Ant Law and Brigitte Beraha
Ensconced
by Howard Lawes
Ant Law and Brigitte Beraha are both experienced musicians who have successfully established (or indeed ensconced) themselves as part of the vibrant UK jazz scene. However, as Ant Law remarked in a Zoom conversation with Brigitte Beraha and myself) standing still artistically is not an option and this latest album, Ensconced, is the product of a new collaboration between two artists who have, hitherto, occupied rather different parts of the wider jazz network.
Ant and Brigitte's combined discography includes at least 48 albums, both leading their own projects but also regularly supporting other leading musicians. Brigitte Beraha's projects include the bands Lucid Dreamers, Babelfish and Solstice, duos with pianists Frank Harrison and John Turville and the solo album, By The Cobbled Path (2021). On the album Red Skies (2013), John Turville and Brigitte were joined by the great tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins in one of his last recordings. Brigitte Beraha's recently recorded another solo album, Blink (2022) with her band Lucid Dreamers. By the Cobbled Path features Brigitte's voice with piano and electronics and was described in BBC Music Magazine as "an absolute joy from beginning to end", awarding it 5 stars while the Guardian review of Blink described Beraha's voice as "quietly virtuosic" and "at her delicately airborne, rhythmically audacious best". Listen to the track Modulo 7 :
Ant Law's musical projects include the Unified Theories band, Same Moon in the Same World with saxophonist Alex Hitchcock, the Ant Law Quintet and Trio HLK. He also hosts online interviews, a series that started during the pandemic and called Quarantine Zone (QZ). Ant's recent recordings include being part of the Emma Rawicz Sextet on Chroma (2023) and as a member of Trio HLK on Anthropometricks (2024). Both these albums feature lively, contemporary jazz and have been widely praised, John Fordham's review of Chroma in the Guardian highlights the rapport between Emma and Ant which is well illustrated in this clip from the Manchester Jazz Festival. Anthropometricks is an innovative album featuring cryptic clues and tricky music that demands outstanding musicianship. Here is an introduction to the album:
Ant and Brigitte both teach at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Brigitte also teaches at the Trinity Laban School of Music and Dance while Ant also teaches at the Royal Academy of Music. Despite these commonalities it seems their paths rarely cross in academia but, as the pandemic closed everything down Ant's QZ initiative was instrumental in establising a closer association between them as featured on QZs 21 and 36. At one point Ant says "everyone knows that to be a success in music you need a great singer", while Brigitte was very pleased to collaborate at a time when it was impossible to perform live. QZ21 includes the songs A Kiss to Build a Dream On and Some Other Time which were recorded remotely and became the opening and closing tracks of the new album. A Kiss to Build a Dream On was Ant's choice having fallen in love with Louis Armstrong's recording from years ago, Brigitte recorded the words first and then Ant supplied the guitar accompaniment, having to re-tune his guitar in the process. Some Other Time (video here) was Brigitte's choice, which she hadn't sung before, but recalled versions by Tony Bennett and Blossom Dearie. This time Ant's guitar came first and Brigitte sang along to it creating a really beautiful duet.
The combination of voice and guitar is less common in jazz than in other musical genres such as folk music, but then neither Ant nor Brigitte's introduction to jazz was run of the mill. Brigitte was born in Italy to a Turkish father and Turkish-British mother, she grew up in France and remembers her father's songs and music. Ant was born in Saudi Arabia where he played classical piano and guitar but also heard blues, rock 'n' roll and Arabic music. While at university he spent a summer semester at the Berklee College of Music hearing gospel and Latin-American music. Ant very rarely plays acoustic guitar and but seems perfectly at home with it on Ensconced and at a recent performance at The Pheasantry music room in London. He has retained his Perfect 4ths tuning method and he says "this rules out all the usual "blues-guitar" licks and chords" but nevertheless he can generate aspects of Americana and blues as is evident in the track Clever Hans, a story about a German horse that could do arithmetic and influenced the practice of psychology. Apart from the first and last tracks all the songs are composed by Brigitte and all the tunes are composed by Ant. Some tunes are re-arrangements of earlier Ant Law compositions, the track Harvest being a version first featured on The Sleeper Wakes (2020) and Above Water originating on Zero Sum World (2015). Five of the tracks feature just Ant and Brigitte but bassist Petros Klampanis and drummer Ernesto Simpson guest on Harvest, Matt Calvert (electronics, guitar), Max Luthert (electronics), Duncan Eagles (tenor saxophone) and Jamie Murray (drums) guest on Above Water and Kit Downes (piano) and Adam Kovacs (percussion) guest on Who We Are (here). Here is a video for Harvest:
It might be expected given the experience and academic credentials of Ant Law and Brigitte Beraha that any musical collaboration would be outstanding. Jazz musicians can of course create music on the spur of the moment but when they have more time their inventiveness can achieve even greater heights. As Ant says about the title track Ensconced : "I created a brand new scale that I had never played before and built the chords from it. That is why there are so many large leaps in the vocal melody". Brigitte says of Ensconced "This is one of my favourite compositions by Ant, I could just listen to this on repeat. I think it is beautifully crafted". To most listeners the technical details are not apparent but what they will hear is beautiful music created with great care and thought. Although it has become something of a cliche the pandemic did result in some good and Ant Law's initiative, his guitar and Brigitte Beraha's amazing voice has resulted in a really beautiful collection of music. The album is released on 16th August on the Ubunto Music label. Details and samples are here:
