Dylan Jones: Statue

Like so many talented young musicians in London, Dylan Jones spent some time developing his skills with Tomorrow's Warriors, a talent development organization without which we might never have heard Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson, Yazz Ahmed, Nubya Garcia, Soweto Kinch... The London scene would be very different without them.

Jones played in Ezra Collective with other Tomorrow's Warriors alumni. Then he fell in with Mark Kavuma, a fellow trumpeter and another notable nurturer of young talent. Statue is Jones' first record as leader, released on Kavuma's Banger Factory Records. And it is, in many regards, something of a banger.

Jones has surrounded himself with some quality musicians in the shape of Hamish Nockles-Moore on bass, Harry Ling on drums, James Verma on piano and Daniel Kemshall on guitar.  All contribute wholeheartedly to the rich stew that is Statue. 

The vibe is complex. The tracks are either long and epic, or very short joining pieces. Although broadly rooted in jazz, this is by no means a record bound by its genre and is no worse for it. It straddles jazz, rock, post-rock and a few other areas as well, all the while maintaining the open sound of a wide horizon and some big scenery. It is very hard to listen to the record without visualising the cinematography that would go alongside it.

As you might expect, it is varied. "Jay Walking" is a solo piano piece coming in at slightly under a minute. It is great; a little bit reminiscent of Bud Powell's un-swung intro to "Like Someone in Love." "Lost in the Forest" is a few seconds of splendidly moody, atmospheric plinking that could come from Shostakovich, if Shostakovich had ever plugged a guitar in.

Jones clearly has a love for a distorted guitar. "Joker" opens with a dense backdrop of snarling, droning guitar, which soon lays out to make space for some great piano and trumpet work over an insistent dance beat. The guitar returns with more subtlety later and the piece builds beautifully. 

There is nothing wrong with a bit of dirty guitar in the right context, and who is to say this is not the right context? We have heard plenty of distorted guitar in jazz before, but this goes beyond tone. While everyone else is playing jazz, Kemshall's vocabulary is different. That might well be the point, but it takes a bit of getting used to.

Single "Plastic Petals" is fairly typical of the deal here, in that it is a lot. There are violins, a nice bit of piano, some guitar licks that hint unexpectedly at country, abrupt changes from the widest of widescreen swells to whisperingly close intimacy... Jones' trumpet sounds great, the writing is good and the production makes good sense of the density of the music.

The final track, and very much the keystone, has it all. "Statue" opens with a tight dance rhythm, adding a soaring melody, growling guitar, and an arrangement that varies from sparse to lush and back again a few times. The mood veers between sunny, stormy, ominous, rhapsodic, pastoral and euphoric. It is captivating and compelling.

There is something to be said for the maximalist approach. On the one hand, just because you have a mango in the fruit bowl, you do not have to slice it over your chili. On the other hand, mango on chili? Hell yes. Why have I never had this before?

Jones and Kavuma should be praised for the scale of their vision and ambition. Despite the complexity and diversity of the parts here, the whole holds together perfectly well. Throughout the frequent changes of pace and mood, the intention remains clear enough to make this a bold and genuinely enjoyable listen.