Calderazzo plays with dynamism and invention, finding plenty to say on his own account as Dankworth anchors the ensemble.

The twenty five minute (approx) “Hull Suite” is performed contiguously, without breaks for audience applause, but nevertheless the demarcation between the various movements is readily discernible. “Voyage” begins with a short, scene setting passage of solo piano but Dankworth and Calderazzo are soon back on board for the next instalment of this enthralling musical journey. Gradually the music begins to build in intensity once more via Rahman’s inventive soloing and her colleagues’ responses. But there are gentler moments too, such as Dankworth’s expansive and wonderfully dexterous and melodic double bass solo.

“Waves” is a second solo piano piece, one that captures the ebb and flow and rise and fall of its subject. It typifies Rahman’s orchestral approach to the piano and although essentially lyrical it’s not always gentle. It is however, totally spellbinding.

The final movement of the suite is “East Coast”, named both for Hull and for Calderazzo’s original home city of New York. There’s a strong blues feel to this piece and Rahman’s playing is particularly percussive, almost Monk-like at times. Calderazzo responds with a typically dynamic drum feature, in addition to the usual sparky series of exchanges with the leader.

It’s following the conclusion of the suite that a clearly packed Vortex erupts with rapturous applause as Rahman acknowledges her band mates.

The final two pieces were presumably played as encores, the first of these being “Fresh Start”, an optimistic and uplifting piece originally written after a series of personal misfortunes that overtook Rahman around the time of the pandemic. Rahman’s hard earned positivity finds expression in the music, which combines flowing melodies with the harmonic and rhythmic complexities common to much of Rahman’s work. Dankworth delivers another expansive and impressive double bass solo, vigorously and dexterously plucked. Calderazzo remains a busy and inventive presence behind the kit.

The album concludes with a version of “Red Squirrel”, a real Rahman favourite and a composition dating back to 2012. It was originally written for the album “Sparkling Water, Please” a 2012 mutual collaboration credited to MOZ Trio and featuring the Swedish   musicians Owe Almgren (electric bass) and Martina Almgren (drums). Pretty much a fixture in Rahman’s live sets ever since it was also recorded as a solo piano piece for the “Dreamland” album.
This nine minute live version commences with Rahman experimenting with sounds ‘under the lid’ during the course of an opening dialogue with Calderazzo and Dankworth. Eventually a strong melody and an even stronger groove are established as the trio round off the performance, and the album on a high note, with some particularly fiery exchanges between Rahman and Calderazzo.

“Hull Suite Live” is an excellent addition to the Rahman canon. The suite itself is a cohesive work centred around a serious topic but it’s performed with great energy and joie de vivre, as are the other three compositions that appear on the album. The decision to document the music via a live recording is fully justified by the skill and vitality of the performances, all of the musicians are at the top of their game and at the appropriate moments the musical sparks really fly, especially between Rahman and Calderazzo.

A number of exceptional live albums have been recorded at The Vortex. “Hull Suite Live” can be added to that illustrious list.

“Hull Suite Live” is available here;

https://www.zoerahman.com/

https://zoerahman.bandcamp.com/music

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