David Panton Trio - The David Panton Trio Live At Northampton Jazz

David Panton Trio
The David Panton Trio Live At Northampton Jazz

Album UK 2013 on Panton Music label
Jazz (Avant-garde Jazz)

PMA1083 The David Panton Trio Live At Northampton Jazz David Panton - alto saxophone/piano, Fred Thelonious Baker - electric bass, Tony Richards - drums 1 - Enters Venus (16:57), 2 - Thursday the Seventeenth (17:0), 3 - So You’re Back (25:00)* Recorded: Northampton 20 October 1983 All works by Panton © 1969, 1982 - published by D & ED Panton Music *Originally released on PM186 (cassette) This gig took place in Northampton on 20 October 1983 and was presented by Northampton Jazz. So You’re Back is the only piece from this gig which has been previously released (on Panton Music cassette PM186) and described as having some ‘strong free playing.’ Although I had been working with a London based trio with bassist Nick Stephens and drummer John Stevens, I also developed a Midlands based trio with bassist Fred Thelonious Baker and drummer Tony Richards. Derbyshire born Fred is a graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire and now a tutor there and elsewhere; he‘s been involved extensively in both jazz and folk contexts with amongst others Rick Saunders, Phil Miller, Elton Dean and Harry Beckett as well as his own band and other projects. Wolverhampton born Tony has often been the drummer of choice for players such as Johhny Griffin, Gerry Mulligan, Bobby Wellins, Dick Morrisey and many others; he also tutors, and has been an active board/committee member of the Musicians’ Union, Jazz Services and other organisations, and a local radio jazz presenter. The three performances on this disc are all that remain of a whole evening of music. It starts, as did the gig, with Enters Venus, a tune written about 1968/69 and which has been performed and recorded regularly over the years in a variety of settings and given differing interpretations - there is even one for bagpipes as yet unrecorded. This one opens with the triple time drone of the original before the languid tune (on alto) emerges, like Venus from the sea in the classical myth, and although briefly interrupted by a contrasting and more animated middle section, returns to form the general basis for the successive extended solos from all the players, before concluding the piece. Wednesday the Seventeenth was written on the death of Thelonious Monk on the 17th February 1982, and first performed on a Jazz in Britain broadcast with the ‘London’ trio. That performance was quite a short one, predominantly featuring the piano with restrained support from bass and drums. In contrast this is a more robust and extended performance with solos from everyone, including a thoughtful and at times almost elegiac bass solo from Fred Thelonious Baker whose middle name was given in honour of the great pianist by his parents. Instead of a conventional obligatory repeat of the tune, the trio ruminates around it again, exchanging figures with one another before finally coming to rest on an upwards glissando from the piano. So You’re Back was written as a sort of get-well-card for altoist Mike Osborne, who had and continued to have serious health problems until his death in 2007, and whose playing had been one of the inspirations for my getting involved seriously with this music. Interestingly we both had classical musical backgrounds before the lure of the greater freedom and spontaneity of jazz and improvised music took precedence. Again this was one of the pieces played on the 1982 Jazz in Britain broadcast, and was also recorded for release by that trio on Nondo cassette FMC5 (re-released in 2011 on CD). Again, in contrast to those more succinct performances, this performance is extended to almost 25 minutes and provided something of tour de force to finish off the evening. The initial riff gradually taken up by all the players develops into the angular and quirky figures of the notional theme on alto which quickly launches into an extended and free-wheeling solo, the following bass and drum solos bringing out different aspects of the sparse material before all three players once again combine in some further ruminating on the thematic ideas before bringing it to an intense conclusion. The small audience did not seem to be responding in anything other than a polite way to the music until this last piece when applause began to acknowledge each players solo contribution, and there were some vocal responses including one guy who seems to shout “crap”, as the chairman of the committee brings proceedings to an end and in the process mispronounces my name. It is difficult in such circumstances to know whether the music is not conventionally straight ahead or unconventionally free enough for their tastes, or whether for them it falls between two stools. It was only much later when we tried to get another gig through this organisation that it became clear that we had not gone down well and were not liked, though the question as to why remained unanswered. But whatever the immediate response of an audience it makes no difference to the musicians and their level of professionalism, passion and commitment to the music in the moment of performance which leaves an indelible impression albeit, as in this case, only on the resulting recording, which you can now judge for yourself. DP 　 1. Robert Iannapollo, Cadence, Vol.12 No.10 October 1986