Greeting the listener there’s a jingling of bells, birdsong, and a see-sawing folky rhythm opening up to give way quickly enough to a big, splinteringly woody, confident double bass sound.
“Ansonia”, a made-up word in the title, is by the debuting band of bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, a son of famous musical parents – violinist Viktoria Mullova and the late conductor Claudio Abbado – who followed studies at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music as a postgrad, by winning both the Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition last year and the Kenny Wheeler prize, and now recording this album as a first big step into a jazz career commitment. Well on his way in making a name for himself on the London jazz scene by gigging around clubs and small venues already and with sidemen credits cropping up too certainly this debut as a leader speeds that process along.
Nothing quite conforms to what you might expect within the framework the music operates in as the first piece suggests. As the album develops an open acoustic chamber-jazz setting touching on modern mainstream bop-derived stylings leaves him lots of space to try things out, tapping into various strands of jazz, with perhaps Mingus the guiding light especially in the more experimental sections and wider canvas of the writing.
Mullov-Abbado also plays French horn and bass guitar on the album but the big plus point here is not this extra input but that he’s not concentrating his artistic gaze too microscopically in his compositions that dominate the album. Placing bass at the heart of a sound populated by a number of fellow members of the Tom Green septet, including the alto saxophone of Matthew Herd, the trombone of Green himself, another promising, newcomer and drums of Scott Chapman; and there’s another young much-fêted and prodigiously talented hopeful, Jacob Collier, who alternates piano with Rhodes electric piano plus guests dotted about who include trumpeter James Davison and guitarist Nick Goodwin.
It’s a driving bluesy slightly old fashioned hard bop Blakey style swinger that grounds the sound on ‘Lock, Stock & Shuffle’ after the attractive folky opener ‘Circle Song’. But there’s a switch further ahead via the initially very still Wheeler-esque balladeering of ‘Real Eyes Realise Real Lies’ that displays a great deal of maturity as the sense of the piece gradually unfolds.
There’s room too for a soul groove on the title track. And free form, multi-layered, liquidy atmospherics alter the tone to provide the backdrop to the beginning of the tongue-twisting palindrome of a title ‘Satan, Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas’. Less satisfying next it’s squawky skronk and slightly creepy spoken word factored in as signature elements of ‘Ode to King Michael’ that amount to the least successful episode.
Largely recorded in a recording studio in Wales, produced by distinguished pianist-composer Julian Joseph, New Ansonia also includes the heartfelt elegy of ‘Heal Me On This Cloudy Day’ written by Mullov-Abbado for the funeral of his late father and features both the bassist’s mother on violin and step-father Matthew Barley on cello.
In contrast to this more classical portion of the album fractured free bop gives way to a breezy treatment of Earth Wind and Fire’s ‘September’ and the bright eyed optimism of youth permeates ‘Just Another Love Song’ to complete a well considered album that delivers far more than its fair share of inspiration and bright ideas. SG
New Ansonia (Edition ***1/2) is released in late-August and is launched at Kings Place, London on 12 September followed by further touring throughout the autumn and into the winter. Dates are here