Examples of Twelves - The Way Things Are

waythingsartIndebted to greats such as Sun Ra, Mingus, Neil Ardley and Mike Westbrook, Examples of Twelves are a band-headed by Nostalgia 77 bassist Riaan Vosloo. Collectively, the players have a wealth of experience both live and on record, with the Examples of Twelves sets seeing some of their most personal and adventurous work to date.
In demand for their mixture of new material and re-arrangements of both standards and cult club jazz tracks, the group are unique in their ability to switch between deep, Mingus-esque workouts and uptempo swinging grooves that have proved a hit at numerous Jazz sessions in and around London.
With the release of new record “the way things are” the band is moving into the realm of electronics and realtime sonic manipulation.

Written as one long suite in three parts as follows:

Part 1: Beginnings/Endings

Part 2: The Madness?

Part 3 - Though Lovers Be Lost, Love Shall Not

You can listen to the entire suite here for free, however if you enjoy please support the artist and visit the shop.

Here’s what The Guardian said about a rare Examples gig last year.

“With two cult albums, The Way Things Were and The Way Things Are, composer-bassist Riaan Vosloo has created a moody, idiosyncratic soundworld all his own under the name Examples of Twelves. It is simultaneously futuristic and retro, wrangling electronics, improv, beats and swing within a contemporary jazz framework. His live sextet features three horns and two drummers, playing acoustic and electronic sets.

Horace Tapscott’s Desert Fairy Princess evokes the beatnik basement jazz of movies like A Bucket of Blood and All Night Long. Vosloo’s own pieces, with inspired ensemble writing, maintain the mood, and the high bass lines of Part 3 of The Way Things Were tug the heartstrings. With no piano nor guitar, the compositional and improvisational nuances are easy to hear. Free Spirits, by Mary Lou Williams, and a strident, thundering version of Sun Ra’s A Call for All Demons broaden the 60s jazz palette. Tenor saxist Mark Hanslip shines on the former, while Fulvio Sigurtà is outstanding on trumpet and flugel.

Vosloo’s The Way Things Are takes up all the second set. Sigurtà’s muted trumpet emerges, Miles-like, from the electronic heat-haze, while the two drummers create polyrhythms against Vosloo’s resonant bass. Delicate ensemble passages give way to intense solos, including Johnny Spall’s ferocious alto sax. Vosloo uses the remaining horns in conjunction with the laptop samples to create background textures and harmonies. Sigurtà makes good use of electronics, too, to process his searing trumpet lines.

The band shift from abstraction to grooves with an accomplished ease that make Cinematic Orchestra’s live band sound like dabblers. If a nightclub band were ever needed for an extra-noir director’s cut of Blade Runner, Examples of Twelves would be it.”