Tom Green Septet

Eden Court – One Touch Theatre

Fri 20^th Feb 2015

Tom Green is emerging as a music talent to be reckoned with, being the first Trombonist to study post grad Jazz at The Royal College of Music, London and the Winner of 2013 Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition. Throughout the set he introduced his compositions, the aptly named Winter Halo was inspired by a trip in the desert, gazing over a halo round the moon. As Winter Halo began, with delicate atmospheric sounds from the sax played by Tommy Andrews and Sam James on the Piano, you could imagine gazing at the moon and stars! Whereas Sticks and Stones the first song on their début album Skyline dives straight in with a punch and sharp downward spiral, Green told how he wrote it at a time when he had been let down and described it as “rhythmical angst” These insights into his creative process and how he translates his experiences gave a context to the music.

The great thing about Tom’s arrangements is he allows improvisation from all of the members of the the septet and this shows how talented and accomplished each of these musicians are. I enjoyed Mesha Mullov-Abbado’s funky solos on the Double Bass and James Davison gave gave an incredible solo on the Flugel horn. You could tell they were passionate about their music and loved what they were doing by the smiles and nods of appreciation between each other during the gig, and this enthusiasm was contagious and spilled out into the audience. I really cant fault their performance as they played such a tight set, although I felt some of the intimacy was lost in a theatre setting. They finished on a high and we felt privileged to hear the World Premier of a newly written piece Choral as an encore. I felt very uplifted as we left. The Tom Green Septet provided a exhilarating journey of Jazz!