Bassist draws on Middle Eastern sound for trio album featuring guests including Jason Yarde

Jazz record labels you would have thought are an endangered species. With little or no subsidy from arts bodies or charitable foundations their very survival particularly in the niche jazz area is always an issue. Few labels can do it all, possess the ability to invest and grow their artists, keep to their brief, and grow their business by spotting new talent and cutting good deals so they can at least cover their costs, and with any luck find an artist that the public gets behind. For a long period the UK indie jazz label sector was out of step with the progress made in other parts of Europe particularly in Germany and France where there are bigger markets and a bigger and deeper appetite for jazz to cushion the development period. That now has changed with a wave of new active indie jazz labels. Distribution patterns have also altered greatly since the digital revolution of the last 15 years, and with the decreasing costs of manufacturing albums also helping the small operator for bread and butter physical releases and the ability to harness cheaper means of marketing and PR via social media, newer labels such as Edition, Naim Jazz and Jellymould have taken on the challenge of getting new jazz out there to find and meet demand.

Whirlwind Recordings, bassist Michael Janisch’s label, has shown consistent growth in the last two years and ahead of releasing a new live album by Lee Konitz next month, a landmark release for Whirlwind, the label has now signed the Matt Ridley Trio for an autumn release with the bassist’s debut album Thymos (Greek for ‘spiritedness’) set to appear in October.

With alto saxophone star Jason Yarde guesting, bassist Ridley, a Trinity college of music graduate in 2005, will preview tunes from the album at a club show in the Vortex later this month. The bassist’s trio features John Turville whose Parliamentary award-winning album Midas first put the pianist on the map and relative unknown George Hart on drums. Pretty much a complete unknown himself still, Ridley has, though, worked extensively as a member of the popular Darius Brubeck Quartet touring widely, and has appeared with the MJQ Celebration band featuring Jim Hart, Barry Green, and Steve Brown, as well as the Lyric Ensemble. A SE London Collective scenester Ridley has also collaborated with celebrated oudist Attab Haddad, who is an additional guest on Thymos.

The debut album features original tunes and Ridley says ahead of the Vortex date: “I envisaged a sound encompassing the exotic flavours and emotions of Middle Eastern music, with the jazz sensibility of improvisation on complex structures.” One to watch for later in the year. There’s a tour then in the offing as well. SG

Matt Ridley pictured above