Monday's Improvised Music Company's concert brought one of the most unusual and gifted jazz trios ever heard here, with the visit of Nguyen Le's trio.
Drawing on musical sources from Vietnam, Indonesia and Spain, to jazz and Jimi Hendrix, the trio, completed by Renaud Garcia-Fons (bass) and Tino Di Geraldo (drums), offered an exhilarating synthesis couched in virtuoso expression by a group whose unity and cohesiveness were extraordinary.
Madal, based on an Indonesian rhythm, epitomised what they were about; an unaccompanied guitar opening, reflective and discursive, saw the texture gradually filled out by arco bass, then drums, and the tension built up by simple rhythmic figures to an amazing arco bass solo and guitar outing. Similarly, Dding Dek, a Vietnamese folk melody, was expanded and developed both rhythmically and in terms of line by the trio, with the tonal colours increased by the use of a prepared percussion track.
Effectively, therefore, the main focal points of the trio's music are rhythmic, in particular, and linear; harmony, generally, plays a lesser role, so the trio has to work with considerable imagination - and an awareness to increase tonal colour - to sustain interest. Nguyen Le's solo work is thus, in a sense, a mirror image of his ensemble approach, full of drama and contrast, heightened by the responsiveness of his colleagues.
Talented as he is, he had solo competition from GarciaFons, a phenomenon like a force of nature. Playing a five-string bass, he was staggeringly inventive, technically astonishing whether using the bow or playing pizzicato - the piece in which he featured, Barco Andaluz, was flamenco bass played with the facility of a guitar - and at least the equal of the leader in sheer lyricism.
