22nd August 2011: Michael Janisch 4 star review Financial Times w/ Logan Richardson

Michael Janisch’s creative Jazz Residency at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho London has seen some of the world’s greatest jazz artists showcased in a unique atmosphere. Earlier this month, Janisch brought Logan Richardson over from NYC to perform all brand new music from one of jazz’s most promising new artists.  Reprinted below is the four star review in the Financial Times by Mike Hobart, who really ‘got’ the gig!

The Kansas City-born soprano and alto saxophonist Logan Richardson is a rising star of New York’s left field, and at this edgy concert of contemporary jazz, a handpicked local rhythm section first mastered and then flowed freely over the intricacies of his harmonically dense compositions.

Richardson is an intense improviser, who punctuates his long lines with slurs and silences, frequently pausing to find pathways through the structures he has created. Momentum was maintained by Michael Janisch’s counterpoint bass and the percussive ping of Jim Hart’s subtly shaded vibraphone. It was a tense gig that stretched each player to the full and deserved its rousing encore.

Richardson opened both sets with long-drawn themes for soprano. Playing off microphone, his ripe, centred and breathy tone filled the club. Hart sketched the hard-to-follow harmonies with precision, added a second voice and casually flicked at the pulse before Richardson tumbled gently to the lower register and the start of his solo.

The saxophonist is a cerebral improviser with a tough-toned veneer, who approaches each composition as though it is a mountain to climb. He pauses as though searching for an ever more precarious foothold, resolves increasingly abstract statements at unexpected moments and even the simplest phrase is pitched on harmony’s outer rim. His compositions are custom built for this approach, with elliptic structures, climaxes that end in a whisper and melodies stretched tautly across the beat. And just as tension reaches breaking point, he delivers a blues-laced lick or a staccato riff.

Both sets featured a standard – “Everything Happens to Me” in the first set, a blues in the second – and both sets added an idiosyncratic original from Hart. Richardson introduced the covers obliquely, unaccompanied and unannounced, stabbing at their core phrases with the ice-cold logic of a cool-school veteran. Hart’s writing was a rhythmic contrast, with cat and mouse bass, pedal points and hints of samba, though, like Richardson, his compositions were full of illusions and pitfalls.

The band gelled from the outset, with Hart delivering a masterclass of understated accompaniment and full-on solos. By the encore, they were playing with the confidence of a seasoned quartet and even drummer Dave Smith could cast caution to the winds.