Jeff Williams - Live at London Jazz Festival: Road Tales

Ohio native Jeff Williams cut his teeth playing with the likes of Stan Getz and Dave Liebman in the febrile atmosphere of 1970s New York, but London is now his second home and his free-ranging creativity both as drummer and as composer, coupled with his dedication as a teacher and bearer of the tradition, has embedded him deep into the UK scene.

This recording features an all-star cast of his longtime collaborators, with altoist John O’Gallagher and Josh Arcoleo on tenor making a ferocious twin-horn frontline and virtuoso bassist Sam Lasserson completing the rhythm section. With all the compelling immediacy of a live concert recording, 'Road Tales' documents how the shared experiences of being a band on the road for a decade or so has shaped a musical narrative, as each member tells the story of those experiences, and shows how they established their own identity within the compositions.

“Some of these tunes go back many years, but I think what’s special here is the way that band works together, adding things that aren’t on the paper. So many things were completely unplanned - it’s pure interaction, the sound of a band taking risks together.”

Williams’ compositions give his band a wonderfully diverse span of moods and colours to work with, and they rise to each occasion magnificently. ‘New And Old’ written to mark his father’s passing, is pitched halfway between elegy and nursery rhyme, while ‘The Interloper’ has a Monkish feeling to its quirkily phrased melody and ‘Borderline’ has a carefree major-key uplift, like a free- wheeling calypso or Mexican hat dance. ‘Oddity’ has switchback tempo changes with a burning solo from O’Gallagher, and ‘She Can’t Be A Spy’ spins a tale of mystery with Arcoleo quoting Shorter over a classic Blue Note lope. ‘Under The Radar’, ‘Search Me’ and ‘Scrunge’ run together to form what Williams laughingly refers to as ‘the airport security suite’, moving from a spacious airy feel into a twisted funk that builds into an exhilarating rollercoaster ride of uptempo blowing that’s at once free and deeply melodic. Bassist Lasserson shows his deep musicality on ‘She Can’t Be A Spy’ – “Sam is quite a unique player - to me he’s on a very high level as a musician - he’s so inventive and his ability to take a composition and find so many ways to play it is incredible.”

'Road Tales', his sixth release for Whirlwind, marks the latest stage on a continuous musical journey for Williams and his musical partners. “I love to have a band that is able to take chances – It’s wonderful the way this group can develop my compositions, with their ability to take things as far as possible without going over the cliff. There aren't many actual on-going bands in jazz anymore. The fact that this is one is something I'm proud of. That's the only way a performance of this type becomes possible.”