High peaks

I reckon hard bop is the fave, the high peak, of any jamming jazz instrumentalist.  I dropped in on Molly after the Cowboy Shakespeare and that's exactly what we got.  This was like a jam session but at the highest level.  Tunes I recognize but can't always name (lyrics help to remember song titles) but Salt peanuts (again, Dizzy's "Salt peanuts" refrain is exactly why I remember this tune), Caravan, Whisper not, Watermelon man and the like.  Plenty of cycles, delirious heads, 32-bar or blues-related forms.  The players were Con Campbell, Mic Knight, Ben O'Loghlin, Mark Levers, the Wednesday Pro-jam scene transposed to a Friday.  Ben sounded clear and purposeful and I was enamoured by a bass line (perhaps for Whisper not?) that was just the recorded take.  To my mind it indicated listening rather than transposition, this not being too difficult to recognize, but so nice a referral.  I got that from Con, too, with heads that were spelt like the originals, perhaps twisted a little to be slower or otherwise for the occasion and the players, but such close recognition to the originals.  Mark is always ready for a solo with his rudiment-rich precision that I love.  He can play a session with just a snare and it's still richly exploratory and interesting.  That's rudiments for you.  And Mic busy on scalar lines for solos, perhaps interrupted by chordal contrasts.  Back to Ben, fully over the fingerboard, studied in the thumb positions and with a setup that sounded so good up in the upper reaches.  And those patterns up the neck, consistent, perhaps scalar, into a thumb stratosphere, all clear and noted.  And the whole, changing, playful or thoughtful, sometimes sitting or alternatively driving walks or effective grooves.  All as the essence of a challenging jam session.  So glad I dropped in.

Con Campbell (tenor), Mic Knight (piaqno), Ben O'Loghlin (bass) and Mark Levers (drums) performed at Molly.