Jazz
Double bassist Ferg Ireland has opened the pre-order for “Alive In London”, recorded live at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho with Nathaniel Facey on alto saxophone and James Maddren on drums. Whirlwind Recordings is putting it out on CD, download and 180-gram double vinyl.
The trio has no piano and no guitar, and that is what Ireland talks about when he describes his playing: “I wasn’t interested in playing conventional linear solos, instead I wanted to write bass parts that suggest and support harmony, using the whole bass as a compositional instrument.” He adds that he was aiming “to play compositionally, inspired by Jimmy Garrison’s features with Coltrane”.
There are nine pieces. Seven are his; the other two are “Deep”, by Facey, and “Prisoner Of Love”, the standard. The record closes with “Stay Broke”, which was the song that opened the first one.
“James and Nathaniel have exactly the same fire in their playing,” Ireland says, “and having that amount of intensity in a group that’s smaller makes the group feel bigger.”
That first album, “Ferg Ireland Trio”, came out on Mondegreen in 2021 with the same line-up and seven pieces, all written by him.
Text by Aina Torrents