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Jazz: Gary Husband's Force Majeure

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  • Jazz: Gary Husband's Force Majeure

    The Evening Standard (London)
    March 1, 2005

    JAZZ
    GARY HUSBAND'S FORCE MAJEURE
    RONNIE SCOTT'S CLUB, W1

    JACK MASSARIK

    THIS is the all-star (and almost all-American) group that roared
    triumphantly around Britain on a Contemporary Music Network tour last
    March, and if you're wondering how a nightclub's PA system could
    harness such skull-rattling power, the answer is only just. The legs
    of my table were buzzing slightly as Gary Husband, Leeds's
    doublytalented maestro of drums and keyboards, cranked his mighty
    ensemble into stadium-sized life.

    The overall ambience recalled lateperiod Miles Davis, with Jim
    Beard's brooding synth chords and Randy Brecker's wah-wah-enhanced
    trumpet solos bubbling over Matthew Garrison's five-string Fender
    bass, Husband's sizzling stickwork and the chattering congaskins of
    Armenian percussion wizard Arto Tuncboyacian.

    Sharing the front line with Brecker was the vocalised electric-violin
    sound of former Mahavishnu Orchestra star Jerry Goodman and Elliot
    Mason, equally fluent on slide trombone and valve-articulated
    basstrumpet. Husband's sketches showed how to orchestrate for maximum
    impact without saxophones or guitar, but raw power was only part of
    the group's colourful agenda.

    Their opening set presented portraits of three original musicians --
    Burt Bacharach, Bjvrk and John McLaughlin -- and each piece contained
    moments of quiet reflection and delicate interplay, as when Goodman's
    violin made feathery embellishments to Beard's church-organlike drone
    or when Husband's piano exchanged phrases with Tuncboyacian, his
    fingers drumming against an enamel bowl, half-filled with water.

    It was absorbing music, as wild and unpredictable as the weather,
    with the measured simplicity of Christine Tobin's voice an ideal
    contrast opposite. Expertly backed by guitarist Phil Robson's trio,
    she sang with feeling, as ever relishing the saddest ones. Billie
    Holiday's God Bless the Child, was followed by Leonard Cohen's
    similar dirge, Everybody Knows (the Dice is Loaded). But don't call
    the Samaritans. Offstage, she's the most cheerful, upbeat person you
    could meet.

    * Until Saturday. Information: 020 7439 0747.
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