Hon (Chaos Collective)
Huw V Williams
Released February 26, 2016
The Telegraph Best Jazz Albums of 2016
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mf7TSeXNxtn31ljvpCFUDgvsptN0fAIAw
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About:
‘Hon’ is an exciting project by double bassist and composer Huw V Williams. Huw’s original music is played by a phenomenal collective of London’s finest young improvisers, featuring Laura Jurd on trumpet, Alam Nathoo on tenor saxophone, Elliot Galvin on accordion and Pete Ibbetson on drums.
Winner of the 2012 Yamaha Jazz Scholars Prize from The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Huw draws on a rich combination of his Welsh roots, his training in jazz and the contemporary creative music scenes in London, Brooklyn and Manhattan. “I really like the idea of music coming from the mixing pot of all your history, so this is just as much about a teenage rock phase in North Wales as a mid twenties Free Jazz phase in London.”
With a fast growing CV lit up by the names of some of his heroes including Jim Black, Michael Blake, Jason Rebello, Neil Yates and long time mentor Huw Warren, Huw V Williams is building a beautiful bass filled world of free music and primal creativity.
Track Listing:
1. Beryl 1:52
2. Skardu’s Missing 4:08
3. 06/01/14 5:46
4. Rotten Apple Boughs 8:01
5. Mugs 7:15
6. Retrogressive Shredfest 5:24
7. Slumps 6:16
8. Hon 5:23
9. Glyn 11:28
All tunes by Huw V Williams
Personnel:
Huw V Williams: bass
Laura Jurd: trumpet (1-8)
Alam Nathoo: tenor saxophone (1-8)
Elliot Galvin: accordion, piano (1-8)
Pete Ibbetson: drums (1-8)
Huw Warren: piano (9)
Jim Black: drums (9)
Recorded January 3-6, 2015, at Bryn Derwen Studios, Bethesda (tracks 1-8) and Brecon Jazz Festival 2013 (track 9)
Producer: Huw Warren
Engineer: Alex Killpartrick
Assistant Engineer: Sam Barnes
Mastering: Donal Whelan
Artwork: Meirion Ginsberg
Review:
Setting up artful collisions between genres is something of a trend, but few do it as entertainingly as young Welsh bassist and composer Huw V Williams on his new album. Latin dance beats, free jazz outbursts and surreally fast bop passages rub up against things much harder to name, such as the limping phrases of Skardu’s Missing, which has a strutting music-hall energy about it. Slumps has a laugh-out-loud alternation of two speeds, sharpened by Elliot Gavin’s piano, hurling out cheerful major chords like a player-piano on speed.
At the other end of the spectrum is Rotten Apple Boughs, where Elliot Gavin’s accordion and Laura Jurd’s trumpet evoke a wintry sadness. It could all seem too wilfully eccentric, if it weren’t for Williams’s old-fashioned skill as a composer. The first number is a perfectly poised little piece of two-part counterpoint, as austere as winter trees against the sky. All this, and the terrific playing of his quartet (not to mention the amusingly tipsy ‘Caerhun Hooligan Choir’ on Mugs) make this album a winner.
Ivan Hewett (The Telegraph)
