Today’s Play

Purchase digitally:

https://loosetorque.bandcamp.com/album/todays-play-jon-corbett-nick-stephens-tony-marsh

Jon Corbett Trumpet
Nick Stephens Bass
Tony Marsh Drums

1. Line And Length 18:51
2. Leg Spin 12:19
3. In The Outfield 15:39
4. Reverse Swing 9:46
5. The Last Over Before Tea 5:02

Dedicated to Elton Dean
Recorded 18 November 2005 by Nick Stephens
Mixed and produced by Nick Stephens
Art and design Fay Stephens

Loose Torque LT011 Category

“Nick Stephens thrives in a trio where he can soak up space with booming long notes, slip in a sleek line between the splash of cymbals and the texture of a horn, and place otherworldly arco color in the foreground. The bassist is the fulcrum of two of the better albums by improvising trios this year: the debut of Instinctual Ear with Frode Gjerstad and Kevin Norton (Barking Hoop; reviewed in PoD 6) and Trio Fo’s Breaking Silence (Loose Torque), featuring flutist Neil Metcalfe and drummer Tony Marsh. Today’s Play is equally fine, a percolating set with Marsh and trumpeter Jon Corbett. Both Corbett and Marsh share Stephen’s feel for flecking improvisations with just enough jazz-derived materials to provide perspective and sustain forward rhythmic movement, but without saturating the music entirely…”

Read full review by Bill Shoemaker at Point Of Departure at http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD8/PoD8MoreMoments2.html

“…..Corbett is an articulated transmitter of melodic virtuosism, which he carries for long distances without sacrificing his quest for timbral purity, explicated through post-Davis plasticity and more idiosyncratic configurations where multiphonics and gentle exhalations get a little space under the spotlight. Stephens’ bodily sound is adequately harmonious, filling the record with constructive relationships based upon a fundamental immediacy which brings the listener to instantly metabolize its byproducts; both by plucking and through short fragments of arco work, the bassist manages to create a small, protective world of his own – yet open to all visitors. Tony Marsh’s delicately articulate touch is a definite plus, his extraordinary inventiveness not diminished by the total control that his technique exercises on an otherwise intense necessity of tripping outside the canons of jazz. An album of exquisite pleasures, finely interpreted by experienced artists who own a sensitive side which they aren’t afraid to show; for sure, one of the very best Loose Torque releases.” Read full review by Massimo Ricci at Touching Extremes at http://spazioinwind.libero.it/extremes/touchinghome.htm

Today’s Play at the Loose Torque Causes Vibrations concert at The Vortex 12 March 2008 Filmed by Helen Petts.