Loose Tubes
Arriving
(Lost Marble)
The continuing unavailability of the albums recorded during Loose Tubes’ first incarnation has made the series drawn from the orchestra’s 1990 farewell residency at Ronnie Scott’s all the more cherishable and this third one, featuring four new tracks from their return gigs last year, is a particular bonus. Anyone who loved them during the 1980s will recognise the qualities: exuberant anarchy, superb individual creativity, trombonist/emcee Ashley Slater’s mad wit, and the joyous comingling of influences from New Orleans marches to circus music to African rhythms to Balkan metres to orchestrated admiration for Weather Report’s Joe Zawinul. What’s so good about the new pieces is that, despite one or two personnel changes, the collective sound and spirit – the ability to switch from riotous assembly to disciplined beauty – remain intact, with some evidence of maturity gained in the interim too. Newcomers might like to start at the end with trumpeter Chris Batchelor’s marvellous Creeper, which encapsulates much that went before and promises more magic to come.
Rob Adams
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