Mike Walker - Ropes (2019)

Ropes is Manchester-based guitarist Mike Walker's second album as a leader and it couldn't be much more different from his fusion-oriented debut Madhouse and the Whole Thing There (Hidden Idiom, 2008). This album is a jazz-with-strings affair and a fine one at that. The mood is mostly gentler, more reflective and more pastoral than on his debut. With Ropes, Walker has also significantly extended his compositional palette.

Walker is an alumnus of the bands of George Russell, Mike Gibbs and Kenny Wheeler, and more recently one quarter of The Impossible Gentlemen with Steve Swallow, Gwilym Simcock and Adam Nussbaum. His guitar playing invites superlatives. It was easy to see why George Russell loved Walker's contributions to the Living Time Orchestra their fire and funk always coupled with finesse. What a musician plays must always serve the music self-conceit, not their own. These qualities will make Ropes one of the most played British jazz albums of 2019.

At the heart of this album is the gorgeous, pastoral three-movement title track. The piece is actually quite traditional in its compositional approach—theme, variations and recapitulations with different tempos for each movement—but none the worse for it. As Walker explains in the interview below, "Ropes" is a personal piece relating to his mother's mental health issues and his attempts to understand what she was going through. The word "poignant" hardly seems to do justice to its tripping melodies, gorgeous harmonies and strong and performances from Walker, saxophonist Iain Dixon, pianist Les Chisnall and Adam Nussbaum's subtle drumming. Walker's use of the 22-piece Psappha Strings is also remarkably effective, variously deploying the orchestra to state the melody, provide rhythmic support, offer a wide range of textures and provide counterpoint for the soloists. Gwilym Simcock replaces Chisnall on "Devon Bean" and "Madhouse and the Whole Thing There," his more expansive style well-suited to the fast-paced "Devon Bean" and the brooding, hymnal "Madhouse." The decision to deploy Dixon on the title track and elsewhere is a wise one. Yet the real find here is Chisnall: the delicacy of his contributions to "Still Slippy Underfoot" and "Wallenda's Last Stand" are beautifully weighted, feeding the solos of Dixon and Walker and contributing to the architecture of the piece.

Walker is wistful and elegiac on "Wallenda's Last Stand" and "Bound to Let Go," while he smolders on "Madhouse" and catches fire on "Knots." This is a very fine record that succeeds in being both approachable and thought-provoking. Quite an achievement.

Tracklist:

01. Still Slippy Underfoot
02. Ropes Movement I: Bound to Let Go
03. Ropes Movement II: Knots
04. Ropes Movement III: Kiss the Hills for Me, Just Once
05. Devon Bean
06. Wallenda's Last Stand
07. Madhouse and the Whole Thing There
08. Slip Not