In that brief window of modishness that British jazz enjoyed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when sleek newcomers cradling saxophones against Armani suits were momentarily everywhere, Don Weller was the kind of jazz musician it was unfashionable to be. With his Andy Capp headgear and country-publican bearing, Weller made it plain that the only form of communication he was interested in was what blew out of his saxophone.
But if Weller was sidelined by the jazz boom, he never went away. He has remained one of the most entertaining, straightahead saxophonists on the UK circuit for 30 years - with Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon his principal guides. Weller also hires fine bands, and seems to create a climate (without apparent intervention) in which the good ones sound better. That effect was much in evidence when Weller's quartet visited the Vortex on Saturday.
Thelonious Monk's I Mean You was the opener, a typically jolting, assymmetrical melody with a sly release into straight swing ideally suited to Weller's blend of gruff, behind-the-beat sauntering and sudden bursts of purring speed, as if he alternately remembers and forgets he has a fifth gear. At first, the saxophonist stated the theme as if trailing idly behind the others, then accelerated into double-time phrases increasingly free of the steadily pulsating rattle of the band (drummer Dave Barry is a brittle, metallic-sounding player), turning eventually into guttural warbles and trills.
Pianist David Newton then took off into the first of what became a stream of astonishing solos. Often a glossy, urbane performer diplomatically servicing singers, Newton cut loose - partly under provocation from the stinging sound of Barry's percussion and secured by Andy Cleyndert's luxuriously reassuring basslines - to reveal world-class skills.
Love For Sale was given an unfamiliar racing, train-rhythm tempo, with Weller postponing the tune for several choruses and eventually veering into bagpipe-like wails, while Newton unleashed another break in which every chorus had a unique shape, and the pianist shuffled grumpy low-end phrases against buzzing-wasp trills, jangling harmonies, sporadic visits to the underlying vamp, and a rollicking chordal finale.
Weller toyed with the backbeat, sometimes dropping scattered notes grudgingly, sometimes squeezing more in than the rhythmic space would have seemed to permit. Yesterdays brought David Newton close to Brad Mehldau territory as his left hand emphatically argued with his right, and the band swapped figures with something as close to glee as jazz musicians allow themselves.
