Birmingham pianist Steve Tromans plays wonderfully contrasting gigs at Symphony Hall and the Silvershine Jazz Club

The Birmingham pianist, composer and improviser Steve Tromans never fails to present a new angle, a fresh concept, or even a completely unheard band line-up. He’s committed to change, maintaining vigour via conceptual restlessness. Tromans has recently played two very different gigs on his home territory. There was The Unquestioned Answer, pondered in the Symphony Hall bar, and then there was a night dedicated to jazz rock, at the Silvershine Jazz Club in Bearwood, just a few miles out from the city centre.

‘The Unquestioned Answer’ is a three-movement suite, responding to ‘The Unanswered Question’, a 1908 composition by Charles Ives. Tromans was joined by Maja Pluta (violin), Amy Coates (bass) and Steve Palmer (drums). Tranquillity blankets the space, emanating a classical tone, although attitudinally reflecting the sensitivity of free improvisation, even though composed. Particularly when Tromans explores under the lid, darkly pronouncing. When the music grows more insistent it begins to recall a combination of Terry Riley and John Cale, who did actually collaborate at one stage. Tromans explores repeat arpeggio growth, while Pluta and Coates suspend their sonic softness, as Palmer actively solos on his kit. Pluta will maintain a continuing line, perhaps, while the others will fragment. Calmess pervades.

Typically, the next Tromans gig didn’t sidestep, it leapt. He has a monthly session at the Silvershine Jazz Club, which continues the legacy of saxophonist Andy Hamilton and his posse of connected musicians. Tromans represents the outlying musical forms favoured by this long-established joint, always endeavouring to bring a surprising concept to each evening.

This time it was an addressing of what it means for jazz to meet rock. There were promises of a Frank Zappa presence, but in reality this was way more subtle than expected. Instead, Tromans used a roster of electric guitar (Dave Nock), electric bass (Si Paton) and drums (Lee Allatson). Paton is a regular figure on the improvised music scene, but the other two players were less familiar. Tromans, in perverse form, elected to play acoustic piano, initially refusing to enter the growing abstract riff-roil, biding his time for a very long stretch. He issued a short spurt, then withdrew sharply, as the trio eventually took the levels down. This was the point where Tromans chimed in romantically, his mission seemingly to act as an anti-rock sensitive. Setting up a repetitive cycle, he worked against the trio, clearing out the crowding of sound. This prompted Paton into bass freedom, as the music regularly unfurled structural surprises. Apparently improvised, these patterns were a triumph of instant diversionary tactics. Few bands can succeed when combining shards of minimalism and Californian AOR rawk.

The second set opened with the promised FZ, but interpreting one of his most obscure numbers. ‘The Dangerous Kitchen’ is a narrative song from Zappa’s lesser 1983 album The Man From Utopia. Nock intoned the text, but the composition was eventually used as a starting point for the quartet to elaborate an extension. Nock frazzled out a substantial guitar solo, but following that, the Zappa-fication was less apparent. Tromans issued decelerated  piano phrases against a slow-fuse rock vamp, once again calling up sense memories of John Cale’s cyclic progressions for The Velvet Underground.

These are just two of the potential Tromans facets. On Thursday 14th September, his Silvershine gig will explore the realms of minimalism itself…