Julian Joseph, Snape Maltings, review: effusive maximalism – and a tribute to Mum

The return to concerts in front of live audiences has so far been a slow, cautious affair, with numbers measured mostly in dozens rather than hundreds. Snape Maltings, the Suffolk concert hall at the heart of the annual Aldeburgh Festival, has been ahead of the pack. In August it was the first venue to welcome back audiences and, despite the ever-shifting goalposts of government policy, it battles on, offering small-scale weekend events of classical, jazz and folk. Yesterday it was the turn of jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and musical mover-and-shaker Julian Joseph. He seemed somewhat dazed, and admitted to cheers and applause from the normally reserved Snape public that this was the first time he’d appeared on stage since March.

What does a musician do, to mark such an emotional occasion? Pay homage to Mum, of course. Joseph has often spoken of how much his mother’s rock-like stability and emotional nourishment - not to mention her sense of discipline - meant to him as a boy, when he was first getting into jazz. Here he played five movements from a suite he dedicated to her. You could tell Joseph mère is a formidable woman, just from the titles. One piece was called Loyalty and Insight; another was OREN, which stands for Open, Righteous, Energetic and Noble.

You wouldn’t expect anything throwaway or humorous from pieces with those monikers, and indeed the predominant tone was rich and fulsome, though this owed as much to Joseph himself as to his mother. He’s a big man in all senses, and the effusive maximalism of his music-making reflected that. The tone started huge and just got huger, the music flowing like a river ready to burst its banks. When Joseph gave vent to a right-hand riff it wasn’t some wiry little motif, of the kind some pianists would offer.  It was a huge flourish that cascaded exuberantly up to the top of the keyboard, sometimes pausing en route to whirl on the spot like a Catherine wheel. Meanwhile the left hand seemed to stride across the keyboard in seven-league boots, every harmony liberally sauced with tangy ninths and elevenths. Pretty soon one felt drunk on it all.

Often in the onrush one detected an interesting flavour of different musical traditions; here a touch of gospel, there a whiff of something Brazilian. The finest pieces were the ones where some light and shade entered in, such as Rise up Gentle. Best of all was the mysteriously entitled HTB, one of several numbers in a syncopated waltz tempo. The high treble melody pushed anxiously against the underlying harmony, while the harmony moved into strange regions before circling homewards via a route that always felt surprising, no matter how often it came round. There were times when I wished Joseph would ease off a little on the massive tone, and temper his florid riffs with some of Count Basie’s economy, but the sheer generosity of the music-making was undeniable.

For details of forthcoming weekend concerts at Snape Maltings visit snapemaltings.co.uk