He is known for the talent in his fingers, but Julian Joseph is surprisingly vocal. He sings; he broadcasts; and now he's putting the finishing touches to a stage routine which incorporates jokes (very bad) and tributes (hyperbolic).
His wunderkind reputation preceded him, as did prolonged and enthusiastic rounds of applause at every juncture. For the music at least, it was earned.
Joseph's regular collaborators were there: Orlando Le Fleming on bass and Adam Salkeld on guitar. Guest soloist was George Coleman, who, along with his saxophone, shared glory days with BB King, Max Roach, Miles Davis and Lionel Hampton; these days he has taken to appearing with Joseph, a former Branford Marsalis protege and in his early 30s, still the great (black) hope of British jazz.
It was a glowing team, but at first the sparks refused to ignite. In a trio-only tribute to the Duke, Candlelight Supper, Moonlight Affair, Joseph's piano seemed too strident for the self-effacing guitar and gentle bass. Coming in with his own composition, You Mean So Much to Me, Coleman added a new buoyancy and crispness, setting swathes of bright melody against buzzy repetitions, but his full-bodied fluency still found itself a little flat at the top of the range.
Salkeld, a quiet hero with an unshowy style, provided a background often too reverberative and glassy to rival Joseph's assertive, opaque flights. No matter: by the time the band had rippled through the jaunty Nat King Cole ballad You're Looking at Me, one sensed a shift in gear and a new readiness to attack, gearing up with a catchy bass heartbeat.
The palette of piano tones remained light and sweet until the first set came to a close, when Benny Golson's Blues March saw Joseph become more animated, allowing smoothness to give way to some deliberate, obtuse melodic ideas to surface and stretch. Salkeld followed suit, his rhythm guitar-stopping lending friction and building tension.
Enja, which launched the second set, was another terrific number, with Coleman alternately needle-sharp and shimmery, and Joseph inventively improvising on a vamp better known as the 007 theme. That gave way to a more fragmented undertow, pierced by some agile right-hand work by Joseph, and full of flourishes. But despite the neat, flavoursome endings, some tunes - like Uncle Frank, another Coleman composition with a calypso feel - rambled on into clumsiness.
