The Mozart of Basin Street, Cable Street, and Rotherhithe
VICTORIA KINGHAM
Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to even begin talking about music which is so good that it takes your breath away quite literally, and unexpectedly.
Photo: Peter Mould
It’s quite clear that Ewan Bleach absorbs everything he hears, and he plays like Sidney Bechet. He can sing. He composes by casually improvising something, then he transcribes it, arranges it and orchestrates it wonderfully well, so that his superb ten-piece band can render it faultlessly, proudly unimpeded by amplification or other technology. He has curated an album where every instrument has a solo break and a chance to shine, and it all sounds so good.
If he isn’t quite world-renowned, then he ought to be. Though he is in constant demand and performs every night of the week, he’s in a world that is too full of nurtured, celebrated, hothoused, but essentially mediocre, musicians. True talent, originality, and technical excellence such as that of Bleach and his Fleeting Paradise Orchestra, seem to have a harder ride in today’s environment. A bit of a musical wild child, emulating the jazz life yet thoroughly grounded in classical theory, he found the jazz course at Guildhall disappointingly cerebral. “It didn’t feel right…it just seemed like a game to show off how intellectual you were.”
This unfortunate image sometimes puts potential audiences off jazz too – and I have myself walked out of more than one dire gig at supposedly groovy clubs in East London, where the audience of retro-beatnik intelligentsia pretend to be enjoying something awful.
Good jazz, though, inevitably fleeting, never quite the same twice, is some of the best music there is. Eventually, listening back through Billie Holliday, Ellington, and Bechet, Bleach found out where his heart lay. Dance music:his band play at weddings and anniversaries as well as performing in concert halls all over the country. And here we were in Henry Ward Hall watching this guy who is steeped in music and musicology, effortlessly fronting a band who can clearly play anything that’s put in front of them, and a lot that isn’t. The brass instruments all looked to be well vintaged, with that mellow, slightly fluffy, spit-ful sound that you don’t get from a bright modern horn.
I’d say more about all the musicians and the tunes, the style, the panache, the arrangements, but I don’t have the space or the time before this goes to print. So readers, please be content with this paean, and instrumentalists, the list below. Ewan Bleach’s Fleeting Paradise is not as ephemeral as the name makes it sound, and I expect they’ll be back here again. But meanwhile if you’re ever in King’s Cross or Rotherhithe, don’t hesitate to see them – they’re world class, and they’re wonderful.
The Fleeting Paradise line-up was: Ewan Bleach – clarinet, alto sax, vocals; William Scott – clarinet, tenor sax; Mike Soper trumpet; Tom Dennis – trumpet; Cameron Scott – trombone; Tom Law – flute & saxes; John Kelly – guitar, banjo; Max Baillie – violin/viola; Colin Good – piano; Louis Thomas – bass; Joe Dessauer – drums
Indirectly quoted, from David Doyle’s excellent article here: syncopatedtimes.com/ewan-bleach-jazz-aC-rave-scene-but-with-live-music. Bleach’s own website: ewanbleach.com St Leonards Concerts events: stlconcerts.co.uk
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