REVIEWS
Jazzwise March 2005
The consistent musical quality put out by London’s F-IRE collective is no longer a surprise. These days we expect to hear good things from the clique, and ‘Before I Forget’ doesn’t let the side down. This is an extremely promising debut from someone who, as well as being an accomplished guitarist, knows a thing or two about how to create music that sings, soars and tells stories. Qs a player, Quinn favours windswept moods, but can switch between gritty, muscular lines of ‘Deconstruction on Your Head’ to the expressive electric guitar on ‘Mud Blue Sky’ or slow-mo melancholy of ‘Posthumous Dreams of Life’. Quinn’s writing overtly draws on the Dave Douglas downtown school. Trumpeter Tom Arthurs is a gem – a passionate, technically gifted player, whilst altoist Lopez-Real is one to watch. Although Quinn wears his reverence for Bill Frisell and Douglas on his sleeve, this is an impressive debut, strong on subtlety and song writing.
Tom Barlow
Mojo – March 2005
Before I Forget
ALBUM OF THE MONTH
SPAWNED FROM the F-IRE Collective, an award-winning community of UK-based musicians and artists dedicated to mutually supportive creativity, Justin Quinn’s Bakehouse is remarkable. London-based guitarist Quinn, 26, studied with Pat Martino in the US and in the UK with John Parricelli, and a wide range of influences – from flamenco to fusion to Frisell – are evident in his marvellous compositions. Bakehouse’s music is convincingly jagged, serene, agitated, tranquil, provocative, reassuring and strangely beautiful all at once. The versatile, responsive group spans the generations: Tom Arthur (trumpet) was the BBC’s 2004 ‘rising star’; Carlos Lopez-Real (sax) played with John Mayer’s Indo-Jazz Fusions; Oli Hayhurst (bass) and Martin France (drums) are among the most resourceful and in-demand players in their field. But Quinn takes the honours; a startlingly fresh and deeply individual talent.
CHRIS INGHAM
Jazz Review – March 2005
The first things that caught my attention, before I took this CD out of its wrapper, was the inclusion of fretless baritone guitar as the leader’s instrument. I’m not a sad guitar-head but hey, I’m a bloke and you don’t often see a baritone guitar around. Well, do you?
Justin Quinn has got one and he plays it very nicely thank you. Coming in somewhere between an ordinary axe and a bass guitar, it has a lovely rounded voice. That’s down to Quinn, who gets the best out of it on numbers such as ‘Leaf’, where notes fall from the instrument like dripping mercury. Elsewhere, he goes for dreamy, flanger effects on the conventional electric guitar, warping the sound around his fellow soloists.
On the strength of this recording (I’d never heard of Quinn before this) Bakehouse deserve to find a place on post-modern jazz lovers’ shelves around John Scofield and Bill Frisell.
Like the American guitarists, Quinn doesn’t try to dominate proceedings with wailing solos. His background shading contributes as much value to the arrangements as when he is in the lead chair. Medium-paced tunes with memorable hooks and often times pattering rhythm are interspersed with more angular alt-bop pieces. The trumpet and alto sax partnership works beautifully. Arthurs’ fat sound complemented Lopez-Real’s crying tone.
Before I Forget turns out to be a subtle grower, its insistent harmonies layered on top of repeated phrases, insinuating themselves in the ear. I’m already looking forward to the next Bakehouse CD.
GARRY BOOTH
ARTICLE FROM JAZZWISE MAGAZINE – MARCH 2005
There’s a striking maturity to new London band Bakehouse that belies the youth of its leader – a classy and determined 26-year old guitarist by the name of Justin Quinn. The music is certainly jazz, but within it you’ll hear a sound that typifies the downtown attitude that all sounds were created equally, whether it’s Bartok, bluegrass or Bitches Brew.
In other words, it’s not so much his fluidity around the fretboard that impresses – although a sound and facility that channels heroes such as John McLaughlin and Bill Frisell is a strong point. It’s his skills as a tunesmith – whether the music is plaintive and pastoral; or explosive and edgy. ‘My focus is more about compositions than from a playing point of view,’ he says.
None of this should be a surprise, however, considering the diversity of Quinn’s musical heritage. Although he was born in New York where his father Doug worked as a jazz guitarist, Quinn moved to the UK as a young child and he now lives in the aforementioned Bakehouse – a small house that is a stone’s throw from Hackney Central.
The venue is also home to the rehearsal space that gave birth to his new band and inspired the album, Before I Forget: a quintet recording featuring rising trumpet star Tom Arthurs and also saxophonist Carlos Lopez-Real.
Ten minutes drive from Bakehouse is Ryan’s Bar, a cellar spot in Stoke Newington, where until recently Quinn promoted jazz nights for his bands, including his own, to experiment and formulate their sounds. Like most UK jazz musicians – particularly members of the F-IRE collective, to which he belongs, Quinn subscribes to the idea that it is up to musicians to create a scene for themselves.
‘It’s not so much a stylistic trait that keeps everyone in F-IRE together,’ he adds, ‘but a determination and a desire to work together and make things happen.’
If anything, these corners of London’s East End are appropriate locations for Quinn’s musical cocktail making.
‘I feel as though I have always been looking for new music, and hope that I don’t ever stop,’ he says. ‘Stylistically, I think it has been a long and winding journey in terms of my musical influences.’
Along the way, his music has been influenced equally by downtown composers as by Wes Montgomery, John McLaughlin, south Indian sitarists, flamenco guitarists and more.
‘My dad gave me The Beatles and Beach Boys songbooks with my first guitar. Then I discovered blues and rock, both old and new. Robert Johnson, Hendrix, Clapton (Cream) among others, and got into all the rock and grunge stuff. They were my primary influences until I heard some Mahavishnu Orchestra stuff that my mum had at home.’
Hearing recordings of his father playing fusion turned Quinn on to Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius (whose bass licks inspired the guitarist to take up the fretless baritone guitar) and backwards to Bitches Brew and A Love Supreme.
In the meantime, Quinn fitted in a music degree at Cambridge, soaking up Bartok and Debussy, and took lessons with Pat Martino, John Parricelli and Indian masters such as Ali Akbar Khan and Swapan Chaudhuri.
It was through one of his father’s music friends that Quinn was introduced to the downtown family of Dave Douglas, Ellery Eskelin, Uri Caine, Wayne Krantz ’…and my big discovery on the guitar front was Bill Frisell,’ he adds.
‘It was a real change, because there was humour in the music, which was something quite new for me. Also the emphasis wasn’t on technique but more on concept. It felt like more of a meeting between what had happened in the classical world over the last 50 years and what I feel is at the heart of the jazz tradition – self-expression through improvisation.
‘I love Wes Montgomery and Tal Farlow and Miles and Coltrane, but I have always felt that I had to find my own sound,’ he says.
‘For a long time I think I was resistant to sounding like another player because I thought I had to find a different approach. But I remember that John McLaughlin gave me some thoughts on one of my earlier recordings. He said he didn’t hear enough references to history/tradition, and I realised that I had been too scared of sounding like someone else, and that I could only find my sound through the study of others.’
As a result, three years ago Quinn decided to go to the Guildhall School of Music to hone his ‘jazz chops’. At the same time he was attending workshops led by F-IRE.
‘For me, it was a breakthrough to find musicians in London who I felt were thinking along similar lines. I think that there is no excuse for being stuck in the past! And it was a chance to feel part of a creative community that was very much looking forwards and not taking the nonsense that music from the States is somehow better. I started to investigate the jazz legacy here in the UK and it was great!
‘I think that they should make jazz students in this country study more of that music,’ he adds, referring to heroes such as Django Bates, Evan Parker and John Taylor.
‘The Guildhall was good about that, but still I feel that a lot of players are unaware of how many great musicians there are in this country.’
This simultaneous respect for the past, and determination to forge an individual path has brought Quinn to share stages with Jasper Holby’s Qualia, Simon Fell, and a Shakti-inspired Indian trio he leads with sitarist Jonathan Mayer (son of Anglo-Indian legend John Mayer).
A bluegrass project playing banjo might even follow, but for the meantime Quinn is focusing on Bakehouse and its album, which feels like the natural embrace of all of his influences – sounding neither forced nor academic.
‘I’m looking forward to the day when I can really speak through my instrument! I’m inspired by seeing retrospectives of an artist’s work and seeing how over their lifespan their work transforms. It’s like Miles, who always kept growing. I look forward to doing the same’.
bbc online
Justin Quinn’s Bakehouse
Before I Forget
(F-ire)
These days, it seems as if every other jazz gig in London is connected with the F-IRE Collective. Winner of the 2004 award for innovation in the BBC Jazz Awards, the collective is a loose alliance of upwards of fifty young musicians, dancers and visual artists who have banded together to give mutual support and co-ordination to their activities.
Justin Quinn is one of the collective’s core members, and this debut album is the sixth release on the collective’s fledgling label. Originally from New York, where he studied guitar with Pat Martino, Quinn is now resident in London.
Quinn’s Bakehouse is a new quintet, completed by trumpet, alto sax, bass and drums. Their music is low-key and melodic, with the material consisting entirely of Quinn compositions. Quinn’s guitar sets the tone throughout; he is just as likely to fade in a well-chosen chord as to let rip with a solo.
Similarly, Tom Arthurs on trumpet & flugelhorn, and Carlos Lopez-Real on alto sax, are used for coloration far more often that they are given the spotlight. This is a pity as when they do get to solo - notably Lopez-Real on the opener, “Neck” - they hint that they could set the pulses racing. But that’s clearly not the intention; understatement is the watchword. Too frequently, the music sounds like backing tracks awaiting a great soloist to step forward; too infrequently one does.
“Deconstruction on your Head” is the most energetic of Quinn’s pieces. Arthurs, the least laid back of the bunch, briefly threatens to turn it into a blowing session, but only briefly; after his contribution the temperature soon drops down to cool again. Oddly, ‘Bakehouse’ and ‘F-IRE’ both raise expectations of heat and sweat, whereas - on this evidence - nothing could be further from the truth. This is some of the most polite, urbane jazz I have heard for ages. Chill-out jazz; very listenable, but all too easy to drift away from.
Reviewer: John Eyles
Guardian:
The well-worn analogy “painting in sound” is thrown into sharp relief by Bill Frisell’s Richter 858 (Songlines, £13.99), based on eight works by German painter Gerhard Richter. The album features an acoustic string trio (Eyvind Kang, Jenny Scheinman and Hank Roberts) alongside the composer’s guitar. The pairing of Frisell and Richter is a smart idea. Though the suite includes written-out passages, Frisell’s compositional language is based on his own sound - electric guitar with myriad effects boxes - which informs every note. Such timbres relate well to the way Richter made the 858 paintings, with thick oil on aluminium or linen, the sticky physicality of the medium still clear in reproduction.
This is an admirable project, with good liner notes and a CD-Rom slideshow that takes you through the paintings. Yet there’s something about the music, beautiful and striking though it is, that lacks warmth: Richter 858 is better as a one-off performance, or a domestic installation, than an album for repeated listening.
Guitarist Jim Hall is a jazz master whose under-stated manner belies an improvisatory style with the strength of a weightlifter and the grace of a trapeze artist. Magic Meeting (ArtistShare, £14.99), was recorded live at the Village Vanguard with Scott Colley (bass) and Lewis Nash (drums), musicians whose empathetic groove-playing goes from pianissimo to mezzo-piano. The repertoire includes Hoagy Carmichael’s Skylark and Joe Lovano’s Blackwell’s Message (laden with quotations from Duke, Ornette and Jimi), but it’s on the guitarist’s originals that you’re reminded what a great feel Hall has, and how critical his role in jazz history. Hall’s late-50s playing on tracks such as The Train and the River and some pivotal albums with Sonny Rollins helped liberate jazz from uninflected swing, opening up space for creative hybrids with other cultures.
Hall’s Canto Neruda has a Spanish edge; Rollins’s St Thomas references the Caribbean. It’s a stunning album that gets better with each listen. Another ArtistShare album, Maria Schneider’s Concert in the Garden, won a Grammy without selling any copies in conventional shops. Magic Meeting looks set to win several more garlands for this internet-based label.
John McLaughlin’s My Goal’s Beyond (Douglas, £12.99) is a Janus-like classic from 1970. One side glances backwards, with stunning solo guitar versions of Blue in Green and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. The other side looks forward. Peace One and Peace Two are World Jazz jams featuring Dave Liebman, Charlie Haden, Badal Roy, Airto Moreira, Jerry Goodman (currently at Ronnie Scott’s with Gary Husband) and a beautiful long-haired tamboura player called Mahalakshmi. It’s like an acoustic refraction of the urban jungle sound that Miles Davis and Teo Macero cooked up for Miles’s Live Evil.
Before I Forget (F-IRE, (£10.99), by Justin Quinn’s Bakehouse, demonstrates that guitarist Quinn (b1978) has a nice line in small-group composition, reminiscent of Joel Harrison’s Free Country and Mike Gibbs’s tunes for Gary Burton. Though Quinn is US-born, the son of McLaughlin’s former wife Eve and fusion guitarist Doug Quinn, Justin’s playing is closer to local heroes such as Mike Walker and fellow F-IRE man David Okumu. What Quinn hasn’t cracked is a way to make his improvisations follow through the harmonic and rhythmic implications of his compositions. For that, Jim Hall still beats them all. And, in a neat conclusion, it turns out that My Goal’s Beyond’s mysterious Mahalakshmi is Quinn’s mum.
MOJO
ALBUM OF THE MONTH
BAKEHOUSE ****
Before I Forget
New Directions From a tremendous new talent.
SPAWNED FROM the F-IRE Collective, an award winning community of UK-based musicians and artists dedicated to mutually supportive creativity, Justin Quinn’s Bakehouse is remarkable. London-based guitarist Quinn, 26 studied with Pat Martino in the US and in the UK with John Parricelli, and a wide range of influences – from flamenco to fusion to Frisell – are widely evident in his marvellous compositions. Bakehouse’s music is convincingly jagged, serene, agitated, tranquil, provocative, reassuring and strangely beautiful all at once. The versatile responsive group spans the generations: Tom Arthur (trumpet) was the BBC’s 2004 ‘rising star’; Carlos Lopez-Real (sax) played with John Mayer’s Indo-Jazz Fusions; Oli Hayhurst (bass) and Martin France (drums) are amongst the most resourceful and in-demand players in their field. But Quinn takes the honours; a startlingly fresh and deeply individual talent.
Chris Ingham (Mojo April 2005)
JAZZ VIEWS
Justin Quinn (electric & baritone fretless guitar), Tom Arthurs (trumpet & flugelhorn) Calos Lopez-Real (alto sax) Oli Hayhurst (bass) Martin France (drums)
No recording date or location given.
Bakehouse is a British based group lead by American guitarist/composer Quinn, a onetime student of Pat Martino and John Parricelli, who is said to have become something of a rising star in Londons jazz and improvised music scene and a member of the F-IRE Collective which is described as a “growing community of dedicated musicians, dancers and visual artists” whose mission is to “develop and sustain creativity” in the capital. Like most modern artists on the jazz scene he cites influences that reflect a broad canvas of interests ranging Bartok to Bluegrass, flamenco to fusion, rock to ragas and the rest. His guitar style inevitably draws on the conventions of jazz-rock and such towering exponents as McLaughlin, Frisell and Scofield but whilst he operates within their vocabulary he manages to speak in an accent that recalls earlier stylists such as Jim Hall and in doing so creates a synthesis that is refreshingly laid back and easy on the ear.
All the compositions on this CD are his and surprisingly, given his diversity of interests, they aren’t as radical or eclectic as one might expect. There is nothing here to offend the sensitive ear. The first piece, entitled “Neck” sounds like a re-working of George Russell’s “Stratusphunk” and is easily the brightest tune of the set though the guitarist doesn’t get into his stride solo-wise until later on. The remainder are largely elegiac, modal & minor key chorales & dirges (and I don’t use that term in the pejorative) laid over gently funky motifs, floating guitar harmonics and smears. The whole is pervaded with a “Birth of the Cool” or “Maiden Voyage” solemnity rather belying the Bakehouse moniker, which suggests something rather steamier. Of course the “Birth of the Cool” sessions had some memorable tunes and in all fairness the comparison is quite inappropriate because Quinns tunes or themes aren’t as important as his overall musical conception which appears to be to create a particular aural environment for his soloists to operate within, which they do with impressive results.
Indeed the horn men almost steal the show for good though the leader is when it comes to sustained melodic invention Arthurs and Lopez-Real bake the biscuit. Arthurs is at turns spirited and seductive whilst the altoist turns in some super smooth sax (think Desmond & Konitz) with just the occasional hint of vibrato to add touches of colour. The bass player too does a good job without bullying his way to the front and thereby destroying the mood. His role is largely restricted to unadorned time keeping but he plays a beautiful solo passage against the most delicate of guitar riffs during the sublime “Mud Blue Sky”.
I wish I could be as charitable about the drummer but Martin Frances brittle, choppy accents often fail to provide the cushion this type of reflective music needs but instead strew the way with broken glass and spikes, even in his brushwork he patters distractingly. His busy style nearly spoiled the first half of the record for me diverting attention from the soloists but then he begins to apply his technique with more economy and restraint and everything comes good, either that or you just get used to it.
In spite of a few reservations and can say that I thoroughly enjoyed this recital and commend it to all readers of these pages. Even mainstream fans will be able to connect with its cool, contemporary modernity’s for there is only one freeish workout and even that doesn’t wholly sacrifice form or rhythmic continuity. To find out more about this promising musician and his work you can log onto www.justinquinn.co.uk
Reviewed by Euan Dixon (Jazz Views Online April 2005)
ECHOES –
“Eloquent original pieces … A debut of undeniable promise”
GUITAR AND BASS REVIEW
New Yorker guitarist/composer Quinn has firmly established himself on the UK jazz scene over the past couple of years. Part of the award-winning F-IRE Collective, who have received many an admiring nod for their eclectic, innovative approach, Before I Forget is an angular, classy piece of work. Former Pat Martino and John Parricelli pupil, Quinn brings flamenco and bluegrass into the mix, and weaves melodies lines in and around textural soundscapes in a fresh invigorating manner that’ll convince you that jazz guitar has a real future in the 21st century
Guitar and Bass review (April 2005)
RECORD COLLECTOR
Another new UK-based band turning heads with its music is BAKEHOUSE, an
adventurous young quintet led by guitarist Justin Quinn that impresses with
a debut album called Before I Forget (F-IRE ****). Quinn’s playing - a deft
amalgam of John McLaughlin’s finger picking circa In A Silent Way and John
Scofield’s angular phraseology - is enthralling throughout and gives the
group’s elegantly wrought music much cohesion. Well worth investigating.
Record Collector (April 2005)
John L Walters
Friday March 11, 2005
The Guardian
Before I Forget (F-IRE, (£10.99), by Justin Quinn’s Bakehouse, demonstrates that guitarist Quinn (b1978) has a nice line in small-group composition, reminiscent of Joel Harrison’s Free Country and Mike Gibbs’s tunes for Gary Burton. Though Quinn is US-born, the son of McLaughlin’s former wife Eve and fusion guitarist Doug Quinn, Justin’s playing is closer to local heroes such as Mike Walker and fellow F-IRE man David Okumu. What Quinn hasn’t cracked is a way to make his improvisations follow through the harmonic and rhythmic implications of his compositions. For that, Jim Hall still beats them all.
bbc online
These days, it seems as if every other jazz gig in London is connected with the F-IRE Collective. Winner of the 2004 award for innovation in the BBC Jazz Awards, the collective is a loose alliance of upwards of fifty young musicians, dancers and visual artists who have banded together to give mutual support and co-ordination to their activities.
Justin Quinn is one of the collective’s core members, and this debut album is the sixth release on the collective’s fledgling label. Originally from New York, where he studied guitar with Pat Martino, Quinn is now resident in London.
Quinn’s Bakehouse is a new quintet, completed by trumpet, alto sax, bass and drums. Their music is low-key and melodic, with the material consisting entirely of Quinn compositions. Quinn’s guitar sets the tone throughout; he is just as likely to fade in a well-chosen chord as to let rip with a solo.
Similarly, Tom Arthurs on trumpet & flugelhorn, and Carlos Lopez-Real on alto sax, are used for coloration far more often that they are given the spotlight. This is a pity as when they do get to solo - notably Lopez-Real on the opener, “Neck” - they hint that they could set the pulses racing. But that’s clearly not the intention; understatement is the watchword. Too frequently, the musicsounds like backing tracks awaiting a great soloist to step forward; too infrequently one does.
“Deconstruction on your Head” is the most energetic of Quinn’s pieces. Arthurs, the least laid back of the bunch, briefly threatens to turn it into a blowing session, but only briefly; after his contribution the temperature soon drops down to cool again. Oddly, ‘Bakehouse’ and ‘F-IRE’ both raise expectations of heat and sweat, whereas - on this evidence - nothing could be further from the truth. This is some of the most polite, urbane jazz I have heard for ages. Chill-out jazz; very listenable, but all too easy to drift away from.
Reviewer: John Eyles
etherbeat.com
Jazz how it should be from London’s F-Ire stable - New Yorker Quinn’s guitar leads a top drawer quintet which hits somewhere between Esbjorn Svensson (melodically) and Miles’ pre/early fusion (rhythm and attitude) - lame description, just get it…
in league with paton
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The In League With Paton Albums Of The Year 2005
#35
JUSTIN QUINN’S BAKEHOUSE – Before I Forget
One of many excellent releases from the much feted F-IRE Collective in 2005, ‘Before I Forget’ was arguably a little more conventional than Polar Bear or Acoustic Ladyland, but it had a more slippery and elusive charm of its own. The playing is beautifully fluid and sometimes exhuberant, but mostly it is the lush, impressionistic mood that stands out most.
REGULAR RANTINGS OF A MUSIC, FILM AND RADIO OBSESSIVE, AND HIS FRUSTRATIONS WITH THE WORLD.
www.inleagewithpaton.blogspot.com
