The Breakdown
And it all began in Leeds in the noughties. Bill Laurance newly graduated from the Uni and trying to earn his crust around the city’s music scene met Michael League, doing the same on his troubadour travels from the States. Gigging together in various jazz-soul leaning bands on the unforgiving northern circuit a friendship grew before League returned to his homeland. Back from his UK expedition he revived Snarky Puppy, the jazz fusion big band he’d started as an undergrad studying in Texas, and with plans to record their debut album needed a new piano player. He called up Laurance and it all stems from there.
That lynchpin relationship has remained a core part of Snarky Puppy’s stellar success since the band’s first recording in 2006 and it’s at the heart of Laurance and League’s second release as a duo ‘Keeping Company’, out now through ACT. Long-standing friendships are not always the foundation for such jazz collab projects which can sometimes feel incidental, even self-indulgent, but Laurance and League’s work together thrives on a shared sense of purpose. Through ‘Keeping Company’ the pair are telling us something about their connection both creatively and as two people who’ve known each other for twenty plus years.
The first time that the pair shared in this way, on their ‘Where You Wish You Were’ album from 2023, praise arrived for the stylistic range, intuitive playing and rootsy world jazz journeys. Bill Laurance reflects that “the first album was more about establishing a sound and exploring dynamics” but it also highlighted that this partnership represented something magically inspirational. So as a swift follow up ‘Keeping Company’ comes with a level of expectancy attached.
From the opening tracks it’s clear that the Laurance/League team have not played it safe but have aimed to move their sound on. Katerina reveals a change in instrumentation for League swapping the nylon stringed guitar that fluttered throughout ‘Where You Wish You Were’ for the bolder, more dramatic resonance of the oud. Those sinuous, evocative lute notes voice a folksy melody line over Laurance’s sparse chord cushion, conjuring up a gently simple introduction, so delicate you need to lean in for more. From here the subtlety continues with sonic pairing of the sombre, mournful ballad, You followed by the more vociferous Yours with its sultry Latin pulse and Laurance’s assured tunefulness out front. These tightly woven piano/ bass conversations get more quick-fire with the scurrying, Bach-leaning patterns of Escher, where fretwork and fingers fly, before the album nonchalantly shifts to funky groove territory.
How Does It Feel takes an easy-going bluesy amble, the soft piano vamps and Herbie flourishes whipped along by League’s slap-pull bass. Effortlessly rhythmic, the tune purrs alongside the two players’ tapping feet and spontaneous vocal scat. Such joyful interaction fizzes through the whole of ‘Keeping Company’ and it’s no surprise that the album was recorded live and free from superfluous overdubbing. Where You Wanna Go pumps with a similar ‘get down’ gumption, slinky and pouting to a shot of Cuban hot-stepping while the soul-jazz nodding Trails takes you to an end-of-the-night dance floor. Perhaps the Laurance and League’s cover of the Rico Rodriguez classic Africa claims the early listen top-spot amongst these uptempo numbers. The original from the great trombonist’s ‘Man From Wareika’ 1977 solo debut, was a glorious piece of big band ska which the duo respect with their breezy skanking version. Fittingly Laurance brings some Rubén González sparkle into his playing, gently accenting the afro-cuban-calypso connections which underpinned Rico’s recordings.
Credit must go the Bill Laurance and Michael League for keeping such free-flowing grooviness tight rather than drifting into prolonged jams. There’s a structure and economy to all the pieces on ‘Keeping Company’ which sustains freshness and ensures the listener stays locked into every moment. On the emotionally probing Stonemaker such a focused approach promotes a song-like narrative arc while League’s oud adds an edge of earthy realism. This slow dawning tune shows how both musicians can take the heart of a melody and build an expansive soundscape without any over-complications. It’s a moment on the album which reaches the same nerve endings as Mehldau’s ‘Highway Rider’. Similarly the closing tune, Iki Keklik, Bir Kayada, draws on the intuitive oud /piano interaction which Laurance and League have developed to tug at the yearning beauty of this Erkan Ogur /traditional Turkish ballad.
More than a series of sketches or loose musical explorations ‘Keeping Company’ has the integrity of a collection with the relationship of two long standing musical friends at the centre. The album seems like a marker of a particular time and place for them and it speaks to that context but the conversation that these tunes capture is beyond being self-centred. The music here speaks out to any listener and is likely to keep you company for a long while.
Get your copy of ‘Keeping Company‘ by Bill Laurance & Michael League from your local record store or direct from ACT Music HERE
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