Available from June 2005 this is the much anticipated first release from this excellent Scottish-based duo featuring Rob on saxes (sopranino/soprano/alto/tenor) and clarinet, and pianist/composer Chick Lyall. Both musicians contribute compositions, interspersed with a series of diverse, free improvisations. The duo's breadth encompasses jazz, contamporary classical and scottish sonorities and this new CD recording exemplifies the fluid and engaging languauge the two musicians have developed over a two year period of performing as a duo.
Rob is featured on a new CD with the Philipp van Endert Trio and flugelhorn master Kenny Wheeler. The Trio is based in Germany and the recording was made in Cologne during early 2003. Features Philipp van Endert (guitar), Andre Nendza (acoustic bass) and Kurt Bilker (drums) with Kenny Wheeler (flugelhorn) and Rob Hall (saxophone)
Freewheelers are a young Scottish group with Rob Hall (ss,ts), Chris Greive(tb), Mike Dunning (b) and Paul Mills (d). Although their opener, "There Will Never Be Another You", readily acknowledges a lineage going back to the instrumentation and techniques of the Gerry Mulligan piano-less quartet, don't expect any young-fogeyisms. "Freedom Jazz Dance" is anchored by a volcanic funk beat and the frontline can't seem to get their superb ideas out fast enough. "Joy Spring" has a delicious lilt and a beautiful solo from Greive, and there's also a version of John Scofield's "Softy" that knocks spots off the guitarist's own. Rob Hall's originals are also highly intelligent and ooze personality - one for Sholto Byrnes to stick in his pipe and smoke.
Elements - A Highland Canvas
Culloden Academy
Elements is one of the principal Highland Festival commissions this year, and
blended contemporary jazz with the visual arts in compelling fashion. The
project had its origins in an earlier, smaller scale collaboration between
saxophonist Rob Hall and painter James Hawkins, whose bright, highly
expressionistic Highland landscapes inspired Hall to write a suite of music.
The new elements added for this commission were a bigger jazz ensemble, and
the input of John McGeoch, a video animator who succeeded in bringing
Hawkins's vivid canvases to life on the large screen behind the musicians.
McGeoch manipulated the paintings in imaginative fashion, assembling and
deconstructing Hawkins's sensuous images, and intercutting the painted scenes
with video footage and, on one occasion, superimposed images of the musicians.
Hall, who alternated between soprano, alto and tenor saxophones
and clarinet throughout the programme, composed a series of vibrant, often
evocative pieces for the occasion. He has a gift for writing sinuous
melodies over attractive rhythmic grooves, fleshed out in turn with rich and
often intricate harmonies which kept the band on their toes throughout a
demanding performance.
It is always difficult on these occasions to know whether what we heard and
saw was precisely as intended. Hall seemed to cut off Chick Lyall on keyboards
at one point, and on another occasion a set of credits popped up on screen in
mid-sequence, but if there were teething problems they seemed to be of the minor
variety.
The suite contained eight pieces, two of which were short reprises of the
opening A Highland Canvas. Titles like Beinn Fada, Lochan na Speura and
Western Shores reflected the on-screen images in complementary fashion, but
the music was sufficiently strong and independent to suggest that it will
function equally well away from the images.
Kenny Mathieson