Huw V Williams: Hon

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Laura Jurd (t, flhn, th)
Alam Nathoo (ts)
Jim Black (d)
Peter Ibbetson (d)
Huw V Williams (b)
Elliot Galvin (p, synth)

Label:

Chaos Collective

April/2016

Catalogue Number:

CC005

RecordDate:

2015

Of the band leaders from London’s Chaos Collective – the most dynamic gathering of jazz conservatoire graduates to have come out of the capital since LOOP – the trumpeter Laura Jurd and pianist Elliot Galvin have already impressed with their high spirits and sense of adventure. The recent releases on the collective’s record label offshoot suggest it’s now the turn of the rhythm section members to put their case forward. Drummer Corrie Dick’s recent CD Impossible Things is followed closely by a debut from the young double bassist Huw V Williams, a recent graduate from the Welsh College of Music who arrived in London in 2013. Hon, Welsh for ‘This’, is partially indebted to another Welsh jazz wizard from an earlier generation bearing the same Christian name; the pianist/composer Huw Warren is Williams’ mentor and takes the reigns on the production side. The bassist’s quirky blend of instrumental colours, particularly Galvin’s ‘prepared piano’ percussion and accordion, as well as the jaunty folk song and brass band elements indeed takes us back to Warren’s largely overlooked work for the Babel Label. His compositions point also to Ornette Coleman-era free jazz with soloists Jurd and Nathoo sounding great, while the bassist-leader and very fine young drummer Pete Ibbetson play the kind of grungy/electronic-inspired grooves and edgy rhythmic shifts that’s a hallmark of the New York contemporary jazz scene. One of its leading lights, the drummer Jim Black (as well as Warren) plays on an epic Bad Plus-like ‘live’ bonus track ‘Glyn’ on which Galvin brilliantly develops an expressive slow-build narrative. A highly impressive start then from yet another from Chaos’ considerable pool of idiosyncratic talent.

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