The late Ronnie Scott may not have opted for the kind of rigorous haircut the British saxophonist Dave O'Higgins has just exposed himself to (at least until nature left him no choice) but in some ways there's a resemblance between them.
Like Scott, O'Higgins was a teenage sax hero, one of the quick-witted young celebrities of the British jazz upswing of the late 80s that produced Courtney Pine, Andy Sheppard, Tommy Smith and many others. Like Scott, he has a feeling for both relaxed swing and romantic lyricism, he keeps his statements succinct, and he's a natural improviser. He also makes a pretty good job of that elusive jazzers' tradition, the downbeat announcement. "This is a tune in that popular idiom, jungle bossa", O'Higgins informed Monday's audience on his CD launch for The Grinder's Monkey. In a way it was, too.
O'Higgins has redesigned his band for this project, and borrowed from the engaging organ-groove feel of the 60s soul-jazz and hard-bop movement. The revival of hard-swinging saxophones over Hammond organ chords also became the staple material of the acid-jazz movement, but O'Higgins goes much further than just the mannerisms.
He appropriately dedicated a thumping mid-tempo opener to a master of bluesy tenor- playing, Stanley Turrentine. Then he rattled out of the jungle-bossa gag into a rumbling Latin American feature with a long, snakey soprano-sax theme over Winston Clifford's sonorous drumming. But it took until the third piece, the new disc's title track, for the band to loosen, with an appropriately Grant Green-like guitar solo from the excellent Mike Outram jacking up the pressure of Clifford's output into a restless stream of jolting backbeats and showers of dense cymbal sound. O'Higgins shifted a gear from the smooth currents of shapely melody he seems to be able to play in his sleep to a more raucous sound in a furious double-time. Keyboardist Jim Watson delivered some pretty convincing soul-jazz sermons on the organ and Moog, but his McCoy Tyner-like percussive chords and torrential right hand lines on the regular piano was a standout of the fast No Two Ways. Always a mature performer, even in his National Youth Jazz Orchestra days, Dave O'Higgins continues to rediscover familiar ground in revealing ways.
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible
