Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
The latest incarnation of Mammal Hands features, from left, Jordan Smart, Nick Smart and Rob Turner.
(Photo: Tania Blanco)After a decade of touring and five albums into their career, British trio Mammal Hands reached a recent crossroads. Developing a loyal European fanbase for their hypnotic drum, saxophone and piano improvisations, brothers Nick and Jordan Smart and Jesse Barrett became part of a fusion-led and electronic-influenced British jazz scene alongside the likes of Portico Quartet and GoGo Penguin. Yet, in spring 2024, drummer Jesse abruptly decided to leave the group, throwing their future into disarray.
“We were in shock for a few days,” saxophonist Jordan Smart says. “We had to cancel some shows but then had another run a few months later that we didn’t want to let audiences down for. Once I got my head around it, we thought of who might work to sit in and Rob Turner was the obvious, immediate choice. I couldn’t think of a better person to ask.”
Turner had been a founding member of Manchester-based group GoGo Penguin and a friend of the band since they first started out in 2013. The two groups were signed to the same label, trumpeter Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Records, and spent the early years cutting their teeth on the road across the U.K. “We’ve known Rob since the beginning and first met him at one of our earliest live shows at Mostly Jazz Festival in 2013 when we were all on the same bill,” pianist Nick Smart says. “There was a mutual recognition that both our groups were exploring similar territory from different angles, and then we began touring together.”
Following Turner’s departure from GoGo Penguin in 2021, he delved deeper into his electronic influences with the synth and sample-based duo Elf Traps, but he was looking for a new outlet to express his jazz training and improvisatory background. “I had a lot of music queued up, and when I heard from Nick and Jordan, it was like opening a big suitcase that had been under the bed for a year,” he laughs. “Towards the end, GoGo Penguin had become more pop-oriented but the openness and free exploration of Mammal Hands is exactly what I was looking for.”
The brothers initially approached Turner with an offer to join the group for the remaining shows on their tour but after meeting to rehearse, their relationship soon became permanent. “I remember telling Rob he should probably say no to the gig because it was crazy to learn all our material within a month before playing these shows,” Jordan says. “But he said yes, thankfully, and as soon as we started playing together, it was so natural and easy. When Jesse left it forced a self-reflection on what the core of this band was. We had to rediscover the soul of our music and Rob has transformed it into something that continues our legacy as well as pushes it forward.”
The result of this journeying process is the group’s sixth album, Circadia. Named after the cyclical bodily rhythm, the nine-track record isn’t just a new beginning, but also a sonic manifestation of that cycle: a series of patterns being repeated and renewed to form a fresh sound that harkens back as well as edging them forward.
Among the album’s highlights are the breakbeat freneticism and trance-inducing piano melodies of opener “Window To Your World,” which references the classic earworming rhythmic and harmonic intricacies of fan-favorite tracks like 2014’s “Kandaiki,” while ensuing tracks like “Paper Boats” push this inherent complexity to new levels, playing through a polyrhythmic groove that skitters along Nick’s muscular piano phrasing. “Submerge” hints at fresh territory with Jordan’s Colin Stetson-style sussurating saxophone lines and Nick’s heavy addition of a synth bass layering a sense of menacing doom, while “Alia’s Abandon” takes listeners on a three-part journey through interweaving piano-and-saxophone melody to a full-throated, free-jazz-influenced cacophony of soaring soloing from Jordan before ending on the cyclical piano phrasing and cymbal swells of its closing movement.
“During that initial tour with Rob, we spent a lot of time on the road just connecting and having conversations about music and the things that are important to us,” Nick says. “It helped us build our relationship and once we had finished the tour, we decided to concentrate on making this new record together.”
Spending seven-hour days shedding at East London’s Briggs Building to hone their new ideas, the trio began coming up with a central concept that would inform Circadia, as well as their other music. “We got really interested in small pockets of ideas that each of us would bring in and we would see how far we could go with just zooming into tiny details that we could repeat over and over again,” Jordan says. “It was an exercise in exploring an idea beyond the point of comfort, until a new essence becomes clear.”
Both Nick and Jordan honed their sense of musical telepathy while growing up with music enthusiast parents in the town of Norwich. Initially learning electric guitar and drum kit, the brothers began busking from the age of 14, with Jordan moving onto saxophone and Nick playing classical guitar.
“There were no rules when we busked and that open format is how we first learned to react to each other and perform,” Nick says. “One weekend we saw Jesse busk with a group of his friends nearby. We had a proper gig booked but no drummer, so we invited him to play with us and as soon as we did that show, I realized I should move to piano to open up more of a soundworld. That was how Mammal Hands began.”
Choosing to tour and record rather than attend a jazz conservatory, the group learned on the road. It’s an instinctive sensibility, they believe, that continues to shape their creativity today. “A lot of our scene came up busking, like Portico Quartet did in London, and that means our music can sound a bit more disparate and weird, like an accident waiting to happen,” Jordan laughs. “It also means we have no hierarchy in what we play: We’re happy to play simple or complicated things, since it’s all about what makes us feel something and what is interesting. We don’t want to be boxed into the confines of a single genre.”
That open-ended approach is currently being pushed as the renewed trio is hard at work writing another album to record later in the year. “So much of our process as a band is about listening, which means we’re always absorbing new influences,” Turner says. “The next record is going to be informed by reactions to our current live show and things like how Jordan is using a modular system to process the piano with delay and granular textural sound effects. That’s opening up an interesting area, while we also want to push our electronic influences further. We want to have more time in the studio and less finished material so we can have the space to just play.” DB
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
“Cerebral and academic thought is a different way to approach music,” Flea says of his continuing dive into jazz. “I’ve always relied on emotion and intuition and physicality.”
Mar 30, 2026 10:30 PM
In the relatively small pantheon of certifiable rock stars venturing into the intersection of pop music and jazz, the…
Vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater will be among the headliners at this year’s DC JazzFest.
Mar 2, 2026 9:48 PM
The first wave of artists scheduled to perform at the 2026 DC JazzFest have been announced. This year’s headliners…
Blindfold Test proctor Ted Panken, left, with the Grammy-winning Nicole Zuraitis.
Feb 24, 2026 12:00 PM
After earning the 2024 Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammy for her seventh album, How Love Begins (La Reserve), comprising 12…
“These days, with curated news, where people only get half the story, people can’t even speak to family members anymore,” Schneider laments.
Mar 10, 2026 1:43 PM
Maria Schneider is doing her part to try to fix what ails America. Which got her thinking about crows, specifically,…
