Skip to main content

The Billy Pod quartet at Hitchin's JazzUp!

The brilliant JazzUp! finished its season with Billy Pod and his quartet playing tracks from his album 'Quintessence'. Billy was preceded by the resident support act, the Joe English trio, with special guest Toby Evans (tenor sax).

Joe English, Herbie Rees, Toby Evans and Henry Rugg

As usual, Joe and friends entertained the JazzUp! crowd. We're all looking forward to hearing them again once the club restarts in September. I'm also grateful to Joe for creating the theme tune for Harmonious World, which you can hear in the Season 15 Trailer.

The atmospheric Billy Pod quartet filled the space at Hitchin's Club 85 with extraordinary jazz, where the four musicians demonstrated why they are each regarded as at the forefront of the UK music scene. Will Barry (piano), Misha Mullov-Abbado (bass) and Tom Ollendorff (guitar) joined Billy Pod (drums) in what was a real collaboration.


Will Barry, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Billy Pod and Tom Ollendorff

There's a lightness of touch to this quartet, combined with a profound intensity and the sense of focus was palpable. At moments, you could see the facial expressions across the stage that kept the structure of each tune, while allowing for a freedom that this jazz inspires.

This really was an extraordinary gig and when Billy announced the title of a tune as 'Unprecedented', there was a ripply of laughter as the audience responded to what had genuinely been new and exciting. That track began with Will Barry on piano as the club fell silent to enjoy this music.


Billy Pod and Tom Ollendorff

Mainly playing tracks from 'Quintessence', the beautiful 'The Higher We Soar' was one of the highlights of the quartet's set. For me, though, the most inspirational moment was Tom Ollendorff's guitar feature on the rarely-heard standard 'Answer Me'.

This was the perfect end to the current season of JazzUp! and September can't come around quickly enough.

If you'd like to hear Billy talking about 'Quintessence', listen to episode 135 of Harmonious World.

Meanwhile, Tom Ollendorff features on episode 162.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Big Wade - 'Piano Man' out now

Big Wade and Black Swan Theory collectively blends funk, soul, jazz and everything that fills the cracks between those genres: his new album -  Piano Man - on all major streaming platforms ahead of the Piano Man Tour 2024 , which has dates across the US. Piano Man  brings a selection of original and covers, including a stunning version of Autumn Leaves , which reinvents the song as the funky, electronic Autumn . Big Wade's voice takes the song's melody and improvises around and around, with backing vocals and a deliberately sparse arrangement underpinning the song. Similarly, on Children of the Ghetto , the lead and backing vocals blend in with the soulful musicians of Black Swan Theory. Electronics are used with dexterity, often expanding the vocal lines, as in the ethereal and ghostly opening of Don't Let Me Go . However, the tools never dominate - simply adding depth and layers to the funk. Never more than when Big Wade enters a new world in Interludes , including vocals...
Post a Comment
Read more

Playtime: 'Morse Code Through The Lights'

Every once in a while, an album drops into your inbox and isn't going anywhere. Morse Code Through The Lights is just such an album. Incontrovertibly controversial, this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but this one has absolutely, instantly, made it onto my list of top albums of 2024. Drummer Tom Bancroft and his band Playtime, which began in Edinburgh as Adventures in New Music ten years ago as a weekly session, have produced something delightfully experimental and brilliantly creative. Four of Scotland's most-established jazz musicians - Martin Kershaw (sax), Graeme Stephen (guitar), Mario Caribe (bass) and Tom Bancroft (drums) - tried out new music and new ideas together. Once lockdown struck in 2020, they decided to explore the possibilities of improvising music together online, partly for something to do, and partly because it was something they could do for their audience. Most of us discovered - or thought we had - that improvising online was difficult or impossi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Remembering season 20 of Harmonious World

In June 2020, I released the first episode of my podcast -   Harmonious World  - and I had no idea how much delight it would bring me to share conversations with musicians from around the world. Whether you're a guest, a listener or one of the collaborators who have helped me find my guests, thank you! I now have listeners in 2, 475 cities across 129 countries, so wherever you are, welcome to our collective musical attempts to make the world more harmonious. Season 20 guests were: Chris Gall Sultan Stevenson Fotina Naumenko Quinn Sternberg Tara Minton for International Jazz Day Nicole Zuraitis Dave Keech Ute Lemper Vonn Vanier Iain Farrington Cecilie Strange Becca Wilkins Dave Handler
Post a Comment
Read more