PRESS / F-IRE Collective CMN tour 2005

from Glasgow Review 20 October 2005

F-IRE COLLECTIVE ***

CCA, GLASGOW

THE ever-expanding F-IRE Collective have been attracting a great deal of attention on the London jazz scene of late, bolstered by the award-winning efforts of member bands such as Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear. The collective is seen as an alternative way forward while the conventional music business infrastructure increasingly fails jazz.

Their first-ever national tour with a 16-strong contingent marks a major development for them. This concert, incorporated into the Big Big World festival, was only their second in this format and it often sounded as though some of the complex group arrangements and interactions needed rather more
practice. This kind of unorthodox big band has precedents in UK jazz, including Loose Tubes and the earlier Mike Westbrook bands, yet F-IRE are already succeeding in putting their personal stamp on the music. Or rather, their personal stamps, because it was very much in the plural.

During two long sets and an encore they played music by a whole range of composers associated with the collective - both in full band and smaller group formats. Highlights included saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock's Monologue Man in the opening set, and a gloriously cacophonous clash - between the band that split into two units who then eventfully came together, marching on stage from the back of the hall - in the second set. Unfortunately, it was one of the few pieces that nobody bothered to introduce.

Vocalist Julia Biel was prominently featured in a line-up that included cello amid the more regular jazz instruments and featured two drummers, the electrifying Seb Rochford and Leo Taylor. Saxophonist Barak Schmool, the founder and nominal director of the collective, brought some order to the ensemble playing, without inhibiting the rampant creativity that burst out in an admittedly patchy but often inspiring