REVIEW: Five-Way Split

April 10, 2023 Martin Hummel

Bebop Spoken Here’s Lance Liddle writes, “Highly recommended.”

Ubuntu Music Signs Sax Man Fraser Smith For Debut Album Release

September 28, 2022 Martin Hummel

Fraser Smith / Tip Top!

Release Date: 7th April 2023

CD & Digital Formats / UBU0119

Ubuntu Music is delighted to announce the upcoming release of Tip Top!, the debut album from tenor sax player Fraser Smith, which will be released on 7th April 2023.

Tip Top! is the current stop-off-point in the musical journey/career of Fraser. Two decades of study and scholarship have informed this album of original material. Wholly inspired by the music and artists of the late bebop to early hard bop periods, Fraser pays tribute to his heroes with ten tracks stylistically dedicated to the jazz masters of the mid-twentieth century.

A slightly late starter, Fraser picked up the sax at age 15, and at around the same discovered a Charlie Parker CD in the Woolworths discount bin. These incidents started him on a lifetime path of decoding and understanding bebop and its descendent genres. With no musicians in his immediate family, he was left to his own devices, listening and playing along to the CDs of Louis Armstrong and Scott Hamilton. Three years later Fraser was accepted onto the jazz course at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he later graduated with first class honours. After that he moved to the capital to complete his Masters Degree at the prestigious Trinity College of Music, London.

Fraser Smith (Photographer: Benthe de Vries)

Homing in on swing and bebop, Fraser then continued to learn the craft the old way. Through thousands of hours on and off stage he listened and emulated to inform his own sound. The result is a style that has been described as rich and firmly rooted in the jazz tradition. Contrary to many of his contemporaries he takes prominent influence from the likes of Mobley, Dexter, Illinois Jacquet and unsung hero of the Tenor Wardell Gray (with a track on the album written in dedication).

Fraser has worked professionally for the last 12 years, playing as far away as Mexico and China, and everywhere in between with a whole range of projects and bands. He’s led his own group at world famous Ronnie Scott’s numerous times and is a regular on the UK jazz club scene.

Tip Top! was an effort to solidify and record some of the musical experiences Fraser was having. With jazz being transient in its nature, gigs come and go. The vibrant and world class ‘straight ahead’ London scene is happening every night and without stopping to take note, it can pass one by. For this recording Fraser assembled a top band of musicians whom he was playing with on-the-fly on a regular basis in different set-ups and wrote music specifically for the group, to solidify the communion.

Fraser describes the project: “I wanted to take a snapshot of where I was at that point with my playing. It is only recently I’ve felt that years and years of study and performing have begun to manifest, allowing me to express myself more accurately. Feeling a new control and facility enabled me to compose in the vein I was aiming for. This was another major driving force behind this venture.”

Left to right: Fraser Smith, Rob Barron (Photographer: Leo Mansell)

Rob Barron, pianist (and Ubuntu artist), is one of the best in the business and has a top reputation across London and Europe. He has played with Benny Golson, Grant Stewart and Phil Woods to name just a small handful. From Hollywood scores to the most in-demand side man, he’s one of the very best in the music business. The same can be said for Steve Brown, first call drummer for many of the US masters when they’re in town. He was the regular UK drummer for the late jazz legend Barry Harris and has also toured extensively with Scott Hamilton among others. Bassist Simon Read is a young player making waves, already playing with some of London’s best improvisers.

Left to right: Steve Brown, Rob Barron, Simon Read, Fraser Smith (Photographer: Leo Mansell)

From the very first rehearsal the band was ‘oven ready’, with little actual musical direction needed. As hoped from the outset, a connection was made and everyone in the group felt the music in the same way.

For a group with a sound as specific as this, there was only one place to take them to record. Durham Sound Studios located in Kentish Town (London) has the ghost of an old phonograph store sign above the door. Not a computer in site, you can smell the solder from the owner making last minute adjustments to the vintage equipment. Straight to tape, the band laid each track down in no more than two takes using gear from the era they pay homage to.

What started out as an effort to capture Fraser’s current experience of the London live jazz scene, became an amalgamation of things. It now stands as a tribute to his heroes, a small gesture in return for countless hours of music and enjoyment that the original creators themselves sacrificed everything to offer. And finally, it stands up as an album in its own right, albeit highly stylised. A contribution to the huge tapestry of musicians today striving to keep modern jazz alive, playing the music to the best of their capacity in honour of their idols.

Fraser continues with his thoughts concerning Ubuntu Music, his new record label: “Ubuntu has been on my radar for a long time due to the amount of amazing artists that they represent. I was thrilled for Martin (Hummel) to come onboard after the initial stages of the production of my album. He shared a wealth of knowledge about the process of releasing and comes at it with a genuine interest in the music and musicians. I don’t think the same can be said for other labels!”

Martin Hummel, Director of Ubuntu Music, concludes: “Fraser is one of the strong emerging talents in the London jazz scene, paying his respect to the masers while playing on his terms. Tip Top! swings like it was recorded in the golden age of jazz in the sixties. With Rob Barron on piano leading the excellent rhythm section, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable, timeless ride.”

For further information, please contact:

Fraser Smith (Artist) fraserjsmith@hotmail.co.uk

Emma Perry (UK Publicity) emmasarahperry@gmail.com

Martin Hummel/Ubuntu Music (Worldwide): martin@ubuntumanagementgroup.com

JAZZVIEW'S BEST OF 2021

December 29, 2021 Martin Hummel

Ubuntu Music’s Artists Shine Bright!

LIVE REVIEW: Andrew McCormack Trio + Rob Barron Trio @ Pizza Express Holborn

November 26, 2021 Martin Hummel

LondonJazz News’s Mike Collins writes, “Ubuntu Records boss Martin Hummel knows a good thing when he hears it, and the evening was a gig showcasing two of his rapidly evolving and high quality roster of artists, Andrew McCormack’s trio had gone first, Rob Barron was to follow later.”

Andrew McCormack Trio + Rob Barron Trio
(Pizza Express Live Holborn, 19 November 2021. EFG LJF. Review by Mike Collins)

Early on in Andrew McCormack’s set on the last Friday of the London Jazz Festival, electricity seemed to crackle in the air and the thought ‘this is going to be a good night’ flashed across the mind of this listener. The trio had dropped into what sounded like an endless turn-around at the conclusion of Clementine Dream, a pretty, waltzing original of McCormack’s. A lovely springy pulse emanated from the locked bass and drums of Joe Downard and Joel Barford; McCormack spooled out phrases and lines, generating momentum and an intensifying response from the rhythm section. It was acoustic piano trio jazz ‘in the zone’.

Ubuntu Records boss Martin Hummel knows a good thing when he hears it, and the evening was a gig showcasing two of his rapidly evolving and high quality roster of artists, Andrew McCormack’s trio had gone first, Rob Barron was to follow later.

McCormack’s palette ranges wide. Fake News was a post-bop burner, bass and drums catching all the inflections and stabs in the angular, riff-like theme, that provided a platform for an intense sotto voce drum solo after a volcanic work-out from the leader. A reinvention of Sting’s Fragile took us into different territory with a cycling sequence settling into a driving groove. The set closed with Prayer for Atonement, all flowing arpeggios and elegant, yearning melody, the exploratory, probing solo building to a climatic episode with a tumult of drums over a pounding riff from the piano. The set was repeatedly lit up the McCormack’s flow of ideas and compositional sense in solos, building tension, excitement and emotion by turns.

There was a short break before Rob Barron’s trio took the stage and immediately grabbed the attention with an elegant take on the standard All The Way. Barron has a way with melodic, chordal riffs that embellish melodies, act as counterpoint or momentary diverting commentaries. It’s a device he used elsewhere along with re-working harmony and creating pleasing shifts and slides in the flow.

Pure Imagination got the treatment and a pulsating take on My Foolish Heart with a liquid, even quavered groove, courtesy of Jeremy Brown on bass and the subtle, nudging energy of Josh Morrison’s drums. This trio is a beautiful thing, the instinctive empathy of long association makes every piece glow with energy, and every graceful, rhythmic feint seamlessly elegant. The ballad A Time for Love was a pin drop moment as that empathy meant space and pauses built intensity and feeling.

They closed the set with Lingua Franca, a Barron original, a nod to the common language of jazz sprung from the soil of bop. A breezy groove, punctuated with stops and skips, a mazy theme and they were off, Barron burning away, with crisp darting runs, teasing and bending the harmony, rounding off an absorbing and satisfying set.

This evening was a real treat. Two great sets from top drawer trios.