Music / Jazz
Review: Get The Blessing/Last Minute Meter Readers, Widcombe Social Club
Though they are a very playful outfit a Get The Blessing gig can often be pretty intense – there’s an element of sonic assault ever-present in their music, after all. But any risk of this album preview being a serious affair was demolished early on by support act Last Minute Meter Readers cheerfully haphazard presentation and the resulting evening was splendidly entertaining.
Last Minute Meter Readers – Tony Orrell and Raph Clarkson (pic: Tony Benjamin)
The combination of drummer Tony Orrell’s relentless ebullience and trombonist Raph Clarkson’s enigmatic stoicism makes Last Minute Meter Readers a classic comedy double act, something flagged up by their hi-vis vests. The fact that both are amazing improvisers, however, means that their spontaneous performance combined wit and musicality in equal measure. Using a mini library of samples and a few bits of percussion Tony provided a continuum of musical surrealism to which Raph responded in a wide range of ways, whether a layered trombone counterpoint for a dreamy interlude or some down and dirty gravelling against a sudden provocative drum & bass sample. When the distinctive loop of the Maytals’ Monkey Man slipped in Raph slipped into Rico gear for a spell, then drifted off into his own abstractions only to be brought to book by some more insistent grooves from the drummer. But even Raph’s sure-footedness could be thrown and the set eventually collapsed when Tony threw in a ludicrous Loony Tunes-type sample.
Get The Blessing (pic: Tony Benjamin)
It’s been fifteen years since Get The Blessing (then know as The Blessing) won Best Album at the BBC Jazz Awards with their debut All Is Yes and, after a five year gap, the imminently-released Pallett will be their seventh. Appearing casually dressed – they usually wear black suits – they began unexpectedly with a study of quiet minimalism in which saxophonist Jake McMurchie’s effect-processed breath wove between Jim Barr’s bass guitar harmonics and the combined clatter of Pete Judge’s trumpet valves and Clive Deamer’s scattered drumsticks. This was Ambient Black, a track from the colour-themed Pallett, and it quickly gave way to the urgent bass line of Oscillation Ochre, a tightly grooved number embellished with cascading layers from trumpet and sax, all cosmically FX-ed with evolving tones. As ever, the meticulous pace of the drumming and relentless bass loop provided the continuum that allowed for randomness within free floating minimalism.
is needed now More than ever
Get The Blessing (pic: Tony Benjamin)
It felt very fresh – no mean achievement for a seventh album – as did other new tracks like the stuttering meander of Dude Indigo or the spacious overlay of haunting trumpet, looping sax and quavering tremolo guitar on Temperate Red, drumless for nearly half its duration. But nevertheless it also felt very Get The Blessing, an impression hammered home by the set of greatest hits that followed including the snapping jump beats of Corniche, the exhausting audience clapping number OCDC and the irresistible Einstein Action Figure. That latter number is nearly fifteen years old but still sounds like something that would make you sit up and listen, which was exactly what the Widcombe Social Club sell-out audience did.
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