CD Review

To purchase Live in London click here
The Dan Forshaw Quartet: Live in London (EP)                                  
January 2008
Personnel:
Dan Forshaw (saxes),
Jonathan Geyevu (piano),
Matt Hunt (bass),
J Hoy (drums),
Liza Mohan (guest vocals)

The line-up for this latest release by the Dan Forshaw Quartet is the same as that featured on their Language of Emotion album, released early in 2007, supplemented this time round by guest vocalist Liza Mohan on 2 of the 5 tracks.  While the EP concludes with one of Dan’s fine original compositions (It was himself, see earlier review of Language of Emotion), the focus of this collection is to pay sincere homage to some of the most outstanding jazz composers and performers from the middle decades of the 20th century; and indeed, 50 or 60 years on, the powerful and personal influence of these colossal figures remains undiminished among contemporary musicians.

As an upbeat opener, the Quartet breezes into the Charles Mingus composition Nostalgia in Times Square with Dan and Jonathan featuring prominently over the ever-tight rhythmic core supplied by Matt and J, and as usual the ensemble playing is excellent.  Liza joins in on the Redman/Razaf standard Gee Baby, ain’t I good to you? - her vulnerable and almost tentative style seemingly at odds with and yet enhancing the self-congratulatory tone of the lyric.  In Autumn Leaves Liza is entirely at home as she duets with Jonathan through the verses of Johnny Mercer’s magisterial ‘translaptation’ of Prévert and Kosma’s lament on loss and longing.  And again, with the arrival of the sax and rhythm section, the finely swung mood change from the midpoint of the song onwards demonstrates that five can be as one.  And Sonny Rollins’ St. Thomas is a bravura romp by Dan and his colleagues.  Right from the playful Stockhausen-in-the-Caribbean effects of the opening moments, this is a tour de force (and a tour de fun) for performers and audience alike.  Folk melodies and calypso rhythms shimmer around what has been called ‘one of the most identifiable, beloved themes in all of jazz’.  Don’t just listen to this EP, make a point of seeing the Dan Forshaw Quartet live - wherever they’re performing!

[Dave Beattie]