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The Jones O’Connor Group - alpha

Recorded 2004/5 for the 8armstoholdyou label – CD 03

Paul Jones, piano, fender Rhodes; Richard Jones, guitars; Chris O'Connor, Bass; Mark O'Connor, drums

Alpha is the group’s debut album, although the track ‘Snowseen’ was released on 'New Jazz Wales Volume 1' in 2003, by Red Eye Music Ltd., a jazz-oriented, Cardiff- based label. These very busy musicians have played with artists of standing such as Guy Barker, Damon Brown, Henry Lowther, Jim Mullen, Art Themen and Keith Tippett amongst others. They have played at many jazz festivals including Brecon where they were enthusiastically received. They will appear again at Brecon on Sunday 14th August 2005, in the Bishop’s Garden.

Paul and Richard Jones studied with Keith Tippett at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and performed with the Keith Tippett Big Band. They have recently been recipients of a P.R.S Foundation award for unsigned artists. Keith Tippett’s forward looking approach to music and musical education has no doubt played its part in moving them towards writing the kind of original tunes presented in this album. Textures play as much a part as does collective improvisation. The role of the virtuoso soloist is forgotten here, though this is not to suggest that any individual say-so is buried; rather is it subsumed to a unification of the whole, as the collective amalgamates its musical tonicity.

This album offers a harmonious landscape of considerable elegance, its cool, imaginative grooves flowing vibrantly from a seemingly bottomless well of resources and influences. It is an album that has surprised me, one of those rarities amongst jazz recordings that has thus far aroused more interest in me than their live performances. I am sure though that that is about to change.

Reviewed by Ken Cheetham August 2005