Way back in the Seventies jazz pianist Lonnie ‘Liston’ Smith pushed the space/spiritual jazz in a very relaxed, soulful direction, with traces of soundtrack (library) music with a series of albums mostly recorded for BGP and Flying Dutchman labels. This music stands on its own even today, many calling it ambient jazz, hopefully, they have a positive mark in front of such a categorization.
Renowned British jazz pianist Greg Foat and The Bees guitar player/multi-instrumentalist Warren Hampshire seem to be intended to carry on that tradition with their joint album Galaxies Like The Grain of Sand. The album title, named after a sci-fi novel by Brian Aldiss already gives you the indication of where the duo, supported by a stellar set of other musicians is headed. The album cover itself is a bit of a reminder of a renowned Seventies British jazz label Argo. To somehow further catch that late Sixties, early Seventies vibe, the duo even decided to record the album on old-fashioned tube equipment.
Foat’s Fender Rhodes electric piano and Hampshire’s (mostly acoustic) guitars do create those galactic images with the duo interspersing ‘all that jazz’ with almost anything that would fit the mood - from library music and soundtracks to folk guitar picking. Of course, The Bees are a band known for their shuffle through styles, and Flat himself is also known for not sticking to just some would call ‘straight jazz’. It would be an injustice to start separating track here but The Solar Winds (And Cadenza) comes closest galactic travel (through musical styles, too), while Washed Up withy just Foat’s acoustic piano and Hampshire’s acoustic (again) guitar should end up on many of those ‘special’ late night mix tapes. But then you could also say that for How The Nights Fly with its subtle string arrangement or the End Song (in both its variations), or more or less every other one on this masterfully played and executed album.
Whatever vibe Hampshire & Foat tried to create, they certainly did, but they didn’t simply get stuck in nostalgia but managed to transfer past moods and ideas into modern times.
