Spin Marvel Featuring John Paul Jones
Cheltenham Jazz Festival
30th April, 2011

By turns scintillatingly brilliant and excruciatingly tedious, Spin Marvel’s 75-minute set – featuring Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, sensationally deputising for Tim Harries, on bass – represented both the best and worst of collective improvisation in free jazz. Led by ex-Loose Tubes drummer, Martin France, and featuring the icy, effects-laden trumpet of Norway’s Nils Petter Molvaer, Spin Marvel created a set-long soundscape that, at times, resonated like the chilling soundtrack to a bleak Scandinavian movie. Characterised by peaks and troughs, it relied heavily on the contribution of “sound-audio editor” Terje Evenson, who created atmospheric, sometimes discombobulating electronic sounds from behind a Mac laptop. Unlike the others – whose expressions ranged from deeply focused to totally disengaged – he seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. In fact, he fitted in like he’d been doing free jazz improv all his life, his sinewy bass lines attempting to establish a sense of groove in music that was texturally fascinating but, disappointingly, lacked a sense of rhythmic cohesion.