Graham Reid | | 2 min read
Storm
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this double album which comes with an extensive insert sheet of credits.
Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .
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It has perhaps been mentioned here previously, but I first encountered Nathan Haines and his younger brother Joel at some time in the mid Eighties when they were still at Northcote College but also playing in the band Second Generation with their father, bassist Kevin.
The boys were perhaps still feeling their way into jazz but both were clearly accomplished players – Nathan then favouring flute but some sax, Joel on guitar – and I recall suggesting to Nathan he listen to Ornette Coleman, which might have been a bridge too far for a teenager.
That was all a long time ago and we understandably relegate it to the distant past.
But it's a little disconcerting to consider multi-instrumentalist/composer Nathan released his groundbreaking debut Shift Left almost 30 years ago.
And that Haines – then in the vanguard of a new generation of jazz players and listeners comfortable with rap, remixes and scratching -- is now in his early 50s.
Although he has sometimes returned to acoustic jazz – The Poet's Embrace (2012) and Vermillion Skies(2013) where album covers evoked early 1960s Blue Note artwork – Haines remains an exploratory musician collaborating with international producers, remixers and vocalists for music aimed at the chill-out room and club as much as the jazz audience.
This new album in an arrestingly simple cover sometimes harks back to the winning formula of Squire for Hire (2003) in its merging of contemporary soulful R'n'B vocalists (Britain's Vanessa Freeman on the rolling boil of Brother of Mine with the late Phil Asher on drums, Samoan/Māori singer La Coco on the sensual Come into the Light) and rap (Eo on the snappy, string-embellished Just Holdin' On with Haines' father Kevin on acoustic bass).
Love You More has Haines and Michal Martyniuk laying down a moody, repeated synth and keyboard groove under the leader's soprano sax, there's retro disco (Don't Think) and singer Ruby Cesan on the understated, simmering disco-funk of Night Moves featuring some of Haines' most intricate soprano work.
There's an impressive cast: dextrous singer Rachel Clark on a vocal setting of Stanley Turrentine's slinky 1970s tune Storm, and with pianist/bassist and string arranger Jonathan Crayford on the exotic Brazilian warmth of Belo Dia with Haines on flute; singer Arjuna Oakes and keyboard player Mark de Clive-Lowe on Give Thanks . . .
However after a promisingly assertive opening Sleek doesn't venture far from the core idea and Running Man sounds like incidental music from a Miami-based movie.
A standout is Journey to the Peak co-written with Rhodes player Martyniuk. After some cinematic scene-setting it morphs into a cruisy throwback to 1980s Californian synth-jazz before tightening as Haines' increasingly energised tenor sax finds a post-bop edge, his old school muscles stretching.
Mostly though, Haines here looks to his clubland crossover journey and 1980s influences.
His well-publicised brush with death is summoned in the engrossing autobiographical title track at the end -- with tabla by Manjit Singh and guitar from brother Joel Haines – where, in a sandpaper whisper, he sings, “I made some bad decisions . . . you never know what you've got 'til it's gone”.
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There are a number of album reviews and interviews with Nathan Haines at Elsewhere starting here.
You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here
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