The LOOP collective’s first full weekend festival, to celebrate their first four years of making music, kicked into high gear on Friday night with a quartet of bands that displayed a huge variety of styles emerging from this group’s restless imagination.

Trumpeter Robbie Robson’s Dog Soup perfectly updated Miles’ Bitches Brew-style freeform electro funk with subtle loops and washes of improv that suddenly switched into gnashing prog-jazz riffs. Having set the bar high with such lavish sonic evocations, pianist Ivo Neame won over the crowd with his sparky melodic compositions and some outstanding group interplay. Joined by vibes master Jim Hart (surely one of the UK’s finest young jazz musicians), bassist Jasper Hoiby and drummer James Maddren, the four piece showed just how far the new generation of players have matured.

 
Continuing in a more off kilter but no less impressive way were bassist Dave Kane and trumpeter Alex Bonney in a charming duet. Mixing energetic free improv with quirky melodies and lopsided rhythms Kane and Bonney’s interaction was mesmerizing, packed full of innate hunour and off hand virtuosity their dialogue was a joy to behold. After a swift turnaround free-noise thrashers Fraud – as one of LOOP’s first successes – also showed how they have gained in confidence with a mainly improvised set.

Their secret weapon tonight however was Norwegian guitarist Stain Westerhus who deployed some truly gut-wrenching low guitar riffs to set up a monstrous wall of sound.  It was a fittingly triumphant end to a busy night, on a weekend of gigs teeming with exceptional musicians and bands now marking a shift into a new era of UK jazz. 

Report: Mike Flynn