Slowlight Quartet at Newcastle's Jazz Cafe

Someone once said something along the lines of "Rock music is 3 chords played to thousands of people while jazz is thousands of chords played to 3 people". That's true in some cases I'm sure but there were far more than three of us in the appreciative crowd at the Jazz Cafe of Friday evening. And while Paul Lorraine may not have literally played thousands of chords on his Nord keyboard, he is clearly no 3 chord merchant. Judging by the majority of the songs on offer, he is also a damn fine composer.

The event was to celebrate the release of a seven track EP recorded live at the Manchester Jazz Festival last year. Earlier in the day the lads had performed at the Gala Theatre in Durham and perhaps that had served as a rehearsal for the Newcastle crowd who were treated to a fine selection of the Slowlights trademark melodic jazz originals. Kicking off with 'Morning Sun' they made quick adjustments to the piano sound level before continuing with  'Moving Target'. The two sets then featured many old favourites including 'If These Walls Had Ears', I Want to Live Long', 'Shifting Ground', the beautiful 'Iris' and of course their "greatest hit", 'In Flight'.

But there was some material that was new, at least to my ears. One example was a track which I believe was called 'Seven Hills' which used some technical wizardry that's way beyond my understanding, to allow Tom Quilliam to play chords on his saxophone. However it was done, it was different and wonderful. As was a very fine cover of Lennon & McCartney's 'Norwegian Wood'.

These four young men are clearly superb musicians individually but it is as a unit that they truly excel. Something I hadn't witnessed before was Jonathan Marriott taking a drum solo but that's exactly what he did to lead us into their final number. Dropping one of his mallets left him undeterred as he recovered in time to do the roll that opens the superb 'Peregrine' and as he began clicking off the tempo on the rim of his snare, the band slot into the rhythm as if they had been born playing together. 

How much longer they will remain playing together is a moot point as hints were dropped that this may be their final gig in this area. The gasped reaction from the audience matched my own. We all hope they will be back again very soon. Meanwhile I will just have to content myself listening to the superb music on the aforementioned EP.

Check out for yourself the music that's available on the Slowlight Quartet website.
http://www.theslowlightquartet.co.uk/