Shirantha Beddage: Live at the Vortex
London’s Vortex Jazz Club helped Shirantha Beddage launch ‘Departures’ with a band of some fine, practised UK musicians.
Despite being born in the UK (specifically Eastbourne), Beddage has never performed here until his appearance at the Vortex. He selected some of the very best musicians around to join him on his London debut - Nick Smart (trumpet), Nikki Iles (piano), Conor Chaplin (bass) and James Maddren (drums).
Departures is a series of compositions and arrangements that reflect and explore major life events, and the recording was deliberately undertaken with a new ensemble, Canadian performers who each hail from a different province.
There’s an urgency and complexity about each of these compositions and this UK album launch event brought music that considers a range of themes, including Beddage’s desire to explore his Sri Lankan heritage, his identity as a Canadian living in America, and his experience as a South Asian with British and European heritage.
Beddage and Smart first met while working on a Kenny Wheeler project (Wheeler was a Canadian who settled in the UK in the 1950s) and many of the tunes featured Smart’s trumpet in counterpoint with Beddage’s baritone sax - with Iles’s considered and subtle piano and Chaplin’s often-gentle bass. As always, Maddren brought a variety of rhythmic textures from behind the drum kit.
The Sri Lankan tunes Beddage arranged include the Recital of the Hawk and Recital of the Hare, where the musicians evoke images of the animals concerned, combining the composed element with dexterous improvisations.
It was in Beddage’s own compositions that complexity and difficult time signatures came to the fore - Pushin, These Are the Questions, Pork Chop and Circling in particular. The latter featured a stunning piano feature that really showed what Nikki Iles is capable of as more than accompanist.
British-Canadian musical links were cemented last night at the Vortex, thanks to Beddage, Smart, Iles, Chaplin and Maddren.
Find Shirantha Beddage on Bandcamp to hear ‘Departures’ and more of his music
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