Michael Garrick Sextet - Troppo
Friday, February 27, 2009
Vocalion CDSML8444 ****Michael Garrick (p, el p), Henry Lowther (t, flhn, vn), Art Themen (ts, ss, fl), Don Rendell (ts, ss, fl), Norma Winstone (v), Coleridge Goode (b – on Fellow Feeling only), Dave Green (b) and Trevor Tomkins (d). Rec. 13, 25 and 26 October 1973
Michael Garrick was one of the first British jazz musicians to grasp the potential of modes. More than that, while others merely found such approaches a get-out from playing changes, Garrick went deeper, creating beautifully crafted melody lines that could develop their own thematic integrity. Along with a few others here and abroad – George Russell, Wayne Shorter, Mingus and Graham Collier spring immediately to mind – he made art out of small-group jazz composition.
For my money, Troppo is one of his very best records and features one of his happiest combos. This group brought together in Henry Lowther and Art Themen two of the country’s finest musicians and two of its most-undervalued. Add to that, that doyenne of vocalists, Norma Winstone, and one of its most assured rhythm partnerships in Tomkins and Green and the possibilities are endless. With the ever-wonderful Coleridge Goode on the funky Joe Harriott tribute Fellow Feeling and some truly gorgeous flute from Don Rendell and you wish that there was more from these sessions still to come. Few records are perfect but this comes damn close.
Duncan Heining
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