Review: Comfort in Chaos/The Invisible Apples

This evening was treading a tricky path, both presenting an unflinching first-hand insight into difficult and painful topics and yet holding on to messages of hope and resilience in the face of overwhelming personal and social problems. Trickier still, perhaps, was the task of creating a musical soundtrack that could stay true to both those narratives. That by the end of the gig we felt both deeply moved and yet very glad to have been there says a lot for the craft and sincerity of the poets, composers and musicians involved.

The Invisible Apples – John Baggott & Pete Judge

It started very much on a lighter note, however, with The Invisible Apples duo playing a set of pianist John Baggott’s original jazz pieces and one cover – a jaunty, up-tempo Errol Garner influenced reading of Billie Holiday’s You’ve Changed. There was a pleasing clarity to the economic acoustic combination of John’s piano and Pete Judge’s flugelhorn that reflected the pianists’s compositional style in the Spanish-tinged Pathways, while the atmospheric Time Frozen felt like a Nick Drake song waiting for the words to arrive. Throughout their entertaining set the obvious matiness between the two players gave an undertow of warmth to proceedings.

Poets Jj and Danni Willey

What followed was a lot more unsettling, however, when poets Jj and Danni Willey took turns to read their work, each opening up painful stories from life experiences ranging across abusive relationships, mental health crises, sexual exploitation and homelessness. The writing was clear and powerful, angry and defiant but never unnecessarily dramatic, and their performances were underpinned with confidence that somehow lifted things from the depths of understandable despair. Both were graduates from the 1625 Independent People project that supports young people going through difficult times and homelessness, the work of which was the inspiration for the evenings main event.

Comfort In Chaos composers Pete Judge and Harriet Riley

Comfort in Chaos – a neat encapsulation of the 1625 IP project’s work – was a specially commissioned suite of chamber jazz composed by percussionist Harriet Riley and Pete Judge in collaboration with Jj and Danni. The piece was scored for a septet including strings and electronics as well as a drummer, Pete’s trumpet and Harriet’s marimba. The two poets contributed throughout, all coming together for a collaborative finale.

(l-r) Georgie Ward, Danni Willey, Caelia Luniss, Jo Silverstone, Stevie Toddler

The music had a careful tone, almost classical at times, as when the strings layered into long chords, yet able to slip loose when Stevie Toddler’s bass, Harriet Riley’s marimba or Pete Judge’s trumpet took their own path. The triumphant group coda to the track Comfort in Chaos was particularly effective, while Georgie Ward’s deft synth work on the subsequent interlude miraculously wove ever-changing voices across two keyboards while the drums boiled up and trumpet soared.

Poet Jj

There was even a moment of light relief courtesy of Jj’s poem Three Steps, recounting an everyday disaster over the clinking marimba and growling synth of Trees and Thorns. That initially loosely constructed piece coalesced around interwoven violin and cello with the piano stabbing and jumping in staccato contrast, before merging fairly seamlessly into I Rise. This last section marked a full coming together of the seven musicians, albeit reined back for the poets’ final (and finally optimistic) contribution before matching that with a triumphant rising ensemble chord reminiscent of A Day In The Life.

Drummer Matt Brown with Pete Judge and Harriet Riley

It’s fair to say that the whole thing was a great success – the diversity of the instrumentation had been well-used to generate a palette of textures and moods, the music itself had augmented the poetry without obscuring it and the whole piece had stayed true to the ideas that it arose from. Difficult topics had been bravely and beautifully confronted in words and music, a fine achievement by all involved. There is a recording available as CD or download but it would be a scandalous waste if this ambitious and engaging performance could not be repeated for a wider audience.