Yearly Archives: 2012

Balancing on the tipping point between freedom and order is jazz music’s recurring challenge and The-Quartet (the hyphen is intentional, and faintly irritating) spectacularly rise to it at this gig to launch their sophisticated debut CD, Illuminated. The group’s central partnership is the pairing of guitarist, producer and film score…

Assembled intelligently from musical elements ranging from Brahms to Miles Davis (the former’s Intermezzo Op. 116 is at one point combined with the latter’s ‘Great Expectations’ to form ‘Brahms Blues’), and infused with the crackling, visceral energy of the best and subtlest jazz-rock, the music of guitarist/composer Jack Hues’s The-Quartet…

**** Less a jazz album than an imaginative rock album with jazz flavours, Illuminated is an intriguing, moody sonic journey with many highlights. Brainchild of guitarist / composer Jack Hues, there are riffs and guitar FX a-plenty, with musical nods to Miles, Floyd and Zappa. If Hues lacks conventional jazz…

*** Jack Hues (g, perc), Sam Bailey (p, ky, melodica, perc), Rutledge Turnlund (b), Michael Porter (ld) With Paul Booth (s), Charlie Brown (vln) and Chris Hughes (perc). Rec. 2006 This version of The Quartet has already evaporated in that Porter and Turnlund have moved on, while Paul Booth’s tenor,…

This new British Band is built around the soundtrack writer and producer Jack Hues and the pianist Sam Bailey. Citing Influences as diverse as Mingus and Monk to Radiohead and Pink Floyd, they have come up with a lively album that shifts between full-on improvisation and memorable ballads. It is…

*** The-Quartet are a welcome addition to the UK jazz scene. Ex-Wang Chung guitarist-composer Jack Hues has a sound and attack that recalls Andy Summers, while his harmonic approach is reminiscent of Ray Crawford’s work for Gil Evans: instant cool. Add to this a strong backline and saxophonist Paul Booth…

Guitarists have egos. So jazz groups led by guitarists can be, well… egotistical. Thankfully Jack Hues of new British jazz four piece The-Quartet knows you get better results through cooperation than competition. He’s more interested in tone, melody and texture than showing off. His lead lines flow naturally out of…

With just guitarist/composer Jack Hues and keyboardist/composer Sam Bailey still present from The-Quartet’s debut CD (Illuminated, Helium HeCD001), and with bassist Tom Mason and drummer Dave Smith replacing Rutledge Turnlund and Michael Porter respectively, occasionally augmented by saxophonist Paul Booth and trumpeter Duncan MacKay, Shattering represents a slight change of…

Remember the Canterbury sound – the hippy rock-jazz of Caravan, Matching Mole and Egg? Possibly not. This was one musical pathway that hit a dead end around the time the Damned plugged in. Here, though, six musicians (never mind that name) pay homage on a 14-minute Canterbury Tales suite. The…

The-Quartet (hyphen intended) made significant waves in 2007 with its debut Illuminated- an unusual collaboration between UK producer, guitarist and movie composer Jack Hues and classically-trained pianist Sam Bailey. Unsurprisingly, Hues and Bailey like music that invites you to visualise, and though this set veers less wilfully between ‘70s jazz-funk,…

Pick of the Album: ‘Tokyo Angelic’ Not so long ago you’d have got long odds on the return to the early Seventies’ “Canterbury Sound”. Well, joyous news, it’s back – kind of – in the form of a suite by The-Quartet, an augmented combo of decidedly Kentish vibe. What this…