Jessica Lauren
EVERY now and again, when the beat takes her, Jessica Lauren jumps up off the piano stool and dances around it for a series of bars, moving to the rhythms of the rest of the band.
It doesnt matter because the music theyre playing is designed to be unfettered and ever-evolving, picking at the established laws of jazz and adding its own random clauses.
The project Jessica Lauren 4 premiered at the National Theatre Ivan Vazov in Sofia on Saturday as part of the Eurojazz Festival.
The music was mostly from Film, an album Jessica recorded in 1999. The album featured 15 top musicians plus Jessica on at least 10 different keyboards. Jessica Lauren 4 is just one piano, a double bass and two percussion players Andrew Kremer, Crispin Robinson and Dave Gallagher.
Said Jessica: We try to challenge the preconceptions about what jazz should be. Theres always this deal between all the guys. I call it silverback gorilla playing. The guitarist stands forward and does their solo, then the sax player can go on for as long as he likes. Then the trumpeter gets their turn, then theres the bass solo and everyones off to the bar, and the drum solo and even the bands off to the bar!
With solos, the music is presented right in your face. We try to play the music so that you have to come inside it. So if youre not listening you wont hear it. Its like one of those pictures where you have to try to see an image inside this wobbly bubble of molecules. Initially it appears to be a mass of blue bubbles then all of a sudden you can see a school of dolphins! I am an impressionist or an abstract expressionist in music, Im not a portraitist!
You get this bedrock of rhythm from the two percussionists, a thick-pile carpet of rhythms, so solid, but flexible. I can play a great swathe of colour or I can do filigree work, it doesnt matter.
Jessica Lauren was prominent in the 1990s on the acid jazz scene, releasing her own album Siren Song and appearing widely as a session musician. The album Film was the result of her label Soul Jazz records asking her to do something acoustic in 1994.
She said: I had never sat down and written anything. Id just write a bridge, then we jammed it, then we did our solos. I went away and wrote this and it took a year. Its pretty composed.
Then Soul Jazz changed their minds. Film was eventually released by Melt 2000 in 1999. Bassist Andrew, who helped produce it, said: All the club people loved it. The critics that got it were non-specific, not the jazz critics.
The nu-music underground periodical Straight no Chaser called it the living definition of now, which was fairly acceptable praise.
Jessica said: People thought it was programmed but it wasnt. They said, Its a shame Jessica didnt play more, I played 10 different keyboards! I was all over it!
Id wanted to find a way of doing an album that was not just acoustic. Have drums and double bass etc., but have it produced as if it was club music with a lot of sonic experimentation.
We were influenced by The Beatles, because they invented so many of the sound production ideas that we take for granted nowadays. Our ritual was, wed get to the studio, have a sandwich and listen to Everybodys Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey off the White Album because its mad. They used some very strange ideas. I played it to the musicians and their eyes glazed over!
There was lots of recording of ambient sound in Film. In the track called Live Your Life a man can be heard whispering, Come round again, come round again. It was the recording engineer and he was talking to a helicopter flying over the studio.
Jessica said: The record company didnt push it. Eventually I told them to go shove. But to me it wasnt a failure, it was a 100 per cent success. Id grown into an artist making this record.
The music wouldnt rest where it was, though; on a poorly promoted disc. Jessica said: I had the idea of trying out a combo with two Afro-Cuban style percussionists. Andrew and I have worked together for a long time. I wouldnt have any other bassist. I realised Crispin would have the breadth of experience, I knew he would fit really well, and I wanted him to choose the other percussion player, so there would be a chemistry.
Among his other projects, Andrew Kremer is one half of Zohar, who released an album with a mixture of Arab and Jewish music, soul, mixed with modern club and techno.
Crispin Robinson also acts and works with many acid jazz and latin groups. He visits Cuba regularly to study Afro-Cuban percussion playing.
Dave Gallagher has worked and toured with rhythm innovators Stomp for many years and has also worked as a session percussionist on mostly acid jazz releases. He is about to start a filming project in Romania but plans to do more with Jessica Lauren 4 when that ends.
Saturdays concert was dedicated to Jessicas brother, Jonathan, who died three weeks ago.
It doesnt matter because the music theyre playing is designed to be unfettered and ever-evolving, picking at the established laws of jazz and adding its own random clauses.
The project Jessica Lauren 4 premiered at the National Theatre Ivan Vazov in Sofia on Saturday as part of the Eurojazz Festival.
The music was mostly from Film, an album Jessica recorded in 1999. The album featured 15 top musicians plus Jessica on at least 10 different keyboards. Jessica Lauren 4 is just one piano, a double bass and two percussion players Andrew Kremer, Crispin Robinson and Dave Gallagher.
Said Jessica: We try to challenge the preconceptions about what jazz should be. Theres always this deal between all the guys. I call it silverback gorilla playing. The guitarist stands forward and does their solo, then the sax player can go on for as long as he likes. Then the trumpeter gets their turn, then theres the bass solo and everyones off to the bar, and the drum solo and even the bands off to the bar!
With solos, the music is presented right in your face. We try to play the music so that you have to come inside it. So if youre not listening you wont hear it. Its like one of those pictures where you have to try to see an image inside this wobbly bubble of molecules. Initially it appears to be a mass of blue bubbles then all of a sudden you can see a school of dolphins! I am an impressionist or an abstract expressionist in music, Im not a portraitist!
You get this bedrock of rhythm from the two percussionists, a thick-pile carpet of rhythms, so solid, but flexible. I can play a great swathe of colour or I can do filigree work, it doesnt matter.
Jessica Lauren was prominent in the 1990s on the acid jazz scene, releasing her own album Siren Song and appearing widely as a session musician. The album Film was the result of her label Soul Jazz records asking her to do something acoustic in 1994.
She said: I had never sat down and written anything. Id just write a bridge, then we jammed it, then we did our solos. I went away and wrote this and it took a year. Its pretty composed.
Then Soul Jazz changed their minds. Film was eventually released by Melt 2000 in 1999. Bassist Andrew, who helped produce it, said: All the club people loved it. The critics that got it were non-specific, not the jazz critics.
The nu-music underground periodical Straight no Chaser called it the living definition of now, which was fairly acceptable praise.
Jessica said: People thought it was programmed but it wasnt. They said, Its a shame Jessica didnt play more, I played 10 different keyboards! I was all over it!
Id wanted to find a way of doing an album that was not just acoustic. Have drums and double bass etc., but have it produced as if it was club music with a lot of sonic experimentation.
We were influenced by The Beatles, because they invented so many of the sound production ideas that we take for granted nowadays. Our ritual was, wed get to the studio, have a sandwich and listen to Everybodys Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey off the White Album because its mad. They used some very strange ideas. I played it to the musicians and their eyes glazed over!
There was lots of recording of ambient sound in Film. In the track called Live Your Life a man can be heard whispering, Come round again, come round again. It was the recording engineer and he was talking to a helicopter flying over the studio.
Jessica said: The record company didnt push it. Eventually I told them to go shove. But to me it wasnt a failure, it was a 100 per cent success. Id grown into an artist making this record.
The music wouldnt rest where it was, though; on a poorly promoted disc. Jessica said: I had the idea of trying out a combo with two Afro-Cuban style percussionists. Andrew and I have worked together for a long time. I wouldnt have any other bassist. I realised Crispin would have the breadth of experience, I knew he would fit really well, and I wanted him to choose the other percussion player, so there would be a chemistry.
Among his other projects, Andrew Kremer is one half of Zohar, who released an album with a mixture of Arab and Jewish music, soul, mixed with modern club and techno.
Crispin Robinson also acts and works with many acid jazz and latin groups. He visits Cuba regularly to study Afro-Cuban percussion playing.
Dave Gallagher has worked and toured with rhythm innovators Stomp for many years and has also worked as a session percussionist on mostly acid jazz releases. He is about to start a filming project in Romania but plans to do more with Jessica Lauren 4 when that ends.
Saturdays concert was dedicated to Jessicas brother, Jonathan, who died three weeks ago.
