Simon
Bowden (guitar/banjo/keyboard) Steve Cournane (drums) Tim Jaray
(bass) Toby Lang (trumpet/Synth) Nils Olsen (saxes/clarinets) Chris
Williamson (guitar) and guests Nick Van Dijk (trombone) Blair Latham
(clarinet) David Chickering, Donald Maurice, Rupa Maurice, Greg
Squire (strings)
There
has been a little nostalgia floating around at times this month. I
can't remember if I heard the line-up before the addition on Toby and
Chris... maybe... but I heard the latter version of CL Bob fairly
regularly during the time I was at music school and a little less
frequently after graduation. But giving them a spin again this month
has definitely taken me back to that time. Not just thinking of CL
Bob gigs, but some of the off-shoots – who remembers Bertha? (Nils,
Chris and Steve) - a group that focused on Mingus and Monk tunes. And
then there was the scene in general, particularly the vast array of
happenings at The Space. There must be something about this band that
does it - I just took a glance at the NZ Music Month post from 2017
on their self-titled debut.... that too had me in a nostalgic mood.
Of
the three albums from CL Bob, The Great Flash, is the one I have
listened to the least. Or it's the one that I'm least familiar with
the material. I heard the band a lot during the Stereoscope period
and as a result I probably didn't listen to that album as I could
have at the time, and I didn't pick this album up when it was
released and heard them live playing this material only once or
twice.
As
with all their work, CL Bob pull in a wide range music and make it
their own thing. Quite dense and dramatic (“Raewyn”), at times
dark and angular (“Greed”), plaintive (“Unheard Voice”),
sombre (“Hira”), groove driven yet slightly of-the-wall (“Craters
on the Moon”), quirky and fun (“Old Bob”), even a little tongue
in cheek (“Ted and Sylvia”) and epic (“Carpet Master is
Vanquished”[brilliant title!]) - they provide plenty of variety for
listeners.
This
is another album were I don't feel it's about soloists – there's
plenty of collective playing, and a lot of focus on textures rather
that soloists out front. Yeah, Nils has a bass clarinet feature on
“Unheard Voice” and both the horns have some room to stretch out
on “Psyion” (with some minor hints at Ornette's Quartet) but
these are exceptions rather than the rule. You could hear “Raewyn”
as a feature for Tim Jaray but it's really a three-way dialogue
between Jaray, Bowden and Cournane.
Texture
and colour are key and the big change between this and their previous
recordings is the addition of keyboards and synth. The groove on
“Craters on the Moon” does a nice job at making the keyboards and
synth not seem all that odd. And it's pretty fun how they are
deployed on “Old Bob”.
Nils
spends much more time on alto here than I remember him playing and
Toby Lang's tone is perfectly suited to the sound of “Ted and
Sylvia”. And then there's the addition personnel. The string
quartet works really well on “Greed” and Nick's trombone slots in
fine on “Old Bob”. I remember hearing them live with additional
personnel and it really didn't do it for me, and at the time, I
remember feeling that it seemed like the right move to call it quits
as things may have run their course. Listening here I do feel that
the extra personnel distracts from the group sound which had taken on
quite a different weight with the synth and keyboards in the mix. But
I still enjoy the album, and it still sounds like CL Bob... so what
am I saying? I'm not too sure!
One
thing I noticed this month that hadn't occurred to me before – the
CL Bob albums are pretty much the only examples of the individuals I
have on record (John Bell is an exception, and Steve and Tim are on
one of Norm Meehan's albums). I see Steve has a few recordings up on
BandCamp ( https://stevecournane.bandcamp.com/) including Boat (with
Simon and Nils) an album I've been on the lookout for quite some
time.
Maybe
the one thing that is missing from The Great Flash is a version of
“Endings” that's heavy on bass clarinet, synth and banjo. But
maybe that was would have been too obvious
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