Colin Towns | NDR Big Band | Zappa's Hot Licks (and Funny Smells)
Ladies: that's something serious.... Review by John Fordham!
[qte]
... One-time rock keyboardist Towns (who worked for Deep Purple star Ian Gillan) became a film and TV composer, then a jazz bandleader, and the founder and funder of creative indie label Provocateur Records. His writing for big jazz ensembles mixes rock, improv, postbop and a slashing Stravinskyesque melodic wildness - but the result often comes at you with a visceral energy of such heat that it melts the edges.
For this live set from the 2004 Moers festival, Towns adds an ingredient that was already hot in the first place: Frank Zappa's compositions. Peaches en Regalia is a punchy, funky, big-band blast, the melody taken in turns by the horns. King Kong and A Pound for a Brown feature fine solos (notably from a terrific guitarist, Stephan Diaz), churning arrangements of brass blurts, wheeling reed lines and pulsating riffs. Slow marches, oompah circus music and heavy rock guitar licks (on Stevie's Spanking) all underpin the NDR's improvisational skills. Sinister Footwear is a grippingly lurching chordal dirge, and Little Umbrellas/Big Swifty rockets through opera quotes, interrupted by squealing trumpet breaks. A hurtling G-Spot Tornado (from Zappa's Jazz From Hell album) takes a string of climaxes through the album one notch higher. There's hardly a flat moment anywhere.
[unqte]
Since a week or so Colin's FZ interpretations rotating non-stop. Should you have a llttle bias for FZ then give it a try!