Toy Rokit - London Jazz Festival 2015

Bill Mudge

Toy Rokit
Mark Rose - Bass
Bill Mudge - Keys
Chris Nickolls - Drums

Date - 18th November 2015
Venue - Pizza Express Jazz Club, Dean St, Soho, London, UK.

Current Album - Mission 6 featuring Mike Outram.

Mark Rose

Toy Rokit spark their improvised dynamos on the Pizza Express stage for the London Jazz Festival 2015.

Burring movement from the underground cockpit left eyes resting on the central figure of Mark Rose. Bill Mudge gave us his profile never both eyes, while Chris Nickolls dipped his head in a crisis of self confidence. Rose was the Admiral Ackbar of our scene, his music represented the Admiral's immortal lines 'It's a trap' for that was what lay before us. Hidden under the fallen leaves there were nightmarish pits for those who love to categorise and plant definitions on music, especially Jazz.

Deep bellyaching wounds were Mark Roses musical call, it had a filthiness like mechanical porn. Chris Nicholls has a freedom in this trio format, he cackled and swarmed as if a party of cavorting of locusts, he was lighter than initially expected, his fine tipped wings rubbing against a brittle exoskeleton.

Chris Nickolls

Bill Mudge was an X-ray specs shooter, sending his green and red laser lines into the darkness of the Pizza Express. At certain times it was hard to decide which musician made each noise, such was the overlap and distortion of original sounds.

Ground control samples played us, the audience, as the voyeurs of Merritt Island. The pensive Gene Kranz figure of pianist George Bone sat a few feet away from me. Mudge's keyboard protégé Paul Jordanous a few feet more. Bill Mudge cannot be caught in one mere historical epoch, he is the Captain Kirk of the mission, beaming in and out of centuries; past and future. His Spinet diversions created pin pricks in the skull as though ours heads had become miniature planetariums. As much as this describes a delicate sophistication, Mudge also regularly cleaned out his waste pipe, always for the briefest moment but enough to get us dirty.

George Bone

Toy Rokit buck the trend of many on the jazz scene where dexterity and speed are the macho bragging fist with which to thump your audience with. Toy Rokit were like one of those animated gifs that patrol the internet. Vangelis caught on a hamster wheel, it was impossible to look away.