Gypsy jazz guitar legend Jacques Montagne gets sumptuous Bristol salute

Not many people know of Jacques Montagne and even the members of this quartet seemed a little unsure. Despite a 60-year career in France and Belgium as an acknowledged master of manouche guitar Montagne was barely recorded and never filmed. Scaling Jacques Montagne is a coming together of gypsy jazz clarinetist Ross Hughes and manouche guitarist Alex Bishop with contemporary jazz bass player Riaan Vosloo and experimental (Portishead-affiliated) guitarist Adrian Utley.

They promised an attempt to link classic French swing with contemporary guitar experimentalism but it’s fair to say that they didn’t try all that hard, being more seduced by the lyrical melodies and rhythmic discipline of the old stuff. For guitars it was a case of compare and contrast – quite literally, given Utley’s battered 1930s Gibson electric and the elegant modern Maccaferri-style acoustic hand made by Bishop himself. Stylistically Bishop very much played by the rules, strict tempo rhythm locked tight with Vosloo’s equally business-like bass, while occasionally offering impeccable Django-style solos. His opening to ‘Oriental Shuffle’ had an almost Hawaiian swoon against Hughes sinuous, almost schmaltzy clarinet before an all-too brief free-blowing segue coalesced into the brisk walking bass of ‘Swing 48’. Utley’s role was more liberated – he’d admitted to being uncomfortable with charts – yet his more contemporary improvisations couldn’t resist falling in with the swing thing, albeit more in a Charlie Christian style.

It was a rare reminder that, before his Portishead years, Utley was one of Bristol’s top jazz sidemen. In the rather formal setting of Bristol Music Club this all felt like a recital and the smooth collective sound at times came close to library music, not least when underpinned by Hughes’ cartoonish doubling up of soprano and bass clarinets. John Zorn and Derek Bailey were hardly in evidence and even Jacques Montagne only briefly glimpsed, but the undeniable musical quality and energy of the evening was highly enjoyable nonetheless.