Pioneering solo percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie plays with Scottish improvising ensemble Trio HLK. Their music pulls apart jazz standards into fragments that are at times shimmering and cerebral, at others thunderous and visceral. Intricate and harmonious rhythms meet with a veritable battery of percussion instruments played by Glennie to deliver a performance that is an interactive tour de force.
Pioneering ensemble Trio HLK comprises composer/pianist Rich Harrold, Ant Law on 8-string guitar and drummer Richard Kass. HLK began to collaborate with Dame Evelyn Glennie (the world's premier solo percussionist) in early 2018 with a concert at Bristol International Jazz Festival. Critics praised this significant debut performance which was very warmly received by the audience. Jazzwise magazine cited the concert as: “an extraordinary performance in a class all of its own’.
Their debut studio album “Standard Time” was released shortly after. Featuring HLK, Evelyn and also Guggenheim fellow Steve Lehman (alto saxophone) it went on to be selected as Critics' Choice in Gramophone Magazine.
Since 2018, HLK & Evelyn have performed together extensively in Europe, developing new music and allowing their unique musical language to evolve. Their meticulous approach heavily deconstructs and recomposes well known pieces from the jazz & classical repertory. From the original musical building blocks they create intricate new pieces with complex frameworks for improvisation. The pieces are strewn with rhythmic and harmonic tricks, and their performances distort the meeting point of the composed and the improvised.
This concert is supported by Arts Council England’s Supporting Grassroots Live Music Fund.
Glennie, hemmed in by a veritable stockade of vibes, marimba, tympani and assorted percussive gewgaws, emerged for a solo spot, hands flickering in an urgently driven piece for steel handpan and prepared tape, and to spar energetically on a separate drum kit with Kass in a number which concluded with a formidable break from the HLK drummer.
The Scotsman ★★★★
..the ensemble's willingness to travel far and wide - beyond more obvious and generic accents (and also way beyond traditional concepts of the jazz trio) - marks them out as true innovators and makes Standard Time a truly remarkable album.
Gramophone Magazine
..the festival had one extraordinary performance that was in a class all of its own:Trio HLK’s collaboration with percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie was an intense combination of complex musical ideas and virtuoso musicianship.
Tony Benjamin, Jazzwise
..urgent, elegant, dizzying, serene ... and maybe unlike anything you’ve heard before.
London Jazz News
Dame Evelyn Glennie // percussion
Richard Harrold // piano & composition
Ant Law // guitar //
Richard Kass // drums