REVIEW: | ||
Don Weller and | ||
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 | There is a propensity among older jazz musicians to gather younger players around them as they fear their lip is weakening or their fingers stiffening. The presence of Don Weller, one of the greats of British jazz in the same band as the restlessly rising 26-year-old, Stuart Mccallum, does not however fit this picture. The story is the other way round. Weller asked the young guitarist to join his octet, not a group of young players, and then Mccallum asked Weller to join his trio. The result is a quartet in which Weller and Mccallum are playing on equal terms and the younger man makes many of the decisions on arrangements. The evening was dominated by numbers that allowed all four members improvising space and great opportunity for spontaneous interaction. Mccallum frequently responded to a phrase in Weller’s solo and the tenor played back, while the extraordinarily vibrant drumming from Luke Flowers was constantly altering the rhythmic colour with quite intuitive changes in dynamic as the lead moved from Weller to Mccallum or on to Steve Brown on organ. Weller’s playing showed no stiffening of fingers. For a man who has often worked within jazz fusion he has a lightness of touch, a dexterity of phrasing and smooth tone that should be the envy of many players more than half his age. He is a player who knows when a few notes say more than many and when a fast break can really raise the temperature. Mccallum is a guitarist with a stunning technique and, when he wishes, a very smooth tone, who can play superbly complex phrases, often right across the beat. He also makes maximum use of the technology available with loops and a whole range of distortions. After one particularly loud and violent number he apologized by saying he had been teaching a lot of kids heavy metal and it just has to come out sometimes. I asked Weller at the end of the gig how he felt about working with such young musicians. “It’s a kick up the arse” he said. And it was to the audience, a demonstration of great boundary breaking. © Paul Medley | |
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