REVIEW:

Joel Harrison Quintet

The Spin kicked off a new season with the audience packed from stage to entrance to see American Joel Harrison’s quintet playing one of only two venues in the country before moving to other parts of Europe. Harrison’s website confirms what was very much in evidence, that, despite his abilities as a guitarist, this quiet unassuming musician sees himself as much a composer as player. With a quintet of superb musicians Harrison himself was primarily the band leader who led his players through the intricacies of his scores while leaving much of the soloing to the saxophonist Miguel Zenon and second guitarist, Brad Shepik with Jordan Perlson drums and Fima Ephron bass. Harrison’s compositions from his latest album, ‘Harbour’ and the previous ‘Harrison plays Harrison’, a tribute to the late Beatle, follow complex paths that often move from slow melodic introductions into more up tempo middle sections sometimes striding into the near mayhem of free improvisation. Harrison as the controlling figure was obviously needed to indicate the turns in the path of these delightfully layered and expressive pieces.

Harrison has also said in interview that, “Jazz is the most democratic of all kinds of music, and I could never do music that didn't have improvisation in it for too long.” Nevertheless it is the leader who makes jazz democratic and in this respect governments both sides of the Atlantic have much for learn from Harrison as he passed the baton of the solo spot around the band with great equanimity. Both Brad Shepik and Miguel Zenon were allowed to stoke the engines of the band by pulling out solos of drive and imagination while Jordan Perlson and Fima Ephron gave real three dimensional rhythmic shape and force to the proceedings. Miguel Zenon in particular on alto played solos that were wonderfully forceful and diverse, not afraid to use a simple line or a torrent of notes to feed our thirst for virtuosity. A sax and drums duet in Moodrodeo was tight and dramatic while Harrison’s reformulation of Here Comes the Sun showed how imaginatively he can build from a simple base.

© Paul Medley