Finn Peters Quintet
Su-Ling
BDV 2664

WINNER of Best Band at 2007 BBC Jazz Awards

Albums of 2006: no.6 in Jazzwise

Tracklisting

1. Al Dar Gazelli mp3
2. Gato mp3
3. Red Fish
4. Ballad Boy mp3
5. Su-Ling mp3
6. N.R. Shackleton Goes to the Circus
7. Nelson's Blood
8. Fast Fish, Loose Fish
9. Machine Gun

Samples of all tracks available via our download site

“ brilliant debut !” DJ Gilles Peterson

“ A major figure in the making...” Mojo

“ …a work of poise and maturity that sees the 31-year-old multi-reed man deliver big time at the head of a quintet with whom he has a longstanding chemistry. ” Jazzwise Magazine

Su-Ling is a jazz album from award-winning flautist and saxophone player Finn Peters . The album, his debut release for Babel records (also home to contemporary jazzers Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland), received a great deal of airplay on BBC Radio 2 and 3, as well as Radio 1 and 1xtra - a fitting response to Jazz that borrows so much from outside the genre.

Refreshing and provocative, Su-Ling takes you on a journey from London to East Africa with stops in West Africa, Brazil, New Orleans and Java along the way, with music as diverse and exciting as the cultures it crosses.

At its heart remains the fine acoustic Jazz that you would expect from musician of Finn's pedigree.

A winner of the prestigious London Young Jazz Musician Award, he has toured worldwide and worked with such music pioneers as Frederick Rzewski, Giovanni Hidalgo, DJ Spinna, Sam Rivers and Sa-Ra Creative Partners.

In 1991, Finn studied with the court musicians to the Ugandan royal family in Kampala. “ Al- Dargazelli ” has a magisterial, almost royal feel and is influenced by patterns derived from Ugandan xylophone (Amadinda) music. “Gato ” is a Latin tune named after the great Argentine tenor player Gato Barbieri. The piano breakdown is a cheeky quote from Nas's “N.Y. state of mind” who in turn sampled the original piano line from Joe Chambers “Mind Rain”. “Red Fish” comes from Finn's love of New Orleans second-line music, traditional Mardi Gras funk. The hand-clapping patterns are reminiscent of bayou swamp funk legends “the Meters”.

The title track, “Su-Ling” is named after the bamboo flute used in the Javanese Gamelan orchestra and is directly influenced by Javanese folk melodies. The last piece, “Machine Gun” is an anti-war statement after feeling increasingly hopeless about the war in Iraq. Machine gun samples become transmuted into rapid-fire flute melodies and the piece descends into a bloody battle. In the first performance of Machine Gun, the musicians played in the dark whilst sound-sensitive lights were triggered by the Kalashnikov samples.

Helping to provide its rich rhythms and dynamic sounds is are some of the leading lights on today's UK jazz scene - Dave Okumu (guitar, Tom Skinner (drums), Tom Herbert (bass) and Nick Ramm (keys), who have been working together with Finn as a steadily evolving unit over the past 10 years.

Finn has a strong awareness of the balance between improvisation, electronics and contemporary techniques throughout this finely honed acoustic jazz debut. He's one of the best purveyors of the unfairly maligned jazz flute in the UK as well as having a clean, rich-bodied sound on the saxophone. Melodically speaking, the thematic material is often reminiscent of western classical music right through to eastern folk forms, African and Brazilian. While the significance of rhythmis paramount and demonstrated with patterns deriving from West African music on the CD (It opens with David Okumu's luminous African-nuanced textures on guitar) through Afro caribbean , and Brazilian music while Finn pulls no punches in his seamless adaptation of contemporary groove music and electronics to an organic, acoustic environment.

Which review of the following pair makes the most sense ?

a)

from Damien Rafferty at fly.co.uk

The Vortex is run by the jazz impresario Oliver Weindling, who also has a remarkable record label called Babel. Remarkable for finding fresh, innovative and young talent, so much of it in fact that one could be forgiven for thinking jazz is more alive now in this country than it has been in a few decades and for that matter more alive than it is in the States.

But back to Finn, for one night only his band lacked the funky bass and instead featured a trombonist and a tuba. Now I am not talking old-style jazz tuba, I am talking the kind of playing capable of making you giggle with farty noises one minute and making you want to pinch yourself as if caught in a waking nightmare the next.

Deep, dark and intense, the playing went. In the break, I chatted with Finn and even he seemed rather caught off guard by the darkness of the first set. “Sometimes it is like that with improvising though. I guess we were in a dark place. Better lighten it up in the next set, he says almost to himself.”

The next set announced itself with a played procession through the crowd and more avant-garde moments but this time the grooves and the exotic influences like the gamelan came into play. The air was heavy with the smell of pizzas ordered from next door and delivered to punters but fresh from smoke in this, gasp, smoke-free jazz venue. The playing was out there and the night was perfect.

Or is it b) An unwelcome surprise from Peters
By Jack Massarik, Evening Standard 

The best jazz, we know, is supposed to be the sound of surprise. Yet even so it was a bit much last night to catch what was billed as a promotional gig for Finn Peters's new album, Su-Ling, only to find the altoist using another line-up and playing different music altogether.

Gone were bassist Tom Herbert and guitarist David Okumu, replaced by tuba specialist Oren Marshall and trombonist Trevor Mires.

And without warning, his album's glossy multi-cultural sophistication was substituted by a raucous old-fashioned free-improv free-for-all. Blame the full moon.

Peters, a Jekyll and Hyde saxman if ever there was one, had somehow transmuted from versatile but glib neo-bop sessionman to discordant, self-indulgent iconoclast, mangling Sixties themes by the liberated likes of pianist Mischa Mengleberg and altoist Carlos Ward.

Presented as lofty original compositions were negligible whole-tone phrases of the kind wittily used in passing by true improvising masters like Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins.

Apart from Peters's broad flute tone on Ballad Boy, the only truly enjoyable moment came when Marshall produced an extraordinary series of deep burping and bubbling noises which suggested that his giant bass-tuba had suddenly turned nasty and was about to eat him alive."

A clue: The gig included 5 tracks from Su-Ling and nowhere did it suggest that it was only meant to be a live version of the gig. So, dear Jack, don't talk through your arse.

For Finn Peters' Biog click here