Chris Maddock Quartet with special guest Dan Casimir – ‘The Hunt’

By londonjazz on 18 October 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Chris Maddock Quartet with special guest Dan Casimir – The Hunt
(Ubuntu Records. Album review by Tony Dudley-Evans)

Chris Maddock is a young saxophonist who graduated from the jazz course at Birmingham Conservatoire, and is now based in London. The quartet he leads is a Hammond Organ quartet which has been playing around London since 2018. It features Liam Dunachie on organ, Tobie Carpenter on guitar and Ed Richardson on drums. For this recording they are joined by Dan Casimir on double bass.

Maddock plays creatively and distinctively within the modern mainstream style, and this fits the organ quartet extremely well. It’s a format that Maddock has always been enthusiastic about, and he quotes influences from Larry Goldings and Joey Defrancesco.

There are four tracks on the EP, each lasting about 5 or 6 minutes. The opening track, Emily, has a mellower sound than many organ groups with good solos from Dunachie and Maddock. The title track, The Hunt, is much more upbeat and captures the energy and drive of the great organ groups. Song Of Myself features a very good solo from Carpenter on guitar and At Least He Never Walked opens with an attractive funky melody, and features Casimir on the bass.

This is an enjoyable album. While not presenting anything radically new, it is well played by five accomplished musicians.