Music / British jazz
Raising his standards
It’s the classic story – erstwhile musician pulls a bunch of tunes together and persuades his mates to form a band. They rehearse the tunes and try them out at a gig, then head for the recording studio and make an album. It all takes time, of course, even years sometimes, but not if you are jazz trumpeter Andy Hague. He managed the whole process – from tunes to album – in just over a month. What makes the appearance of Andy Hague’s Double Standards debut CD Release doubly astonishing is that the month in question was in lockdown-bedevilled 2020. How on earth did he pull that one off?
is needed now More than ever
“We had that brief period after the summer when it seemed things were getting back to normal, socially distanced gigs were happening and recording studios were working.” Andy recalls. “I had all these tunes, some written in lockdown, some jazz standards. I just decided to go for it.”
Of course it helps greatly that Andy has been organising the Bebop Club for years and was planning a series of gigs at the Hen & Chicken to celebrate the end of that first lockdown. Though he always has a number of regular bands on the go he riffled through his address book to cherry pick a new quartet.
“Normally you want people who live locally to make gigging straightforward but in the circumstances that wasn’t likely to be much of an option. It was a confluence of things coming together, a chance to do something different.”
Andy Hague’s Double Standards – Jonathan Taylor, Andy Hague, Gwylim Jones and Henrik Jensen
So Andy called longtime friend pianist Jonathan Taylor – a former Bristol stalwart who moved to London twenty years ago – and Frome-based bassist Henrik Jensen whose band’s Bebop Club gig had caught Andy’s ear. A drummer himself, Andy had been keeping an eye on young rising star sticksman Gwilym Jones for some time and happily was able to tempt him down from London to join the project. After some hasty rehearsal their late October performance at the Hen & Chicken went down a storm with the socially-distanced jazz-thirsty capacity audience. Two weeks later they reassembled at Swindon’s Crescent Studio and in just two days recorded the 12 tracks that make up Release.
Performing at the Hen & Chicken, October 29, 2020
The album’s sound harks back to the classic Blue Note period of hard bop heroes like trumpeter Clifford Brown and drummers Max Roach and Art Blakey. It gives a reassuring nostalgia to standards like You Go To My Head and This Is The Moment as well as Andy’s own compositions A Reckless Majority and Blue Swinga. Possibly the only clue to the strange days of the record’s origins comes from tune names such as Easing Restrictions, Angst and the title track Release. So how did Andy direct the players to get the band sound he wanted it?
“They had free rein and that’s just how they played. It gelled really quickly and the recording went pretty smoothly. Overall it was as relaxed as it could be – the gig, with a live audience, was really good fun and it was so nice to be able to play with other people again.”
Listening to the album their sense of enjoyment is palpable, from Jonathan Taylor’s easy-rolling opening intro for You Go To My Head to the upbeat bounce of Wayne Shorter’s United and the cool closing workout of Andy’s Damon Blues. It’s a pleasingly relaxed listen, full of classy playing throughout – not least from Andy’s own assured trumpet and flugelhorn. A necessary balm to jazz-denied ears in our jaded times, it’s also a reminder of that optimistic flicker before the second lockdown crushed our hopes again. Recalling the heady days when he pulled the project together Andy is a tad rueful:
“Well, calling your album Release when you’re about to go into another 6-month lockdown was probably not the cleverest thing. But who knew?”
You can purchase Release from Andy’s website or the Bandcamp page. Keep an eye on the Bebop Club website for notice of future live events.
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