Paul Dunmall

Paul Dunmall comes off as a “muscular tenor” in his new recording with large band, Red Hot Ice (Discus, 2024). This is the strong first impression left by the first track, “Prepare for Peace,” which could easily be a tribute to Sun Ra, with Dunmall playing the John Gilmore role. The c. soprano shows up later (sounds like a sopranino), but the album feels like an out-there tenor concerto showpiece. The band (Percy Pursglove – trumpet, Richard Foote – trombone, Alicia Gardener-Trejo – baritone saxophone, James Birkett – electric guitar, Andrew Woodhead – synthesizers, organ, rhodes, Glen Leach – acoustic piano, lorenzo organ, voice, James Owston – double bass, Jim Bashford – drums) is stellar. Track two, a fifteen minute journey which begins with a virtuosic bass solo frolic, and then launches into music that could accompany Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse as they pursue their arch villains. The tenor solo kicks in over an organ and swinging cymbals, guitar stabs. This is cinematic stuff, with space ships and monsters. “The Past” is a bolero-ish piece, with a fantastic baritone solo from Alicia Gardiner-Trejo. The title piece is a twenty-one minute tour de force of comprovisation with some Mingus-isms in there, and the closer, “Dearly Departed,” is a ballad-ish thing that sticks the landing with beauty and even, dare I say it, tenderness. Five stars. – Henry Schneider, FREE JAZZ BLOG https://www.freejazzblog.org/2025/01/two-from-paul-dunmall.html

With Red Hot Ice saxophonist Paul Dunmall has come up with an approach to (fairly) big band composition that probably deserves its own genre, so if I invoke a heady combination of Graham Collier, Globe Unity and Sun Ra then it’s more a mark of articulacy-stretching critical panic than any implication that this music is in any way derivative. Should you feel alarmed at the prospect of why-had-nobody-thought-of-that-hook-before melodic riffs, permutable dollops of bouncy swing and rocky funk, free and free-ish sections of the best kind, near-ambient futuristic tribal marches (bear with me…) and occasional snidey organ huffs all co-existing in an extraordinary celebration, don’t be; it all absolutely works. FIVE STARS – Roger Thomas, BBC Music Magazine

Paul Dunmall comes off as a “muscular tenor” in his new recording with large band, Red Hot Ice (Discus, 2024). This is the strong first impression left by the first track, “Prepare for Peace,” which could easily be a tribute to Sun Ra, with Dunmall playing the John Gilmore role. The c. soprano shows up later (sounds like a sopranino), but the album feels like an out-there tenor concerto showpiece. The band is stellar. Track two, a fifteen minute journey which begins with a virtuosic bass solo frolic, and then launches into music that could accompany Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse as they pursue their arch villains. The tenor solo kicks in over an organ and swinging cymbals, guitar stabs. This is cinematic stuff, with space ships and monsters. “The Past” is a bolero-ish piece, with a fantastic baritone solo from Alicia Gardiner. The title piece is a twenty-one minute tour de force of comprovisation with some Mingus-isms in there, and the closer, “Dearly Departed,” is a ballad-ish thing that sticks the landing with beauty and even, dare I say it, tenderness. Five stars. – Gary Chapin, FREE JAZZ BLOG, https://www.freejazzblog.org/2025/01/two-from-paul-dunmall.html

Saxophone elder Paul Dunmall presents a hard-swinging, expansive big band take on his typical punchy and powerful sound with his latest release. Assembling a none person group featuring electronics, synthesiser, double keyboards and thumping drums, the record’s five compositions touch on the breadth of the 71-year-old’s influences. It’s on the longer tracks….. that Dunmall and his expanded group are at their most engaging. While the downtempo electronic ambience of “The Past” and the guitar-lead balladry of “Dearly Departed” show glimpses of individual virtuosity, in moments like Percy Pursglove’s keening solo on the latter, the extended numbers allow the entire group to push forward with a starting, unified energy. Bebop bass lines and punctuating horn fanfares grip the listener on Say Hi To Your Evil / Get Comfortable, while the title track develops from eerie ambience into an unsettling cacophony of full-throated expression, proving that there’s still much more exciting music left to be written and performed by Dunmall. – Ammar Kalia, DOWNBEAT

Here comes another Discus recording for 2024 from Paul Dunmall. Last time out, on Fanfares & Freedom, he shared the credit with Laura Jurd. Despite the presence of a nine piece band plus extra Sheffield luminaries it’s only Dunmall’s name and picture on the sleeve of Red Hot Ice. And I get why; although there are extended workouts, particularly on Say Hi To Your Evil/Get Comfortable and on the title track (magnificent ending!) this tight ensemble are playing compositions with a degree of arrangement – in the manner of Mingus (a long term influence), plusa nod to late-electric period Gil Evans. However, this is a Paul Dunmall album. In the personnel line-up there are a people like trumpet player Percy Pursglove and drummer Jim Bashford who are familiar cohorts. There’s a high level of understanding. Even some of the titles echo Paul’s debt to John & Alice Coltrane – Prepare For Peace, Dearly Departed. My usual preference is to live with a recording before I write about it. On this occasion, if I don’t do it now it won’t get done, such is my own schedule his autumn. Red Hot Ice is new to my ears, I’m hearing a masterpiece. Yes if you know Paul Dunmall’s work you’ll immediately recognise the context, music from a single day’s recording (23rd May 2024) embalmed by pre-studio consciousness. Of all the recent quality albums Paul Dunmall’s made in the last few years, this is the one that’s going to stay off the shelf and on my Ruark player. Why do I like it so much? The ensemble – the interaction between the two keyboard players Andrew Woodhead & Glen Leach (Corea/Hancock?) is not merely ‘spacy’, they swirl as they thicken, giving the music a real sense of density. The individual contributions, for example, bassist James Owston’s introduction to Say Hi To Your Evil is perfectly balanced between being ‘a solo’ as well as ‘compositional’. Throughout, James Birkett’s guitar folds into the music, owning the right to speak yet making it count without taking over (something which is damn difficult for guitar players given the instrument’s contemporary history.) And the brass and baritone sax ‘section’ are a real treat when they interact with Paul Dunmall’s tenor and curved C soprano. On the short sleeve note Paul places Red Hot Ice somewhere between “inner space” and “8 trillion planets”. Certainly Ice is water, and water is life. Hot suggests fire. We’re elemental. Here on this album there’s two long pieces and three compositions, they all contain magic, indeed are magic. So, early days to my ears but right now this is what I want to listen to. Red Hot Ice is one of those instant, special sessions, congratulations to Paul and everybody else concerned. – Steve Day, October 2024

It was about a year ago when this writer was diligently listening to Dunmall’s sextet release Bright Light A Joyous Celebration, preparing to write a review. Since that time we have heard him on his collaborative effort with Laura Jurd, or more specifically a merging of his quartet with Jurd’s quintet titled Fanfares and Freedom. Now we have Red Hot Ice, a smoking nonet working their free jazz mojo on Dunmall’s extended compositions plus a few shorter pieces as well. The two centerpieces of the set include the 21-minute title track that wanders through a number of distinct sections that cover everything from gentle pastoral piano pieces with vocal improvisation, edgy composed jazz sorties featuring brilliant ensemble work from the entire horn section, plus solo spots for all as well, and plenty of free wailing along the way; it’s a stupendously awesome endeavor from the beginning to the end, where they jump into what seems like a cover of Hendrix’ “Foxey Lady,” though they get right back into jazz mode before getting carried away with that. “Say Hi to Your Evil / Get Comfortable” is the other sidelong piece, beginning its life with a bass solo before the horns jump in and bring all the players together for the remainder of the long journey, including a cool guitar solo around the eleven minute mark. The set opener is “Prepare for Peace,” a powerful indroduction to all the players, at times tight and well fused, at other times chaotic and free. “Dearly Departed” closes the set with a gentle touch as well as some powerful horn solos. One can listen to Red Hot Ice from beginning to end over and over, and hear something new on every pass — it never gets old. – Peter Thelen, EXPOSÉ http://expose.org/index.php/articles/display/paul-dunmall-red-hot-ice-3.html

The medium-sized ensemble here is pretty different from anything we’ve heard from Mr. Dunmall in the past since he is working with two keyboard players, both of whom are new names for me. “Prepare for Peace” opens with one of those Spirit-Jazz modal repeating riffs with layers of keyboards, reeds & horns. Bassist James Owston is the central figure here, providing a pulse which speeds up and slows down while different members of the band add their parts. The ensemble moves in waves together from calm to turbulent. Bassist Owston kicks off “Say Hi to Your Evil…” with a splendid unaccompanied bass solo. When the rest of the ensemble kicks in, it sounds like a 70’s jazz, somewhat funky organ-led groove fest which swings hard. Things quiet down midway with the piano and organ rumbling together as the intensity increases and some eerie synth is added. Eventually the ninetet breaks into a phat, soul groove with some sly wah-wah guitar. Mr. Dunmall wrote some sublime, haunting ensemble work for “The Past” with hypnotic horns, keyboard/synth interaction and a spirited bari sax solo. “Red Hot Ice” is the longest and most ambitious piece here. Things begin peacefully and build from there. Again, it’s Dunmall’s ensemble writing which stands out here, layering the different chattering horns, several subgroups weaving in and out, like scenes from someone’s dreams, the intensity and free waves rising higher throughout. Unexpectedly the ensemble breaks into the riff from Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” towards the last part of this piece which is a pleasant surprise. This disc ends with a lovely prayer-like song called, “Dearly Departed”, which has some fine haunting horns floating on top. I found this entire to be most enchanting throughout, completely different from anything I’ve heard from Mr. Dunmall in the past. – Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery NYC

For PAUL DUNMALL, Red Hot Ice (DISCUS 186CD) is a special milestone in his discography. Which is saying something, because since “Soliloquy”, his solo debut in 1986, it includes hundreds of discs, including “Bright Light A Joyous Celebration” (2023) and “Fanfares & Freedom” (with Laura Jurd, 2024) on Discus. It was recorded in Birmingham, with nine confidants on site, equipped with tenor and soprano sax (himself), trumpet, trombone, baritone sax, electric guitar, 4-handed synth, organs, Rhodes, piano & Lorenzo Reed organ, double bass and drums, Martin Archer & Corey Mwamba have enriched, mixed and released it. Dunmall’s pride may be due to the fact that he came exceptionally close to the sound ideal of the late 60s & 70s and Coltrane’s inner and outer space explored by Brotherhood of Breath and Nucleus and in XL classics such as Michael Gibbs’ “Tanglewood 63” and John Surman’s “How Many Clouds Can You See?”, and even surpassed it in tender spinting. The organs, the funky guitar and ‘Get Comfortable’ as a melodic quasi-déjà entendu are in any case splendidly suitable as a time machine. Whether ‘The Past’ unveils the past or the present may remain open, but the baritone-dark, hauntological admonition as electronically wound sonic fiction is always moving. These emotional 6 min. are followed by the title track as a 21-min. oxymoron, with vocalization rising over small sound waves and then ostinato staccato, fine sound, humming trombone, enlightening trumpet and collective surge with a distinctive baritone. Which at first only leads to a windy standstill, but then to a new swinging run-up with staccato and chirping soprano. ‘Dearly Departed’, undaunted with trumpet and tenor sax, melancholic with guitar, organ and trombone, makes you think of those whose journey has ended. Ephemera, on a universal scale, but mayflies, next to which 200 billion galaxies splash as mere fly shit in the great nonsense. – Rigobert Dittmann, BAD ALCHEMY

NOW a non-stopping septuagenarian, tenor saxophonist and multi-hornman Paul Dunmall recorded his album Red Hot Ice with a nine-piece band in Birmingham. A jazz pacifist, although he plays with a powerful sense of attack on all his horns, he begins with Prepare for Peace, an eternal theme of his music. He can roar and rumble like a now-times Illinois Jacquet, or turn improvising truth into gentle balladry like a reincarnated Ben Webster. But more than anything, he creates absolutely his own sound. The band supplements his large timbre with a powerful empathy, Percy Pursglove’s crystal trumpet, James Owston’s dancing bass and Alicia Gardener-Trejo’s delving baritone sax, adding even more exuberance, as the ensemble really swings through Say Hi to Your Evil. It’s a rocking path to take into your seventies, and Dunmall rampages with aplomb, in this hugely inventive session from the heart of England. Five Stars – Chris Searle. MORNING STAR https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/jazz-album-reviews-chris-searle-2

Dunmall is becoming prolific lately, releasing a sequence of albums on the Sheffield label Discus. Here he’s in a less free-form state, more concerned with composition for what amounts to a big band palette, concocting a suite-like sequence of pieces that often swing joyously, but also delve into abstract electronic patterns. Dunmall has surrounded himself with his Birmingham posse, including two keyboard players who between them range from acoustic and Rhodes pianos to synths and organs. Electric guitar also ups the amping, an instrument that Dunmall doesn’t include often, aside from his run of work with John Adams, principally in the 1980s and 90s. Four horns lead the fray, but not acting so much as soloists but rather as section blowers, or simultaneous soloists, jousting with each other. Freedom is present, but much of the music revolves around organised unison, sometimes involving a Junior Walker stomp, harking back to the leader’s early soul-blues years. Dunmall does occasionally solo, while his horn partners ‘breathe’ in cycles, and there are also fleeting showcases for trumpet and baritone saxophone. Electronics act as rebellious interference, while much of the writing dwells in the patch between Stan Tracey and Mike Westbrook. This is very healthy for Dunmall, penning in a different zone, as his freestorming side has certainly been already well-documented over the decades. – Martin Longley, JAZZWISE https://www.jazzwise.com/reviews/review?slug=paul-dunmall-red-hot-ice

The Dunmall renaissance continues with this fine nine-strong romp, recently recorded in Birmingham. Dunmall leads, of course, on tenor and soprano saxes, supported by, in particular, Percy Pursglove on trumpet, Andrew Woodhead on organ and synths, and an ever fluid James Owston on bass, but space is left for everyone to contribute. The collective sound is strong and full-blooded, the rhythms rollicking in Mingus style on Say Hi To Your Evil/Get Comfortable, and ebullient elsewhere. Dunmall celebrated his 70th birthday last year, but seems to getting younger by the day, judging by his use here of an electric guitar, some soulful grooves, and, on the long title-track, spacey atmospherics and rock beats. The concluding Dearly Departed is as evocative as its title suggests. The man can do no wrong! – Simon Adams, JAZZ JOURNAL

After recording for more than 40 years on at least twice the number of sessions as his age, UK tenor/saxophone saxophonist Paul Dunmall, 71, still has unlimited energy to explore music in all kinds of settings. The veteran saxophonist’s role on Red Hot Ice is that as a contributing ensemble member, not a featured soloist with a back-up band. Throughout this sophistically arranged program highlights superior contributions from individual players. Ascending to peaks of inspiration, the fluid arrangements are frequently propelled and modified through contrapuntal patterns set up by heraldic brass shakes and vibrations, saxophone slurs and split tones, piano patterning and organ-like slides from Glen Leach or Andrew Woodhead, with polyphonic shards concentrated into episodes of modern swaying swing. Tracks can be introduced by James Owston’s supple and sprightly double bass thumps or martial thumps by drummer Jim Bashford and then pushed ahead by electronic progressions via Woodhead’s synthesizers or Corey Mwamba’s electronics. James Birkett’s guitar riffs which pay homage to hard rock wah-wahs as well as heightened improv stabs, ruffle the narratives throughout. Meanwhile when not contributing to processional horn section movement, trumpeter Percy Pursglove’s flutter tonguing, moderated scoops or brassy grace notes make an impression on “Say Hi To Your Evil/Get Comfortable”. Bending notes with clarion expressions often seconded by tremolo organ jabs, Dunmall enters the narratives either to shore up the fragmenting exposition or using split tones, snorts and broken notes to enliven too stolid sections. On “Say Hi To Your Evil/Get Comfortable” for example, in tandem with trumpet triplets he interrupt the orchestral groove with reed bites that break apart the theme into shards and precede a mini concerto from the pianist. This is followed by a turn to ascending and descending reed vibrations that touch on swing, stop-time R&B or Bluesy riffs in turn as the guitarist twangs and Leach reveals honky-tonk story-telling backed by organ accents. After an explosion of oscillated whizzes, rumbles, clips and vocalized buzzes on the extended title track, the composition segues into reed-brass affiliation which matches Dunmall’s low-pitched reed snarls and trombonist Richard Foote’s rippling slurs to high-pitched sax trills and trumpet stutters. Over a carpet of guitar flanges and electric piano clicks, the piece climaxes with horn section overlaps on top of a stop-time riff that could have wandered in from a Deep Purple session, and a final altissimo cry from Dunmall. Confirming his humility to share the spotlight with another in a mano-o-mano improv meeting and his worldliness of expression in the orchestral project, Dunmall demonstrates how his musical career has last and intensified over the decades. –Ken Waxman, JAZZWORD https://www.jazzword.com/reviews/paul-dunmall-5/

A unique entry in Paul Dunmall’s discography, this album presents a 9-piece Birmingham-based ensemble with dual keyboards and electronics, evoking Dunmall’s compositions and orchestrations into vibrant, groove-driven improvisation that shifts between cinematic atmospheres, fiery free jazz, and unexpected nods to rock, balancing tightly composed sections with exhilarating exploration. – SQUID’S EAR