Big Screen are an elegant British piano trio conceived by drummer Matt Skelton, whose work with the John Wilson Orchestra has made him well acquainted with jazz takes on movie music; award-winning pianist David Newton and Empirical bassist Tom Farmer complete the lineup.
Though there are some smart reharmonisations and patient redirections of the expected routes of classics such as Chariots of Fire and Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, these are mostly straight-swinging accounts in a piano-jazz line that runs from Teddy Wilson and Hank Jones to Cyrus Chestnut, rather than the unceremonious morphings of The Bad Plus.
But these are memorable themes given respectfully creative treatments, and Newton – a pianist with a sublime touch, a rich harmonic imagination and understated power to surprise – is ripplingly graceful on a whispering Chariots of Fire, light-stepping and jubilant (over Skelton’s crisp brushwork and Farmer’s walk) on Hello Young Lovers and Ole Man River. He takes dreamy probings into a quietly sleek swing cruise with On the Street Where You Live, and movingly turns the usually sparky Wouldn’t It Be Loverly into a wondering daydream.
