Howl Quartet on Night Song

Initially connecting through studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the thriving London jazz scene, saxophonists Harry Brunt and Dan Smith, bassist Pete Komor, and drummer Matt Parkinson came together in 2017 to form the Howl Quartet. Since then, they’ve gone on to record two albums Life As We See It (2021) and Airglow (2023), play at legendary jazz venues such as Soho’s Pizza Express, and feature in the 2023 EFG London Jazz Festival. Embarking on their latest project, the group continue to explore original compositions with an avant-garde flair in their third album Night Song, pushing the boundaries of texture and improvisation whilst upholding their distinct acoustic sound.

I was delighted to have the quartet join me, prior to embarking on their new tour, to discuss all things Night Song, the evolution of the ensemble since their early days, and the process of drawing on personal experiences in their original compositions...

Tell us about the group - how did you come together, and where did your ensemble name come from?

PK: So myself, Dan, and Harry all met when we were studying at the Royal Welsh College of Music. We all ended up gradually moving to London where we met Matt, and then it was really Harry who acted as the instigator of the project back when we were coming at it from a slightly different angle. We love the music of Lee Konitz and Lennie Tristano – that kind of linear music based on the American Songbook, just in a slightly different way. So when we first formed the band we were writing lines on tunes, and it developed as we formed a bit more of a unity between the four of us. Musically, I think we’ve gone from there into what it's become now, which is quite a journey. 

HB: In terms of our name, I was at Cardiff University, before I studied at the Welsh College, doing an English Literature degree. I was really into the Beat Movement, so the name comes from the Ginsberg poem ‘Howl’. It projects a fairly chaotic outlook on life, and we thought it was more of an enigmatic name than anything, but in places the music is chaotic itself and so it links together in that way. 

Night Song is your third album. In what ways do you feel the quartet’s sound or approach has evolved over your recording journey?

MP: I think, as Pete touched upon, the origins of the band were rooted in what you might think of as more traditional jazz – kind of swinging, slightly more straight-ahead jazz, and it's evolved and morphed over the period of the three albums to something very contemporary and slightly more avant-garde. Definitely this one is probably the one that’s furthest along that journey, exploring lots of different contemporary styles and different textures as well. 

I think we've kind of really refined different approaches to our composing and our improvising too. Because of the lineup of the band, it's all acoustic drums, double bass, and two saxophones, whereas typically in a jazz ensemble you would have a pianist or a guitarist - someone else playing the chords and filling out the harmony. That’s something that we don't have, so it leaves a lot of space in the music for us to explore different textures and ways of filling out that sound. I think this latest album is probably the most developed in terms of exploring textures and variations on improvisation and interaction.

Did you draw on personal experiences for these pieces?

DS: Yeah, most definitely. I think that's kind of always been a nice starting point for our compositions – the fact that they’ve always come from a really personal place. Maybe that's heightened in this album, and much more direct: we've got stories like Harry's ‘Falling Man’ tune that’s a story for a very specific reason. I've got tunes about family, Pete's got tunes about places he's been to, so it's really all aspects of our lives coming together.

PK: Yes, Dan said, that's something that we've kind of tried to do in each of our albums, but it feels like it's been the most direct in this one, I'd say.

Did you find that transforming those experiences musically was something that you really struggled with, or something that came relatively easily?

HB: Probably both all at once. Some things come really easily when you're writing for a mood or an experience, sometimes it really works, and sometimes it takes a bit of excavating. That's either in the composition or in rehearsals - sometimes we chew on a tune for a long time and other times it works immediately. I suppose reflecting on the writing and why making it personal is important is because we don't have any vocals in our band, and we write original music. We've always cared about trying to bring an audience into our world, so when we play live we want people to really engage with our music on a deeper level. We try and give enough information to let the listener make their own minds up about the music, but that's always been really important for us live, as well as on the records.

How do you strike that balance between structure and spontaneity within composition?

MP: I think it kind of depends on the tune really. We obviously trust each other and each other's musical judgment, and we've built up that trust over the years that we've been playing together – not just in this band, but in other projects as well. The bottom line is that we all value each other's individual input, and we trust each other's musical decision-making. 

There are some tunes I think on this album and on previous ones, where they're a bit more prescribed: the composer will be more specific about what they want people to play, and it might just be that even if you're playing a fixed part, there's different ways that you can explore that and interpret it in different ways. And then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, where there’s little prescribed information given and instead the composer allows everyone in the ensemble to kind of feel their way through the music. 

I think we really like contrast in terms of structure, where things are thoroughly written or those that are more abstract and loose. That contrast carries across dynamically as well: there are some quieter, more introspective moments, and then more chaotic, frenetic elements. As there's no one playing the chords in the ensemble, it has been a bit of a challenge at times to try and create a well-rounded sound, but now, after so many years of doing it, it's been a really great opportunity for us to think outside the box, and really try to be creative with the textures

DS: I’d agree. I think we're constantly exploring what we can create with the textures. I think that's something we're really interested in, and as we’ve mentioned, we don't have a harmony instrument, so it's a question of how can we make the music feel full? And without us all playing at the same time, how do we avoid it feeling really empty if we've only got melody instruments? So we're constantly exploring. I think that's something that we all enjoy as part of the creative process, especially when we have a collection of tunes on an album. It's making sure that they're different from each other, and that they’re still reaching their full potential as a tune texturally and compositionally.

Is there something significant about the title Night Song?

DS: I think the honest answer is that we actually really struggled for a title for the album. We initially didn't want to have one of the tracks on the album as a title, but I think throughout our whole process as a band, making decisions and having four inputs, we've really learned how to work with that. So when we were choosing a name it was really tricky because we all had ideas, and we still didn't feel settled. But I think ‘Night Song’ was the only tune that really stuck out - that is, if we did have to have the album name taken from one of the tunes, then that's what we would choose. We sat with it for a while and ultimately it felt right, so once we were getting the tracks in order it just all came together. 

PK: I'd agree with that. It felt like a pro and a con to choose one from the list of tracks, but once we decided we were going to do that, it then felt obvious.

MP: The artwork that we chose also felt like it fit with the title. We've worked with an amazing artist, Hannah May Smith, on all of our albums and she produced this amazing picture which we have used for the artwork. It felt like the title and the artwork all kind of hung together and framed the whole narrative of the album, so I think for me, when you see the artwork with the title, with the track listings and everything, it just felt complete.

Once Night Song is out in the world, what are you most excited for audiences to hear? Are there any particular tracks that stand out, or are you keen for listeners to experience the narrative of the whole album? 

HB: I think I can speak for all of us that on this one we're just really delighted with the whole thing. Reflecting on the story of the album, we're just excited for people to hear the whole thing, and come to the gigs hopefully.

PK: It feels like with this one, more so than with our previous two, it feels like a more accurate representation of how we feel musically, and how we feel like we play live. Obviously, it is literally the most up-to-date representation of that, but I'm certainly most excited about this one because it really feels like it shows what we do.

MP: We've got quite an extensive tour coming up, so I think it'll be really nice to kind of explore the music a bit further. Every time we play these songs, they present something new, or we find something new within them, and having the opportunity to do that for an extensive two-week period will be really exciting.

DS: That's actually a really good point. I think that's something I really enjoy about playing in this setting. We just have complete control of the music, and when we call a tune from the album to play, the options are pretty open. It could be as simple as having just me and Harry start a tune, and then we're immediately off in a different direction. But as has been mentioned already, we just trust each other musically, and we know the music well enough that we can work our way through the song. I really enjoy how each performance can be completely unique but still show exactly what we're about.

You’ve mentioned your upcoming tour dates, but what’s next for Howl Quartet? 

PK: In the last year or two, through personal circumstances, we've been working more in chunks, I would say. We’d have a busy period rehearsing and recording, and there might be some time in between where we have a period of gigs. November is a very busy month for us, and we've got loads of exciting stuff that we're all buzzing for. We've got some more gigs in the diary for next spring and we're hoping to premiere some new music leading towards another record. So we're looking forward to what should be this concentrated period of performance to explore the music we already have, but also premiere some new stuff as well.

MP: We've got an album launch gig at Pizza Express Jazz Club on Tuesday 18th November, which is part of the London Jazz Festival. It's probably our largest gig to date, and it’s midway through our tour so we’ll be all fired up and ready to go by then. The last couple of times we’ve played at Pizza Express they’ve been sold out shows, so we’d recommend getting tickets whilst you can!

Night Song is available from Friday 24th October.