Charlotte Keeffe – Right Here, Right Now

Discus

Wandering trumpeter and member of the extended London Improvisers Orchestra, Charlotte Keeffe‘s first solo album finds her drawing together various facets of her abilities, ranging from her solo trumpet improvisation via her jazz quartet recordings through to the sprawling conduction of the pieces she has arranged for the LIO. What holds all these disparate pieces together is Charlotte’s shining love of the trumpet and the mysterious roads down which she finds herself winding.

The album opens with the quartet: Moss Freed on guitar, Ben Handysides on drums and Ashley John Long on double bass. Their fizzing blend of melancholy with sharp stabs of staccato guitar finds the trumpet looking back at old memories. The pieces sound live, with scraps of percussion and bass sketching in the corners, filling in the blanks. They are as much about thought as sound and you can feel the projection between them as the rimshots scatter.

It is subtle in places, nuanced; but when the circular rhythm of “Sweet Corn” hits, it just carries you away, with the trumpet second guessing where next to go. At times, the guitar reflects Django Reinhardt back on a bed of hurried rhythm and smooth supple trumpet, the sweet and sunny disposition warmed by the burr of bass.

The pieces with the LIO are far more random. “Mysterious Breath / This One’s For The Bees” is like a storm in a forest, all those little sounds unseen and hidden away. There are the best part of forty players beavering away here, but the overall sensation is that of generous space and patience. Moonlight hovers above with electronics a distant drone, groups of birds cackle in branches as the players take it in turns to colour in the monochrome surroundings. A tuba plums the depths on “To Steve Beresford” as a gang of miscreants make their laughing way home, uproar in the streets, hiding behind dustbins and hedges.

Elsewhere, Charlotte goes it alone on the brief improv “The Melody’s In The Post”, which sounds as though it were recorded in a lead-lined bunker, the trumpet dripping with perspiration, while “Noizemaschin” has many languid voices, a low rasp or a distant groan rising to the sound of Miles Davis suffocating Herb Alpert. You feel she is reminding herself of things in the past but dragging them barrelling into the future.

Her capabilities with trumpet and flugelhorn are widespread and evoke all sorts of jazzy odysseys, but with the assistance of guitarist Diego Sampieri, we find ourselves lying back against sand dunes, wind just stirring the long grass with the last rays of evening sun casting a golden glow. It is that warm fuzzy feeling that only a trumpet can conjure; part heartache, part joy. This album has it all and leaves no doubts at all.

-Mr Olivetti-