REVIEW:

Ambulance

Arnie Somogyi’s quintet, Ambulance, hit the scene at Ronnie Scott’s in 2004. They followed this success by being the first jazz group to be awarded a residency at the Snape Maltings music centre in Aldeburgh, a place normally associated with Benjamin Brittan, and the controversial shell sculpture by Maggie Hambling. Undaunted this heritage Ambulance stuck to their own cast of multi-layered, high energy grooves with an edge of wildness during their time on the Sussex coast, including sampled percussion on the Hambling shell.

It is not surprising that a bassist like Somogyi’s should bring together a strong rhythm section. Drummer Dave Smith plays with sufficient energy and razor-sharp dynamism to power an ocean going liner and Tim Lapthorne on keyboards has the responses and technical speed to give that liner a clear course. With Somogyi’s own precise powerful bass lines, this rhythm section was in danger of drowning the saxes of Paul Booth and Rob Townsend. It seemed at times that the harder Booth blew the more explosions of energy came from Smith behind him until the saxophonist was in danger of being driven into the water. This gives an idea of the overall power of the quintet as Booth is no shrinking violet on either tenor or soprano. Rob Townsend often avoided danger by playing sparser lines with more space to which Smith responded by dropping the volume.

With two saxes in a band that has put a lot of time into arrangements and rehearsals there was plenty of scope for close harmony playing but surprisingly much of the time the two horns passed the melody back and forth. The notable exceptions were compositions by Tim Lapthorne where in Loose Connections and Broadside he used the full potential of the band with dense harmonies immediately giving more weight and changes in the time adding colour. Lapthorne’s own playing was consistently forceful yet melodic and he was the one member of the band prepared to take his playing well beyond the boundaries of conventional post bop jazz.

There was a good deal of good humoured attention on stage and it would be interesting to hear how tight Ambulance become by the end of their present tour.

© Paul Medley