Get The Blessing - jazz, but maybe not as you know it!

Get The Blessing 

I first found out about these when they were they were just known as The Blessing. That was at a gig at The Musician here in Leicester on Saturday 12 July 2008. I'd gone to see Black Carrot, then currently the most exciting band on the local scene. The quotes online actually gave little away "The Blessing are a blast" - Mojo. "At last: a noisy, thrashy post-jazz combo that sounds like a proper band" - Independent on Sunday. "Gloriously powerful" - BBC Music Magazine. "Seamless and startling" - The Times. So I had no idea who or what The Blessing really were, but was pleasantly surprised.
I half expected some sort of Material styled jazz-funk when I saw the line-up of trumpet, saxophones, bass and drums, and there was a hint of that - but here were put on a frenzied trip of updated electric Miles Davis type sounds, given quirky touches, a good few Krautrock references, especially Can type rhythms, and the two winds players often dabbled and played around with the electronic gadgetry as much as playing their instruments, so shades of Xhol Caravan too. It had taken them eight years to come to this, but it was well worth it - a new innovative jazz group that was British, a rarity indeed!
The Blessing comprised: Jim Barr: bass (he was producer, session/live bass player with Portishead ca. 1993-1997), Clive Deamer: drums (who had recorded with Portishead on numerous occasions), plus the two winds wizards: Jake McMurchie: saxophone and Pete Judge: trumpet. Apparently the name was a dedication to Ornette Coleman, not a musician that I'm into myself, but no doubt that's another of the elusive influences in their music I couldn't identify.
... Three years on, and album number three: OC DC again offers-up lots of surprises. It gets even more playful and eclectic than its predecessors. You'd think they were something to do with The Residents with the sweet-wrappered heads and tuxedos they wear on the cover, and the music reflects that a little. There are even themes that remind me of Faust's So Far or Picnic On A Frozen River, and we get boogie jazz with the backbone of early Glenn Branca. Maybe it's sometimes like an instrumental Gong meets Can meets Miles Davis meets..., but such descriptions are inadequate! I could go on name-dropping and fill the page up, but that would only confuse matters. Notably the tracks are slightly longer and the grooves even more "groovy". And, to use a well-worn cliché, they turn all their influences into something uniquely their own. [edited from Audion #58]

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