27 March 2003
27 March 2003
Ed Jones, Seven Moments. ASC/EJQ 2002.
By Chris Parker
Having played with both Incognito and US3, saxophonist Ed Jones is no stranger to jazz-related popularity, but his latest release, Seven Moments, showcases his adherence to the core jazz values: improvisational imagination, spontaneous group interaction and propulsive power or swing.
It also highlights his growing powers as a composer and bandleader: he wrote five of the seven pieces, and his band — pianist Jonathan Gee, Finnish trumpeter Mika Mylläri, bassist Geoff Gascoyne and drummer Winston Clifford — is discernibly affected by Jones's dynamism and ebullient swagger as it negotiates his themes, which range from brisk hard-bop flagwavers, through free/straightahead jazz alloys, to the odd dreamy ballad.
Mylläri's two compositions, a little tricksier than Jones's but none the less
cogent, also allow the band's superb soloists — the sinewy, passionate,
inexhaustibly fertile Jones and the surefooted, pure-toned Mylläri chief among
them — to shine, so that the album as a whole is both hard-swinging and
delicate, a great taster for their dynamic, occasionally downright volcanic,
live sound.
Chris Parker is a well-known British jazz critic.
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