The Jazz Defenders: Memory In Motion

If there is one quality of first generation NYC hard bop which no twenty-first century band has succeeded in capturing it is the snarling half-valve badness which coursed through Lee Morgan's music. The absence is not surprising, for Morgan's vibe was a real-time product of the demi-monde in which he moved and that world is gone forever.

Hard bop was not all about badness, however. Of equal weight towards the other end of the spectrum were Horace Silver's gospel fervour and Art Blakey's orgiastic celebration of the beat. The UK's Bristol-based quintet The Jazz Defenders may not have much of Morgan about them but they bring Silver and Blakey and some of their own thing.

Memory In Motion is the band's third album, following 2019's Scheming and 2022's King Phoenix (both Haggis Records). The lineup has remained constant aside from one change in tenor saxophonist: leader, main composer and keyboardist George Cooper, trumpeter Nick Malcolm, tenor saxophonist Jake McMurchie (on his first album with the group), bassist Will Harris and drummer Ian Matthews. Cooper plays acoustic piano, Wurlitzer, organ and vibraphone; Harris plays double bass and electric bass.

Opening track "Meanderthal" (check the YouTube below) is indicative of the Defenders' groove, but not of their singularity, in which occasional hip-hop drum patterns figure effectively. Elsewhere Cooper's trippy organ and vibraphone sometimes nudge cosmic jazz into the room, and welcome it is, too. Less successful is the de rigueur rap track, "Rolling On A High" (neat title though).

The Jazz Defenders must be terrific live. The closing track, "Enigma," is the sole live recording on the album, and it is great. But it is not the anticipated knees-up. Instead, it is a lushly romantic ballad for acoustic piano and double bass only. At just over seven minutes it is the longest track on the album, and it shows that the Defenders are far from being a one-trick pony