CD REVIEW: Philip Clouts Quartet - Umoya

Philip Clouts Quartet - Umoya
(Odradek Records. ODRCD503. CD Review by Patrick Hadfield)

Umoya is a Zulu word meaning "life force", "soul" and "spirit", and this CD positively crackles with all three. It is full of upbeat, jaunty rhythms that make it hard to sit still whilst listening. South African-born pianist Philip Clouts has brought together a young band of lively musicians, featuring Samuel Eagles on saxophones, Alex Keen on electric bass and Dave Ingamells.

Clouts incorporates a lot of different influences into his music - north and west African, European folk musics, gospel - but each seen through a lens of his composer's eye. The effect is to produce an album of variety but unified around a consistent, swinging township bop. The rhythms and riffs are infectious.

Keen and Ingamells maintain a tight groove throughout the record. Eagles' saxophone lines flow extensively in wide ranging solos. Clouts' solos are also full of life: his extended solo on the eastern-infused Amor takes the listener into the depths of the tune.

Despite Clouts' magpie-like eclecticism, this record is firmly rooted in jazz. The influence of other forms is engrained in his compositions, but his unswerving ear for catchy riffs and compelling rhythms has produced an enjoyable series tunes.

Patrick Hadfield lives in Edinburgh, occasionally takes photographs, and sometimes blogs at On the Beat. Twitter: @patrickhadfield.

read more: http://news360.com/digestarticle/cGtTG1DOWU6fchPGvA4bUg

Philip Clouts

Pianist Philip Clouts tours England and Scotland with his quartet in October to mark the release of a new album, Umoya, one of the first releases on the new jazz imprint of American classical label Odradek.

Oct 6, 2015 - by Rob Adams
It’s an album that confirms the Cape Town-born Clouts’ ongoing love affair with South African music but also with rhythms and melodies from around the world. Influences including Sufi music, Nigerian dance rhythms and folk music from Romania and Southern Italy, as well as gospel music all figure, in his latest compositions.

“Jazz and world music have been important to me throughout my musical life,” says the now Dorset-based Clouts who emerged on the London jazz scene during the 1980s and became a key member of popular world jazz ensemble Zubop before moving to the Jurassic coast in 2006. “I’m inspired by both the freedom of jazz and the rootedness of world music with its sense of dance, community and spirituality. Listening to both genres always reveals a variety of approaches to rhythm, harmony and melody.”

Although he came over to the UK from Cape Town with his family as a young child in the early 1960s, Clouts grew up hearing the music of his homeland as his parents – his father, Sydney Clouts, was a poet whose work captured the South African landscape – had brought their favourite records with them.

After his two older brothers began taking piano lessons, he impressed the family by picking up what his siblings were playing by ear. He found himself drawn to improvising, and hearing the great British pianist Stan Tracey on a television programme when he was twelve attracted him to jazz and inspired him to take the instrument more seriously.

read more: http://www.jazzineurope.com