Drummer Tristan Banks is emblematic of many session musicians, most frequently those in the rhythm section, who spent much of their careers in somebody else’s spotlight (in Banks’s case, these have included Steve Winwood, David Gilmour, Guy Barker, Roy Ayers, Beverley Knight, Andy Sheppard, and Steve Howe, to name but a smidgen of his cv). The man has played with everyone, and there’s the palpable sense on View From Above that all of the latent energy built up during his thirty-year career is coming tumbling out of the speakers on these ten infectious tracks. Noticeable touch points for the project are straight and Latin jazz, with more than a splash of fusion thrown in for good measure. In particular Banks has the spirit of bossa nova coursing through him, and seems to be able to combine funk with tricky Latin rhythms effortlessly. 

Banks is joined by some old friends for the session - Paul Booth (sax & clarinet), John Crawford (piano) and Davide Mantovani (bass) - all of whom are completely on board with the drummer’s vision. As Banks put it “The idea was to push the acoustic jazz quartet format to the limit, being able to re-image the possibilities that the classic saxophone, piano, bass, drums line-up can manifest, and by being conscious of the sonic traditions that are typically replayed to confirm the listeners tastes while avoiding the genres timbral clichés”.

Opening with the title track, we’re immediately thrown into a thick rhythmic stew, with the dark tones of Paul Booth’s clarinet really grabbing the attention, whilst Banks, Crawford and Mantovani lock into an unstoppable groove. ‘Ex Machina’ follows this with a heavy dose of funk, and some great Brecker-esque honking from Booth’s sax. During the breakdown Banks throws in all manner of tight fills and general punctuations, whilst never losing sight of the fact that you could easily cut a rug to this stuff.

Some might complain that the album rarely lets up, that there aren’t any real ballads… good! There’s nothing worse than a dialled-in ballad sitting by itself, half way through an unashamedly uptempo record, just because it seems like there needs to be one. At 10 tracks in just 48 minutes View From Above whizzes by, and never loses its mojo, but there are several more mid-paced moments - for example the charming ‘Possible Bossa’, where I was particularly enjoying the lyricism of Mantovani’s bass and Booth’s occasionally cheeky squarks, or the opening of ‘Dust Devil’... before it eats an entire sherbert fountain to itself and frantically starts hopping around. There are so many exciting moments on this record that I would urge you to just give it a listen for yourself (why not try it on our shiny new streaming app?), and let's hope the drummer has plenty more nuggets of this quality in the bank(s) and follows up with another soon.