REVIEW: 20 January 2005

Mark Lockheart

The Spin started the new year featuring a saxophonist with a very distinctive sound. Playing with the house band of Pete Oxley guitar, Mark Doffman drums and the astounding Yaron Stavi bass, Mark Lockheart demonstrated the breadth of his musicianship in a deliberately varied set. Starting his career with the seminal, Loose Tubes, Mark now works regularly with the highly original, Perfect Houseplants, Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear and his own 11-piece The Scratch Band, for which he composes and arranges.

Lockheart is both a virtuoso and a cerebral player constantly looking for new ways to interpret a tune without losing the thread of the melody. On the first number, Metheney’s Song for Bilbao he played with his characteristic long arching phrases interspersed with short attacks, winding up the excitement while keeping unnervingly close to the harmonies. In Jobim’s Felicidado his tenor took on the huskiness of Getz and the lyrical phrasing that an accomplished player can give a Jobim melody. Next came some beautifully controlled soloing in Invitation, a tune whose open spaces can easily tempt the unwary into ragged explorations. Before the end of the first set there was a première of a new Lockheart tune, a tightly-arranged pastoral ballad played with firmness of touch on both tenor and soprano.

In the second half the rest of the band moved into the lime light with Lockheart. There were moments when the empathy between Yaron Stavi on bass and Mark Doffman on drums raised the intensity and the groove. Yaron also played a couple of solos of such force and magic that the whole room acknowledged the presence of another virtuoso. Both Mark and Yaron also showed great sensitivity to the sudden changes of dynamic from Lockheart, particularly in Kenny Wheeler’s Mark Time.

The evening ended with Cold Duck Time a funky blues in which Pete Oxley gave us a taste of the guitar work we can look forward to in forthcoming evenings at the Spin. This is the place to be on a Thursday evening for anyone wanting to hear some of the best jazz not just in Oxford but in the country.

© Paul Medley