WHEN Chorley, Lancashire-born tenor saxophonist Nat Birchall brought his septet, the Unity Ensemble, to the Cafe Oto in the teeming, cosmopolitan heart of Hackney, it was as if he had brought the ancient majesty and mystery of the Pennines in the beauty of his horn, so much is the rural north of England endemic to his sound.

With fellow Coltrane-loving veteran hornman Alan Skidmore supplementing pianist Adam Fairhall, thunderous drummer Paul Hession, bassist Michael Bardon and percussionists Mark Wastell and Lascelle Gordon, they played live the music on their serene, almost hymnal new album, New World, to hugely receptive London listeners.

In its own way, it was a southern annunciation of northern-based musicians of real and unique quality, who only rarely find invitations to perform in London venues.

Birchall lived as a child in the small Lancashire village of Brinscall, where his father was a “tree cutter” and his mother worked in the weaving mills.

“Home wasn't musical except for an old wind-up gramophone and a few 78 records. There was a wireless in the kitchen/living room and Elvis singing Devil in Disguise with my mum singing along while doing the housework. That’s as far as the music went,” he tells me.

When he left school he became a poultry farm worker, then worked in a woodyard and as a landscape gardener.

“In 1973 I bought a pair of African drums after hearing Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation’s triple album, Grounation. A couple of years later I gave my cousin’s husband £2 for his guitar. Its strings used to make my fingers bleed!

“Then in 1979, when I was 21, I spotted an old silver saxophone in the back room behind the counter of a record shop. I paid the shop owner £20 and took it home.

“I had to buy a mouthpiece, reeds and a strap before I could try it. But it stirred something deep inside me, something really special that a guitar never could.

“I became aware of reggae and started to investigate it. I scoured record shops for Jamaican music. One shop didn’t have any, so instead I bought Coltrane’s Blue Train. I knew that many of the Jamaican musicians I loved were originally jazz players — Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso and Cedric Brooks — so it felt like the right way to go. Grounation and its follow-up album Tales of Mozambique were fantastic albums of Jamaican jazz.

“I soon realised that Coltrane’s sound spoke to me in a deeper and honestly more soulful way than any other saxophonist. His Afro-Blue Impressions got to me in a big way and his solo on My Favourite Things is so full of joy, it’s incredible!

“I got a job as a saxophone repairman in Manchester. I never intended to be a professional musician or imagined that I could be. But I was learning my instrument, avoiding getting another day job and eating dirt for a few years while I was ‘in the woodshed,’ practising all day and half the night, trying to make up for lost time.”

I asked him about the Coltrane influence in his playing.

“Most listeners hear that,” he says, “but they don't hear the Cedric Brooks or Tommy McCook influence because they’re not familiar with Jamaican music.

“The spirit of the hills and the Pennine open spaces are undoubtedly a part of my psyche, but it’s not a conscious invocation. I aim for a sound that conjures up vistas of sunrises and wide open landscapes and mountains around where I live, or also the beginning of a long journey of adventure.”

What about his use of melody, seemingly ancestral at times in New World? 

“I believe in the strength of simplicity. Some of the greatest melodies, with the profundity and beauty of moving from one note to another and the emotion that conveys on a single-note instrument like the saxophone, is central. I always say melody is king!”

The New World album was instigated after a Coltrane celebration with Skidmore and Wastell at Cafe Oto.

“Having Skid on board made the music sound stronger and deeper and the three percussionists deepen the sound even more. I’m a big lover of percussion. The drum speaks to me on a profound level.

“The sound of a hand or stick hitting the skin resonates with me as the sound of the saxophone does. I’m sure if I hadn’t become a saxophonist, I’d have been a drummer. It goes right back to hearing that first Count Ossie album.”

The seven musicians play superbly on the New World album. How do they achieve this level of mutual empathy and communal heartsong? 

“To play this music successfully you have to be confident yet selfless, only playing whatever makes the music blossom. You can’t have anyone showing off their technique.

“All members must be good listeners aware of everything going on all the time and being immersed in the music of the moment. What I write often only requires the briefest of musical notation, so it’s also partly down to having the ability to almost make something out of nothing.”

I ask him about the much fewer opportunities of gigs, recordings and recognition faced by northern musicians.

“Oh, yes, undoubtedly,” he replies, “that’s always been the case, but I try not to let that bother me too much. You could be forgiven for thinking that if it doesn’t happen in London, then it doesn’t happen at all!”

With its spiritual alignment of Coltrane, Jamaican, African and Pennine drums and the soul of the Peaks, New World is the closest sound in British jazz to A Love Supreme. Let your ears hear it and your heart give its answer.

New World with Unity ensemble is released by Ancient Archive of Sound Records.