Meg Morley Trio swing at the 606 Club

The last time the Meg Morley Trio was at the 606 Club was in April 2018, for the launch of their debut album: Can’t Get Started. Several years (and one global pandemic) later, and the Australian-born pianist is back at Chelsea’s basement jazz bar, alongside double bassist Richard Sadler and drummer Emiliano Caroselli. This time the trio is launching their second album: Journey Through Home.

Without going into any unnecessary detail, it’s fair to say that a lot has happened in the past four years. And before the gig even starts, Morley lets the audience know that, during this time, there has been a change in the band’s tone.

What hasn’t changed, however, is Morley’s skill as a composer, and the trio’s cohesion of playing that ties her compositions together. Kicking off with the title track from the new album, Morely opens with a rolling piano motif: an almost Steve Reich-esque pattern. It’s not long, though, before this opens up to new musical themes and ideas.

Throughout the gig, the trio plays several tracks from the new album, as well as some older numbers. Try to be Free, a freely improvised piece from ‘Journey Through Home’, segues perfectly into the blues-inflected ‘Life Coaching’: one of the trio’s debut compositions. Another standout is ‘e-Gnosis’, a new Turkish-inspired piece that, on the album recording, features the bağlama player Huseyin Atasever.  Atasever is omitted here, which is a shame, but even without him, the trio don’t disappoint.

Morley’s compositions are intelligent with a broad creative scope, often departing far from their beginnings, whether that be through sudden changes in timbre and dynamic, or leaps between time signatures (‘Succession to a Song’, for instance, jumps from back and forth from straight time to a jaunty swing). It should be said that, despite this, these pieces never lose their sense of place. And both Sadler and Caroselli’s ability to keep up with Morley’s compositions deserve a lot of credit too, credit which the pianist doesn’t fail to recognise.

The group closes with some gentle compositions, two beautiful ballad-like melodies: ‘To Belonging’ (from the new album) and ‘Song Without Words’ (an encore, originally from Can’t Get Started). It might be their first appearance back at the 606 Club since 2018, but the Meg Morley Trio has made a strong return.

@GarethLThomas