Spark - Scott van Gemert’s Unbroken Trio
In jazz, such a big part of the sound is generated through the “hook-up” between the bass and the drums. When it’s really happening, and the bass player and drummer have this perfect connection, it makes everyone sound and play better. As a soloist, it’s like you can get away with murder. Ask any jazz musician to name some of their favourite bass-drum pairings and they’ll start talking of Tony and Ron, Elvin and Jimmy, Charlie and Paul as if they’re couples coming to a dinner party. They’re the yin to each other’s yang and throughout the history of jazz you’d be hard pressed to find more than a few handfuls of classic albums that don’t feature this winning combination. But take one away and immediately things start feeling uncomfortable. As a musician, you feel exposed and it’s hard to get the time feeling good, the balance feels off, you’re either too loud or too soft. It’s a particularly terrifying prospect to play or record without a bass player. Perhaps I’m projecting my own angst here, but there’s something really unsettling about the cavernous hole that is left through the absence of a bass player filling the bottom end.
But it seems like on Spark, the latest release by Scott Van Gemert and his Unbroken Trio, they were completely unfazed by this lack of bass. It’s almost like they relished in it…what freaks?! As a listener, you hardly notice the absence. I think it is a musical feat when you can write/create compelling music that takes a somewhat unusual instrumentation and leaves the listener feeling as if it is perfect, just as it is. In fact, it seems unnecessary to have started this whole thing by talking about bass players being so important when after listening to this I’m starting to think maybe they’re not such a big deal?
From the outset, the music is distinctively its own, it doesn’t sound like anything else. Trombone, electric guitar and drums doesn’t have the same kind of musical baggage that a piano trio or a string quartet does and for a composer this can be both exciting and a little daunting. On the one hand, if there’s no references to go off, you really are responsible for generating all of the ideas yourself. On the flip side, this can be liberating as a composer because the instrumentation itself can give endless fodder for compositions and creativity – no matter what you write, the music will sound fresh as a result of the instrumentation. It takes a very skilled and perceptive composer to be able to balance all of this, and then, improvisers of the highest calibre to bring it to life.
Fortunately, Scott, Theo and Maddison are exactly that! Throughout Spark, the group shift between open free improvisations, beautiful melodic songs and hard-hitting solos and grooves. It’s as if they’re portraying different sides of the same coin, all with a deep sense of musicality. What’s so fun about this record is how these different sides collide. For instance, smack bang in the middle of the album the tracks Flash and Glow sit alongside each other – on the surface they are seemingly strange bedfellows. Flash features Theo and Maddison improvising a free-wheeling and disjunct musical landscape, with Scott interjecting with the same repeated melodic cell. It builds to a flash midway through the tune, as Scott’s repeated phrase is developed and picked up by the other musicians becoming this epic unison melody that is over before you know what has hit you!
But straight after this rambunctious outing you get Glow; a simply beautiful song that I’ve been singing around the house for days. There is a vulnerability required to write a song like this. Not wanting to sound like a knob, but it can be really hard for jazz musicians to write/play something that is simple and straight to the point. What makes Glow so perfect is how happy it is to just be what it is. If I’d have written this tune, I’m sure I would’ve stuffed it up along the way by adding too much or trying to be clever… I’m really glad Scott wrote it!
This restraint is one of the many things that make this music so successful – all three musicians just play what the music needs and nothing more. Take the seriously groovy track Moment as a case in point. This sort of a tune can really come unstuck when playing without a bass player. With no bottom end anchoring the groove it can be hard to make the time feel really good. But on Moment, Theo just plays these 8ths note chords consistently, the whole way through, totally homing in on creating a great time feel with Maddison. It seems they are never tempted to stray away from the groove, and I think this demonstrates a deep control and real musicianship. This allows Scott to do his thing, not so much “on top” of the rhythm section, but from within, really getting inside the cracks of the time with a seriously happening solo.
Spark is one of those records that you can keep coming back to time after time and you’ll always discover something you hadn’t noticed. To create music of this quality and detail with, what is a pretty sparse instrumentation, is a serious challenge. It’s so compelling and rewarding to listen to how these guys have tackled it by developing their own improvisational language and style, all whilst serving the music first and foremost.
You can (and should) buy Spark here. You can find out more about Scott’s music at his website here or follow his happenings on Facebook and Instagram.