Jeremy Pelt [Eva Kapanadze]
ONE of the pleasures of the EFG London Jazz Festival, which kicks off at the end of the week (see https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/whats-on), is the sheer number of venues listed, many of them as yet unfamiliar to me. The Carpet Shop on Rye Lane anyone? No, me neither. Nor have I made it to Jamboree in King’s Cross yet. There are at least a dozen others that are strangers to me.
It’s a marker of just how healthy and diverse jazz music is at the moment that it is being played in churches, theatres, pubs, clubs, ex-industrial units and restaurants in every corner of the capital, and that fresh sites are popping up weekly.
One such newcomer on the LJF list is Ladbroke Hall, which puts on dinner-jazz nights every Friday – and sometimes Saturday, too – and has LJF shows on November 15 and 22. True, Notting Hill – it’s just north of the Westway – is a bit of a schlep from north London, but I’d cross the entire city to see US trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, who had a two-night residency there last week.
Ladbroke Hall is a very grand Beaux Arts building with echoes of a stately home, that now functions as gallery/restaurant/arts and music venue but in a former life it was the factory and showroom of the Sunbeam Talbot Motor Company. That heritage is evoked by an enormous plaster medallion bearing the name of the company on the wall of the Sunbeam Theatre, where the gigs take place, and the fact the waitstaff wear car mechanic-style boiler suits.
But what of Mr Pelt? He intimidates me, not just with his impressive physical bulk, but in his musicianship and mastery of the genre. His album liner notes say things like: “The minor chords ascend and rest on a moody F-sharp minor cadence then the minor ninth chords begin to ascend in minor thirds and half stops with a cyclical effect”. It can sound a little like a Louis Balfour introduction on the Fast Show. But, both on record and live, you soon forget all about the mechanics behind the skilled and complex structures he creates and revel in the glorious sound he makes.
For a trumpeter, tone is as important as the number of notes played and Pelt’s is simply gorgeous in its brilliance. We got the expected high and fast solos that evoked Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard but, at the end of the first set, he slowed up to show his mastery of ballads and standards with his graceful precision on People and Who Can I Turn To? I hadn’t heard him play quite so tenderly before.
Temperamentally, too, this was a different Pelt from the one I saw a couple of years back who, while performing as well as ever, never seemed to fully connect with the audience, coming over as distant and somewhat aloof. Here he was warm and jokily playful, teasing the patrons, and telling stories about his kids. Perhaps that was because his band, rather than a collection of seasoned vets, was mostly comprised of students from the university he teaches at in New Jersey. It is possible that taking young players on the road (“Let’s call it a “field trip,”” he quipped) has injected fresh energy and joy into his music (harnessing the power of youth was a strategy that both Art Blakey and Miles Davis embraced).
I am not sure that the gifted Ukrainian guitarist Misha Mendelenko really fitted in with the architecture of the group, his Larry Coryell-ish fast fusion runs, whilst impressive, seemed out of context. But that’s a personal quibble – I would have liked a second horn, tenor or alto, in the line-up – and anyway the star of the students was hyperactive vibraphone player Jalen Baker, who is likely to give current vibes wunderkind Joel Ross a run for his money in the future.
Most people dine at the downstairs tables at the Ladbroke Hall gigs, although you can stand on the mezzanine and skip dinner if you wish. They’re also as careful as they can be not to serve during the actual performance, which I approve of (kitchen logistics mean they have to break that rule sometimes). The Italian food is not cheap, but it is a very, very substantial cut above most jazz dining. With its high vaulted ceiling it can’t be an easy room to manage sound-wise, but after a slightly flat feel to the beginning of the opening number, things warmed up nicely. Kudos to the sound engineer.
Pelt was a little bemused by the somewhat subdued audience and commented on the blank looks he got when he mentioned the great Slough-born pianist and broadcaster Marian McPartland, but this isn’t Ronnie Scott’s and I suspect a significant percentage of those attending were jazz newbies. Pelt left us with echoes of the trumpet player even those ingenues would recognise – Miles Davis – when he picked up the Harmon mute and close-miked his horn to send shivers down the spine. In the words of Johnny Burke: But Beautiful. For future gigs see https://ladbrokehall.com/.
I caught another, very different trumpeter last week as well, this time without venturing onto the Hammersmith & City Line. At Highgate’s Lauderdale House (https://www.lauderdalehouse.org.uk) Pete Horsfall played and sang established classics (from Gershwin, Ellington, Strayhorn, Waller) but with a very modern attack and flair to his soloing. There was joy to be had here, too, and Horsfall’s chops were on fire (which sounds like a scene from The Bear, but means he was in total control of the instrument).
He was accompanied by young Joe Webb, a mightily talented pianist who can skip from Art Tatum to Thelonious Monk in a heartbeat – check out his new album Hamstrings and Hurricanes (Edition Records) -and a smooth and inventive sax man, the ever-dapper Giacomo Smith. Webb and Horsfall are part of a fine quartet that play The Parakeet in Kentish Town on November 25. Sadly, no Smith this time, but I’ll be going to enjoy the piano and trumpet all over again. Book on: https://jazzattheparakeet.com/
