EFG London Jazz Fest Special: Empirical

Founded in 2007, Empirical is ‘still a reliable touchstone of contemporary British jazz at its most sophisticated’ today (Jazzwise). Featuring Nathaniel Facey (alto sax), Tom Farmer (double bass) and Shaney Forbes (drums), the band settled on its long-lived quartet line-up with Lewis Wright (vibraphone) in 2008. Following Lewis’s move to the USA, the trio have adopted a more flexible line-up, frequently featuring high-calibre guest artists. 

 

UK piano legend Jason Rebello and rising tenor sax star Alex Hitchcock joined the quartet on their 2024 release ‘Wonder is the Beginning’ (Whirlwind Recordings). Empirical’s forthcoming seventh full-length album ‘Like Lambs: To The Slaughter’ will feature  pianist maestro Ivo Neame and guitar virtuoso David Preston. The quartet had bonded through a sense of common purpose as Tom Farmer recalls: “I’d never met guys who took it so seriously. The process of studying together is really what brought us together, and we just carried on doing it”.  This collective creative process has remained the bedrock of Empirical’s philosophy and unique sonic world. 

 

Empirical’s instantly recognisable group sound is rife with raw energy and roiling emotion.  ‘Empirical’s music is complex, and sometimes knotty, but they consistently engage their listeners’ emotions in a straightforward way which demands a response. That in itself is quite unusual in this kind of jazz.’ (The Blue Moment). While oblique harmonies, layered textures and jagged, quick shifting rhythms are the signposts of Empirical’s musical territory, the band has not been afraid to explore other musical realms: a collaboration with the string ensemble Benyounes Quartet, and the attendant challenge of making strings an integral part of the Empirical sound, brought out some of the band’s most complex and lyrical writing.