Henry Spencer & Juncture
The Reasons Don’t Change
Whirlwind
The opening statement on Henry Spencer’s debut album may come from the trumpeter alone, as he plays an introduction that has a certain New Orleans bluesy swagger, but the ten tracks herein as a whole demonstrate this exciting recent arrival on the British jazz scene’s abilities as a bandleader and composer-orchestrator as much as his prodigious trumpet and flugelhorn talent.
A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and recipient of Help Musicians UK’s Emerging Excellence Award, Spencer is a technically assured player who conceives music in song form and arranges with a strong sense of structure while also giving his musicians room to open up and express themselves. His close partnership with guitarist Nick Costley-White results in variously gentle ballad playing and urgent, bravura lines from both musicians and his excellent rhythm section are keenly tuned in to his melodic ideas and dynamic variations.
The sheer attack of Still Open to Confusion contrasts with Eulogy (Goodbye Old Chap)’s gentle lyricism and on the final two tracks, as quintet becomes nonet with the arrival of a string section, Spencer’s clear focus produces music that’s strong, direct, dramatic and emotionally involving.
Rob Adams
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