207: Deal With It!, by Brass Jaw

Brass Jaw (United Kingdom)
Deal With It! (2010)
15 tracks, 58 minutes
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Brass Jaw started life as a saxophone quartet of alto, two tenors and a baritone – you can hear that formation on their first album Burn. As a young saxophonist at the time, I was thrilled to see them live and hear saxes used in this way, providing really high-class jazz and making every sound themselves. Then I was disappointed a few years later when I caught them again and they’d replaced one of their tenors with a trumpet instead. It is a shame that they dropped the sax quartet thing, but I have to admit that their sound is much more nuanced that way.

The quality is of little surprise: their line-up of Ryan Quigley (trumpet), Paul Towndrow (alto sax), Konrad Wiszniewski (tenor sax) and Allon Beauvoisin (bari sax) have an amazing pedigree in the Scottish jazz scene. Their names are consistently sprinkled across so many great albums and projects, but Brass Jaw is a bit of a unique prospect. Because there’s no rhythm section, the whole thing is based on textures. Beauvoisin usually (and understandably) takes the bass part, which flutters from his bari sax as nimbly and deftly as any feather-fingered double bassist, and the other three juggle the melodies, countermelodies and harmony together among themselves. With so many roles swapping hands all the time, and the harmonies often being build out of four simultaneous melodic strands, it often resembles an intracate jazz counterpoint.

Deal With It! was Brass Jaw’s first album with a trumpet and, although in some regards they were still in a period of transition, the standard is as high as you’d expect. There’s quite a few covers on this one, with their sleazy and slurred rendition of ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ and the lightning-paced version of Horace Silver’s ‘Señor Blues’ the highlights, but their own compositions such as ‘Holding Pattern’ and ‘Pigeon English Sunrise’ taking things into different directions and showing their creativity on the experimental side.

Brass Jaw are still a quartet, but nowadays they’ve changed shape yet again – Quigley on trumpet has been replaced by trombonist Michael Owers. I’ve not seen them with that line-up yet, and there’s no albums, but a 2014 EP gives a little bit of a glimpse: of course, it sounds as good as ever. I can’t wait to hear what they come up with next!