Mike Bradley
Tuesday May 29 2001
The Times
New Jazz Albums "Bout Time 2"
The keyboardist Steve Lodder’s debut album has precisely the right title, Bout Time 2 (Sleeve). By rights he should have recorded an album long before now, but it’s not surprising that he hasn’t found time when you consider how often he is called upon to participate in other projects — from playing African music with Sibongile Khumalo to “difficult” material with John Harle and back in his berth as regular keyboardist with Andy Sheppard. So it was always going to be interesting to hear his own voice.
Even those familiar with his playing may be surprised by some of the colours and flavours on Bout Time 2, a mix of Latin excursions, funky improvisations and languid, Sheppard-esque meditations. All the compositions here are by Lodder, with the exception of excerpts from Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee and J. S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion, and they confirm a keen imagination, a strong musical confidence and an impish sense of humour. The record is bolstered by contributions from Harle, Sheppard and Monica Vasconcelos among others.
Review by John Fordham
Friday May 4, 2001
The Guardian
Steve Lodder Bout Time 2
A regular collaborator with Andy Sheppard, and a highly valued sideman with innumerable local and international ensembles, pianist Steve Lodder has been confirming that he's a class act for such a long time now that, as with David Binney, this set under his own leadership seems to have been unaccountably delayed. Lodder is both an improvisor of originality and a musical thinker of erudition and depth, and he brings an influential extra dimension to almost every band he plays in. But, as Michael Brecker found before his long-postponed shift into leadership, the big question for a player that has been such a constant sideman is which musical identity to pursue out of innumerable alternatives encouraged by others.
Lodder has ambitiously sought to bring many contemporary elements together here - percussive and rhythmic ideas drawn from the dance and club world, relaxed inflections from Latin music, episodes of mildly tongue-in-cheek remakes of old idioms reminiscent of Carla Bley's approach, Miles Davis-style electronic funk, vocal tangos with Charlie Parker themes for a countermelody, and rhapsodies that suggest atmospheric movie scores (Clarissa Lost and Found) that shift dramatically into their keyboard solo space rather in the way a Pat Metheny piece develops.
All the soloing is excellent, and Lodder's own playing has rarely been heard to better effect on disc. But the material, despite its idiomatic variety, holds the attention less firmly, and several of the pieces travel hopefully in search of an essence. Clarissa Lost and Found is a beauty though, and the eccentrically funky flamenco of Pere David's Stomp also suggests very promising possibilities for Lodder's growing independence.