Although, as regards both its audience and music, this was very much a Loop Collective affair, it was also an archetypal Vortex gig in that it provided incontrovertible evidence, were it still needed, of the extraordinary depth and vitality of the current UK jazz scene. Two albums, bassist/composer Dave Manington's Headrush and tenor player/composer Sam Crockatt's Howeird (both on Loop Records – see CD Reviews section), were duly launched in the presence of an informally sociable but supportively attentive audience heavy with musicians, but more importantly, there was an almost palpable sense of a tight-knit community eager to hear and mull over its members' latest efforts. Manington's band – tenor player Mark Hanslip, pianist Ivo Neame, drummer Tim Giles – approaches his open-ended music in a spontaneously creative, appropriately improvisational manner, using it as a springboard for what m'learned friends would call 'frolics of their own', Giles constantly pushing at the boundaries of its various beats with clattering cross-rhythms, Neame and Hanslip weaving in and out of it, tunes almost imperceptibly segueing into one another, all underpinned by Manington's subtle but steady bass. In short, an intriguingly varied but cohesive evening's music, springing easily and naurally from the fertile soil provided by a supportive community and blossoming [that's one too many horticultural references – Ed.] in its most hospitable environment |
