Pete Whyman Trio: Pulse
FMR, £13.99

SAXOPHONIST and clarinettist Pete Whyman is best known for his long association with bandleader and composer Mike Westbrook.

He leads his own trio on this 1998 recording, which now receives a belated but welcome release from FMR after the premature demise of the company that first recorded it.

Whyman's approach is both individual and creative, and his playing particularly distinctive when he turns to clarinet. His collaborators Huw Warren and Peter Fairclough are well versed in this kind of open-but-structured approach, and all contribute compositions.

Kenny Mathieson
The Scotsman
Monday, 13 January 2003

Out of sight

They are versatile, gifted and inspired - but often great musicians are heard but not seen, says John L Walters

The Guardian, Friday January 10, 2003

In TV shows like Popstars and Fame Academy, and in much DJ culture for that matter, keyboard players and sound engineers work below stairs, like the servants in an Edwardian country house. And contemporary theatres - always eager to promote the value of "live" performance - often shut musicians away in a sealed box backstage. In Sheffield Crucible's production of Sweet Charity, for example, where Cy Coleman's music is critical to the success of the show, the band is barely visible behind a neon-decorated cage. Rowland Sutherland and Peter Whyman, who both have new albums out, are examples of good, frequently "invisible" musicians: the former a gifted flute player; the latter a clarinettist/saxophonist. They are versatile, professional players, who also work in contemporary classical music. Whyman is a member of the Steve Martland Band; Sutherland plays with New Music Players. You can hear them in world music - Sutherland in Shiva Nova and Whyman in Mbawula - and in jazz - Whyman in various Westbrook bands and Sutherland in the influential Jazz Warriors.

Each musician has a substantial body of creative work behind him, but it is work carried out, semi-anonymously, for a variety of "clients", spread across different contexts. So a solo album is a chance to establish a signature. Yet Coast to Coast (FMR, £14.99) by Rowland Sutherland's Mistura is not obviously personal - the band is an entertaining Latin-Brazilian outfit, heavy in the trombone and percussion departments. It's a dream setting for a flute player, and Sutherland shines throughout. Jazz is sometimes criticised for a virtuosity that obscures its content, but there are times when the virtuosity is the content. Listeners can bask pleasurably in the sound, much as they might enjoy the digres sions of a stand-up comedian. Coast to Coast is a self-produced affair, with dull spots, but not bad within the scope of its genre. An outside producer would have made it shorter and sharper, with more flute.

Pulse (FMR, £13.99), by the Pete Whyman Trio, immediately creates a soundworld more personal and innovative than that of Mistura. With drummer Peter Fairclough and Huw Warren (piano and accordian), Whyman has been developing this unusual line-up for many years. The album is packed with excellent compositions: Fairclough's clever Salmon Pastures; Warren's exhilarating Scowling Like Beethoven; Whyman's title track and Clarinet, a solo feature that's agreeably virtuosic, highly emotional and packed with "content".

Like Coast to Coast, Pulse is part of FMR's Jazznow series, but the band is hardly a conventional trio. There is extensive use of unusual timbres from Warren's prepared piano and accordian; there's no bass (echoes of Benny Goodman's quartet); everybody doubles on percussion. Their spiritual siblings may be Orquestra Mahatma or Human Chain, but they also have the folk-dance quirkiness you get in the great Slovenian band Bratko Bibic and The Madleys, whose album In The Family Garden is highly recommended (though difficult to track down). If Pete Whyman gave his trio a more World Music-friendly name, they'd be perfectly at home in one of the smaller tents at Womad.

John Walters
Guardian Unlimited
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

Pete Whyman Trio 'Pulse' (FMR records FMRCD 102-J0602)

Still probably best known for his work with Mike Westbrook, Whyman is an impressively original musician in his own right. He is also one of the few clarinet specialists in contemporary jazz. His trio is completed by percussionist Pete Fairclough and pianist accordionist Huw Warren. Considering that there are only three of them, the variety of textures they succeed in producing, with the lightest of touches, is quite amazing. But the ear is inevitablely drawn to Whyman's clarinet, partly because of his sheer virtuosity and partly because of the fascinating and unusual lines he invents. I hope we can look forward to more of this fresh and interesting music in the coming year.

The Observer. 12th January 2003