Very excited that the Neil Cowley Trio is back in business. He’s a real master musician … a very wide conception of what a jazz trio can be.

– BBC Radio 2: Jamie Cullum

 

On September 20th, the Neil Cowley Trio released ‘Entity‘, their first recording in seven years. Having pressed pause in 2017 to pursue a solo, more electronic path, pianist and composer Neil Cowley brings his trio out of hiatus following a period of solitary music making. “Time” he says “to return to the joy of human connection”. For Cowley, there are no closer musical allies and brotherhood than his Neil Cowley Trio cohort, bassist Rex Horan and drummer Evan Jenkins.

Entity is the magnificent new recording that see three friends reunited, giving their all to each other to reach one common goal, inspiring, conversing and metaphorically dancing together. “Wandering in, it felt like coming home”. ‘Entity’ is neither a return nor a departure from the Neil Cowley Trio sound. It is the Neil Cowley Trio sound, with the finger lifted from the pause button.

LISTEN TO ‘ENTITY’ HERE:

V&A is the final single taken from ‘Entity’ and the culmination of countless, intensive hours by Cowley at his piano, honing his mental sharpness and physical dexterity. “That inspiration can become introspection is always a danger” says Cowley, “that feeling of beginning to go round in circles, yet fearful that stepping away, the muse will leave, never to return”. By the side of his piano he has a Post-It Note that simply says ‘V&A’, a simple reminder to step away and allow himself to be inspired by other things. London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is Cowley’s go-to place for inspiration, always leaving refreshed and revitalized. V&A leans in to the trio’s trademark sound of dynamism and drama. Arpeggiated piano rolls flagrantly across bar lines to a head-nodding back beat with a beautiful melody, eventually blossoming into orchestral style eruptions.

WATCH V&A VIDEO HERE:

On recording ‘Entity’, it had been Cowley’s intention to bring with him is experiences of the past years and introduce some of his extensive electronic instruments, “but” he says “they just got in the way. Trying anything artificial seemed like a token gesture, distracting from the magic of the three of us playing together, interfering with the human connection between us!” So, he boxed them back up and returned them to his lock up to gather dust.

‘Entity’ is a magnificent return to form for the Neil Cowley Trio. While the trio’s bombast and whimsy may have taken a back seat– this is after all a trio maturing – Cowley’s ear for a killer melody, majestic rolling grooves, power hungry cadences, elegiac beauty and emotionally charged pieces remain. Adam Alphabet is a jack-in-the-box head-nodder described by Neil as “rolling along like a surfboard on a bread slicer” (the intervening years have done little to dim Cowley’s infectious wit) while the dreamy melody and indomitable pulse of Father Daughter has all the hallmarks of the Neil Cowley Trio ‘song without words’. The majesty of the epic opening track, Marble and the beauty of the expansive closing track Entity are masterclasses in expression, atmosphere and emotion. It is a mature, sophisticated album of uplifting melody and delicate beauty. It is about the inherent joy, comfort and rewards of human connection in our digital world and an ode to friendship.

“I feel as a species we are still learning how to interact with each other after the difficulties of recent years and technology doesn’t seem to want us to reignite those flames. It would rather we dwell in its artificiality and continue to scroll, jealously guarding our attention for commercial gain.

Maybe this is my bands small contribution to some kind of human push back! In contrast to the machines we are slave to, we’re presenting something that is unmistakably human; communal, supportive, flexible, reactive, instantaneous and flawed; and perhaps, when we are at our most elevated and selfless, what you might call an entity!”

Entity: A body that has an identity separate from those of its constituent parts

 

FULL ALBUM HERE: