Jazz breaking news: Rob Hughes Quintet record live at Pizza Express Jazz Club for their latest album
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Joined by surprise guest singer Randolph Matthews, sounding uncannily like Bobby McFerrin in the vocals department, saxophonist/flautist Rob Hughes recorded his latest album with his quintet live at Pizza Express Jazz Club last night in front of a mellow audience made up of what sounded like a fairly large contingent of smartphone-wielding Italians.
Hughes – last heard by Jazzwise in Camden at the Blues Kitchen in US blues guitarist Matt Backer’s band last December – has a pretty robust sound on the tenor saxophone, imbued with a Dan-like horn section swagger but last night it was his flute playing that had an additional edge, which slightly recalled the great Hubert Laws. His brief, tip-top duo vocals with Matthews later on also showed an extra element to Hughes’ range as the band backed the pair. But the tricksy lines of his self-penned song ‘I’m not being funny but’ or his unusual tribute to Stan Getz, whose music the “head of hairdressing” at the Kidderminster college where Hughes studied rock and jazz introduced him to – he told the momentarily mystified audience – more than indicated the saxophonist’s mettle and improvising flair.
With acid jazz era favourite Roger Beaujolais on the vibraphone tucked in behind him, Rick Laughlin from The London Experiment on piano and pitch bending keys to his side, plus the slightly more reticent bass of big Dane Henrik Jensen and soul/funk drummer Francesco Mendolia, Matthews was the big surprise of the evening, and he and Hughes will reconvene later in the year for a duo gig at Kings Place. With great dexterity and skill in finding his vocalese direction within the wash of pedal generated saxophone polyphonics triggered by Hughes the McFerrin-esque and his Bona-like effects were nonetheless coming from a creative space, even if the tunes took a while to get going. Hughes and Matthews excelled on a new arrangement of ‘Living The Dream’, featured on Hughes’ 2006 album Butterfly, and Beaujolais was able to stretch out more and more as the gig went on, adding a new dimension to the fast unfolding sound.
– Stephen Graham