Legendary alto saxophonist Dick Oatts is returning to London this month for 2 nights at Pizza Specific Dean Avenue. The primary of the nights is on the date of the album launch of”Reunion” (Blau Data). And on the second evening the quartet turns into a quintet with the addition of Gareth Lockrane, who can be on the report.
The backstory right here goes again to 2014 when Stephen Keogh was invited to play with Dick Oatts on the Cork Jazz Pageant. Additionally within the band had been two different nice musicians; Bruce Barth on piano, and Mark Hodgson on bass. All of them appeared to hit it off each on and off stage and since then they’ve been enjoying as soon as or a twice a yr when alternatives current themselves.
Then, in 2016 Keogh was visting New York which occurred to coincide Gareth Lockrane’s being there. Gareth Lockrane has big respect and admiration for Dick Oatts, and wrote a beautiful piece for LJN in 2016 about Dick Oatts, and in regards to the circumstances through which they bought to know one another – hyperlink under.
Stephen Keogh picks up the story….
Gareth and I had each deliberate to move by the Village Vanguard on a Monday evening to listen to the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and say hey to mates and we ended up there on the identical Monday. It was an important night of music. I knew that Gareth had beforehand despatched a few of his preparations for Dick to take a look at, and through the course of the evening I remembering listening to Dick remark to different members of the band that the fabric was superb and value having a critical take a look at the charts.
Time previous and after a number of excursions in Spain and the UK throughout the next years we discovered ourselves within the UK in November 2019. The band on this event was Dick, Ross Stanley on piano, Mark Hodgson and myself on drums. We had a free day within the schedule and I assumed it may be a good suggestion to enter the studio and report. I referred to as Gareth for the date as I remembered how properly he and Dick regarded one another’s enjoying and writing and felt the chemistry can be good. It actually was.
All of the tracks are unique compositions by Dick or by Gareth. We recorded it at Crimson Gables Studios on November 19, 2019. Then the pandemic struck. When issues lastly began to open up once more we bought a reserving at Pizza Specific for January 20 & 21, 2023.
I contacted Fernando Marco, who began a label a number of years in the past in Spain and has constructed a really fascinating catalogue together with albums by Benny Golson, Scott Hamilton and extra. He instantly took it on board and it’s to be formally launched on 20 January on the Blau Data label. The album is named “Reunion”.
Charles Rees has had an early copy of the album, and writes:
That Dick Oatts and Gareth Lockrane had by no means recorded an album collectively previous to Reunion wouldn’t be the primary assumption of a listener, because the musical rapport shared by the 2 gamers shines by from the very first phrase of the album’s opener, “Alaina”. Lockrane’s admiration of Oatts is a properly documented, however that is the primary correct, first-hand proof most of us could have had of the depth of Lockrane’s data and assimilation of Oatts’s musical manner of being over a few years. The writing duties are shared nearly evenly between the 2, which likewise sounds to be an expression of their mutual respect. The affinities run so deep, it’s unattainable to establish who has composed which observe.
An Oatts-Lockrane report has been a very long time coming and doesn’t disappoint.
PERSONNEL FOR 20/ 21 JANUARY:
Dick Oatts (alto saxophone)
Ross Stanley (piano)
Mark Hodgson (bass)
Stephen Keogh (drums)
Gareth Lockrane (flutes) (Jan 21 solely)
LINKS: Bookings for the Dick Oatts Ensemble at Pizza Specific
