(Whirlwind Recordings WR4663)
Well, I’m really gutted. Parrot-sick. Chin-on-the-floor disappointed.
When I reviewed Mr Law’s debut release, Entanglement, two years ago I concluded: “All in all this is a terrific and highly accomplished debut.” When I reviewed the band’s Birmingham Jazz gig at The Red Lion a year ago I concluded: “A hugely rewarding evening… up close to an exceptionally fine band.”
Now I read that this new album has him “widdling away”. The reviewer claims Ant “definitely had more fun playing this music than I did listening to it” and ends up saying: “Each track is about as gripping as a particularly dull episode of Bargain Hunt, and I’m being generous there. Listen to it if you must, but be warned, you’ll never get that time back.” You can read the whole thing here.
Yeah! Or, as Neil Kinnock once said, Awwwwllll Riiiiight!!!!! Widdling! Miserablism-inducement! Torpor Fest! You’re talking my language, Ant. This could be a jazz revolution right here.
But what do I find? a) I can’t hear anything but unwiddling, b) Ant cannot possibly have enjoyed playing this more than I did listening, and c) it’s really exciting, engaging and doesn’t pall for a moment.
You bastard, Law. You’ve not only let me down, you’ve let yourself down, you’ve let Michael Chillingworth (saxophones, clarinets), Ivo Neame (piano), Tom Farmer (bass) and James Maddren (drums) down. You’ve let that intrepid label boss Michael Janisch (always a man to encourage new directions) down. You’ve let Jazz with a capital Ja down. But most importantly of all you are guilty of a cunning act of manipulation, your young and impressionable target the hapless reviewer Jack Teare, quoted above. How was he to know you had secretly embedded that hypnosis track at the start to make him hear things that were never there? How was he to know that magical doldrum world was all an illusion?
So, what Ant Law (bastard!) has in fact given us with this album is 11 tracks of the same old stuff as before, more or less. There’s the same old brilliance of finding new things to say in even the most well-worn of grooves – like the blues, which they do here on a song called Blues. There’s the same old way they make rather complex music sound thoroughly immediate and accessible. There’s the same old mix of superb solos from all concerned, and all with their same old strong personal sounds and styles, and at the same time there is the same old strong group feel that I mentioned in my own reviews.
Some of the pieces are the same old ones I heard a year ago at The Red Lion, albeit honed further through extensive touring, and even the ones I haven’t heard before have that same old tendency to make me smile with delight. There’s the same old calling a spade a spade: in addition to that blue called Blues, there’s a waltz called Waltz. Oh, and a piece about asymptotes called Asymptotes.
Overall there is that same old feeling of getting more and more out of this music every time I hear it. And you know what that means, Ant Law? I’ve got the bloody time back! I don’t know how you sleep at night. (Bastard!)
Categories: CD review
thejazzbreakfast 
Very funny Peter! I wonder why Mr Teare bothers to write… and lamenting the phenomenal old days of Davis, Mingus and Parker?… sounds like the time Teare wants back is 50+ years!
Great post Peter. Nicely done.
Personally, I also hate it when people have different opinions from myself. They deserve all the ridicule I give them for not realising that JAZZ = LIFE.