Review: Corrie Dick’s Impossible Things

The successful jazz composer knows that finding the right musicians to understand your music and add their own creative energy is as crucial as the writing of it. As a founder member of London’s  exuberant young Chaos Collective Scottish drummer Corrie Dick was able to cherry pick some equally bright talent for his Six Impossible Things who appeared in an 8-strong line-up at the Bebop but, while there was no shortage of good performances, it was his own character as bandleader and composer that defined the evening. 

Things opened with an easy-going greeting from the man himself (“This is our 15th gig in 15 days – and we still sound great!”) that established the wry humour  that would underpin the evening and opener Soar was a gentle introduction to the compositional style: metaphysical poetry recited to an elegiac keyboard duet of short phrases and hanging sonorities layered into an almost gospel feel that later swept into a catchy groove offset by George Crowley’s hard-nosed tenor sax and an inspired guitar solo from Rob Luft. 

Dick’s drumming showed that for all his creative energy he’s unafraid to riff it, albeit with the hint of boiling over at any moment, and indeed there were a couple of pop-ish numbers (the Beatlish What Has Become of Albert? and a chirpy number that might have been called Flower Country)  and an ‘old-school ska meets the Funk Brothers’ groover dedicated to his brother Gary. All these seemed well-suited to vocalist Jessica Radcliffe though she particularly shone in jazzier numbers like Six Impossible Things with its Alice in Wonderland quotations and richly orchestrated ebb and flow. That number highlighted Matt Robinson’s carefully abstracted piano playing, hunched over the keys in bemusement as if discovering all this for the first time. He really came into his own, though, on the darkly broken lullaby Don’t Cry stretching out the simple piece under Radcliffe’s breathy vocal into an unsettling elegy before letting it float free for Tom Dennis to deconstruct further on trumpet.

The knack that distinguishes Corrie Dick’s composition is to pull together sometimes disparate phrases or styles but without losing a central idea that makes a kind of sense of it all. It’s reminiscent of Mike Westbrook’s ambitious pieces and makes you hope that the young drummer gets the chance to write for bigger ensembles in due course. This skill is encapsulated in King William Walk, a tune dedicated to his father, which begins with an electric piano solo from Joe Webb that, lacking the folksier violin of the recorded version, becomes a Presbyterian hymn tune pulled by the band into a Scottish dance tune that, eventually, finds its way to West Africa and an almost Acid Rock payoff courtesy of Luft’s cosmic guitar feeding into the only drum solo of the evening. The seamless changes are almost all steered by the drummer’s shifting rhythms, yet it’s unobtrusively done and the benign smile on his face shows how much he basks in the music without need for limelight.

In the confines of the Bebop Club backroom it was inevitable that so complex a set-up would be challenged and there were moments – especially when everyone added their backing vocals – when the ensemble sound overcame Jessica Radcliffe’s voice and Matt Robinson’s acoustic piano. But such moments were thankfully rare and here was plenty of opportunity to enjoy the finely crafted whimsy and serious musicianship on offer.