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Jenny Hval
(Vortex, 14 May 2013. Review and drawing by Geoff Winston)
John Peel would have loved singer/composer Jenny Hval. One of a diverse wave of Norwegian musicians making an impact on the international scene that includes Paal Nilssen-Love and The Thing to Jaga Jazzist and Tord Gustavsen, she draws strength from a heritage where music, art and poetry overlap, and positively references key figures from Kate Bush to The Cocteau Twins and Patti Smith. Her latest album is produced by PJ Harvey's collaborator John Parish. Harvey was, of course, championed by Peel, and Bush was the subject of Hval's Masters thesis at the University of Oslo, after a period of study in Melbourne. She described her English accent as 'jelly-like', reflecting her global itinerancy, yet expressed mild alarm at having stepped out of the plane and seemingly straight onto the Vortex stage!
Petite, fine-featured and articulate, she cuts a gamine figure onstage. Her distinctive performance was emotionally assured, highly personal and expressively idiosyncratic. With Norwegian compatriots, long-term accomplice, guitarist Håvard Volden, and drummer Kyrre Laastad, the immediate resonance was with Nico's 'Desert Shore'. Humming organs, anxious guitar and hints of the dark side of The Velvet Underground. Hval's voice is enticingly elastic, and like her lyrics, full of surprise and contradiction. From a crisp whisper to the declamatory, the enveloping flow derived from a combination of precision and informality. The spoken word gave way to waves of vocal colour which touched wingtips with Elizabeth Fraser's tonal delivery and the attacking strategy of Patti Smith, hovering abstractedly as the words let go of their meanings and the sonic impact took over.
The main focus was the new album, Innocence is Kinky, following her much-lauded 2011 recording, Viscera (both on Rune Gammofon). She has described the earlier album as being 'set in the body' and 'composed and arranged by improvising'. The title, she recounted, is not what it seems, and derives from her time in Perth (Australia) where her neat, casual appearance and attire eschewed local norms, branding her as 'kinky' in the minds of the locals. The poetic edginess of her lyrics looks to Kate Bush's feigned innocence and the discomfort nourished by the Surrealists. Reflective intelligence and a propensity to explore areas which others avoid lends power to her streak of musical independence. A watery ambience and a natural Romanticism seep into her lyrics. Expressions of intense need blend with quirky narratives and the mirror of self-portrait. Her geographical roots and meanderings find their way into the songs. "In Oslo, it's warm and people walk through the city like friendly zombies." "Joan of Arc follows me around Australia ... Rotting leaves, bird shit, mud, flood water. I can smell what's there ..."
Volden's tense, spare guitar provided a supple backdrop, harking back to his live and recorded collaborations with Toshimura Nakamura (whom we have reviewed previously), gliding from grainy minimalism to driven, Fender intent. Laastad flicked from clipped, paintbrush accents with tambourine and mallet to energetic injections of rolling post-punk thrash. The delivery had something of the contradictions of the raw, riffy rock and delicate poeticism of French female cult singer, Anthony Adverse.
Time and distance blended with washes and breaths in a process of construction and deconstruction. Tempos were expertly lost and found. A door was gently opened to Hval’s vision which has the potential to translate from the art-house to the grand scale and invites a tangential comparison with Björk.
This was a coup for the Vortex, who must also be warmly congratulated for their recent, long overdue recognition as a winner at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards. Actively looking to broaden their programming and their appeal they drew in many first timers to experience an exemplary setting where the bond between the musicians themselves and with their core loyal audience was allowed to blossom in this quietly remarkable concert. How long Hval will be allowed the intimacy of such venues remains to be seen.
Earlier, pianist Leon Michener had done battle with prepared piano and electronic processing, rapidly synching and de-synching a post-Headhunters techno with racing pulses and deft chord work to showcase his developing talents as a multi-faceted soloist.
Liane Carroll - Ballads (Quiet Money Recordings QMR0002CD. CD review by Chris Parker)
From the hushed reverence of its opening track, ‘Here’s to Life’,
to the rueful melancholy of its closer, the Felice and Boudleaux Bryant
classic ‘Raining in My Heart’, Liane Carroll’s
Ballads is so deeply felt, so intensely personal, that all
assumptions that previous versions – whether by (as with these two),
Shirley Horn or Buddy Holly respectively, or even Frank Sinatra (‘Only
the Lonely’) and (‘You’ve Changed’) Billie Holiday – would
forever remain ‘definitive’ are simply blown away.
For Carroll does not merely interpret these songs, she inhabits them, intimately
confiding in her listeners, so that everything from Todd Rundgren’s
‘Pretending to Care’ and Carole King’s ‘Will You Still Love Me
Tomorrow’ to more conventional jazz standards (‘Mad About the
Boy’, ‘My One and Only Love’) is imbued with unaffectedly
sincere, heartfelt emotion.
Entirely eschewing the vocal pyrotechnics that disfigure so much contemporary balladry, Carroll’s singing wrings the
heart in a manner achieved by a precious few, and with beautifully judged
instrumental contributions from the likes of Gwilym Simcock,
Julian Siegel and Kirk Whalum, not to mention the supremely
tasteful string arrangements of Chris Walden, this is a gem of an
album that should, if there is any justice in the world, become an instant
classic.
The New Gary Burton Quartet
(Ronnie Scott’s, Tuesday 14th May 2013, review by Andy Boeckstaens)
With Gary Burton’s “new” quartet, convened in 2010, the vibraphone master has rediscovered the verve of his wonderful groups with Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow and Roy Haynes.
In Afro Blue and Never The Same Way, Burton and co ran the gamut of expression with great skill. Guitarist Julian Lage, swooning with delight, played clean, fleet lines and exerted admirable concentration during his lengthy introduction to My Funny Valentine, which was accompanied solely by the annoying thump, thump of music coming from next door. Bass player Scott Colley propelled the rhythm section and produced several intricate solos, while Antonio Sanchez’s drumming was refreshingly melodic and economic. The musicians - Burton included – contributed just one composition each to the set-list, allowing space for a couple of (over-familiar) standards, a googly or two and a throwaway encore for good measure.
There were four tunes from a previous (2011) quartet release on the Mack Avenue label, but just two from the brand new CD, Guided Tour: his own tribute to Astor Piazzolla, Remembering Tano (an affecting tango), and Lage’s piece The Lookout (which is actually a funky take on Jim Hall’s beautifully-crafted swinger Careful). Shortly before the end of the gig, on Did You Get It? Burton explored every nook of the blues and tore into a truly fantastic solo that was drenched with an uncharacteristically arrogant swagger. This was the highlight of a hugely impressive show.
These men have worked together long enough to fully understand the music and optimise each other’s strengths and stylistic quirks, and they simultaneously avoid any glimmer of tedium or routine along the way. Perhaps they manage it every time, but I had the feeling that this was a particularly hot night by a band already in the midst of a purple patch.
Gary Burton retains his hallowed position in the vibes pantheon. At 70 he remains a live performer to be reckoned with.
The musicians:
Gary Burton – vibraphone Julian Lage – guitar Scott Colley – bass Antonio Sanchez – drums
The selections:
Afro-Blue (Mongo Santamaria) Never The Same Way (Scott Colley) I Hear A Rhapsody (George Fragos, Jack Baker and Dick Gasparre) Remembering Tano (Gary Burton) The Lookout (Julian Lage) Late Night Sunrise (Vadim Neselovskyi) Waltz For A Lovely Wife (Phil Woods) My Funny Valentine (Richard Rodgers) Did You Get It? (Antonio Sanchez)
Arts Council England are putting £500,000 over two years into a grant scheme for established bands in "a broad range of contemporary popular genres, including innovative and emerging genres". In the pre-launch phase it was called the Music Industry Talent Development Fund. It has just been baptised asMomentum Music Fund.
ACE have their own quite specific strategic priorities (LISTED HERE) which they will endeavour to fulfil via the fund, but will not be running it themselves. They have chosen a "delivery partner" to run it, and with whom applicants will deal: PRS for Music Foundation.
Here are the lengthy (1400 word) APPLICATION GUIDELINES. Eligible bands need to get a password to open the application form from applications (@) prsformusicfoundation (.)com. The first of the scheme's four closing dates is 28th June 2013.
After 3 agonising weeks, I finally managed to recover my baby from the area! She's never leaving my sight again
This was how Soweto Kinch broke the news on Twitter earlier today that he had recovered his alto sax. Leafleting of the area where he had lost it proved effective. Thanks to the Marlbank site for the spot. Here's our original piece about the theft.
Joe Locke – Lay Down My Heart – Blues and Ballads Volume 1 (Motéma Music 121. CD Review by Jeanie Barton)
A vibraphone quartet cannot help but put me in mind of the Modern Jazz Quartet and that era of cool in the 1950s/60s. They were of course hugely commercially popular, and New York based vibraphonist Joe Locke’s newest release, Lay Down My Heart aims similarly to be “People music” with “no highbrow concept”.
The songs he chooses for this album (seven cover songs and two self penned compositions) are connected and inspired by the blues in either form or concept; these include some pop/soft rock numbers like the opening track, Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers and I Can’t Make You Love Me by Michael Reid and Allen Shamblin.
Bittersweet by Sam Jones features parallel bop playing by both Ryan Cohan on piano and Joe, which takes us back to the MJQ vibe, walking piano basslines evoke films like the Pink Panther and chromatically cascading arpeggio features remind me of Nina Rota’s more kooky soundtracks – very retro.
Other numbers are more standard, like The Meaning of the Blues by Bobby Troup, actor, pianist and songwriter best known for penning (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66, and being married to Julie London, also Making Whoopee by Walter Donaldson/Gus Kahn and Dedicated to You by Sammy Cahn/Saul Chaplin.
This quartet with Jaimeo Brown on drums and David Finck on bass are as slick as you would expect a New York ensemble to be; Simone by Frank Foster gives some indication of what you might expect of the rhythm section should you see them in a jazz club – they really open out with beautiful, tight yet loose solos.
Joe’s own numbers, Broken Toy and This New October both explore space and tensions or rather, relaxations I would say – the soaring lingering notes almost put me in mind of relaxation CDs.
I have played this album from start to finish perhaps six times in the background and was reticent to say that I kept zoning out and not really taking it in. However, having read Joe’s foreword, which states that this compilation is “meant to provide respite for folks who work hard every day and need an opportunity to slow down and be reacquainted with that certain ‘something’ which eludes most of us in the midst of the whirlwind which is modern life” I realise that, perhaps, as a new mother, this CD does indeed provide me with what I lack – a quiet mind! Thanks for the break Joe.
(C) Scarygami All rights reserved, used under creative commons CC BY-SA 3.0
RAJAR listener data for Q1 2013 is coming in to us from jazz broadcasters this morning.
- The production company behind Jamie Cullum's BBC Radio2 show have an unambiguously positive story to tell:
"The show has 920,000 listeners which is a record reach and share for the slot.
This was an increase of 220,000 on the previous quarter and up 90,000 on the year."
- Slightly more nuanced but none the less a very strong story from JazzFM "Q1 2013 reach is 604,000, down from 608,000 and a peak of 624,000 - not significant mathematically.
The big story is total weekly listening now up to 3.3 million hours an all time high, up 36% year-on- year and 10% quarter-on-quarter- means people are listening longer."
JazzFM also disclose that London is 42% of the total reach and 46% of the total hours listened.
Tomasz Stanko New York Quartet at the Barbican Photo Credit: Roger Thomas. All Rights Reserved
Tomasz Stańko/John Surman
(Barbican, Wednesday 15 May. Review by Chris Parker)
‘Haunting melancholy mingled with a kind of fragile effervescence, and a
canon of delicately (and some eerily) beautiful themes’ was the Barbican
programme sheet’s description of the music of Polish trumpeter Tomasz
Stańko, but it might, just as aptly, have been applied to the solo
sound produced in the first half of this concert by Stańko’s ECM
labelmate, John Surman.
The Devonian multi-instrumentalist has been
fusing folk and classical with ecclesiastical vocal music and jazz-based
improvisation to produce personal meditations on bucolic themes (generally
centred on his West Country roots) since recording the multi-tracked solo
album Westering Home over 40 years ago, and though he started this
hour-long set with a soprano-saxophone improvisation on a piece,
‘Sailing Westward’, from his latest album in this mode, Saltash
Bells, Surman seemed keener to range between and demonstrate the
artistic capabilities of the various instruments he plays than simply to
reproduce the latter (award-winning) set.
He thus moved straight from
soprano to baritone, then to bass clarinet (with occasional use of
pre-recorded tapes containing lilting synthesiser backing), enabling him
to explore not only his own trademark Cornish/Devonian territory, but also
Norwegian folk music (a plangent cattle call) and – a rousing finale – the
blues (a form Surman did not hear until his mid-teens), performed with an
affecting mix of gruff earnestness and controlled vigour on baritone.
Although it’s always a slight shock, for those who remember Surman’s
barn-storming 1960s/1970s work with the likes of Mike Westbrook and SOS,
to hear him in what might be termed ‘ECM mode’, it shouldn’t be: Surman’s
musical roots (and if ECM has a philosophy, it must surely involve
allowing musicians to explore these rather than following transatlantic
models of jazz) are as firmly planted in the choral works he performed as
a child (Elgar, Bach, Beethoven) and in the folk music he grew up with as
they are in improvised jazz.
Tomasz Stańko, like Surman, has roots in classical music (he learned
violin and piano as a child, and his father was a professional
violinist), but he has, since taking up the trumpet at 17, also
thoroughly immersed himself in jazz (initially the music of Chet
Baker and Miles Davis, but subsequently branching out into freer
music with Globe Unity Orchestra and Edward Vesala, then – crucially
– coming under the spell of fellow Pole, composer Krzysztof Komeda),
so his current mature style is a unique amalgam of all these
influences, balancing freedom with structure, and mixing the
improvisatory spirit of jazz with more overtly formal approaches.
His
latest band, Cuban pianist David Virelles, bassist Thomas
Morgan and drummer Gerald Cleaver, might have been
specially created to aid him in this endeavour, adept as they are in
straddling the amorphous border between abstraction and form,
exploring Stańko’s hauntingly wistful, melancholic themes with
appropriate circumspection, stretching them to their limits while
never quite losing their central thread.
Such (mixed) metaphors are
peculiarly apt to describe Stańko’s music, which – as John Fordham
pointed out in the aforementioned programme sheet – ‘unleash[es]
powerful emotions by oblique means’; with Cleaver rustling and
crackling beneath Morgan’s adventurous bass, and Virelles apparently
able to take apart Stańko’s broodingly lyrical themes and examine
them at leisure without compromising their integrity one whit, this
was a typically affecting, intriguing – if occasionally demanding –
performance from a genuine original with an utterly distinctive sound
and approach.
Shana Farr and Nathan Martin (Crazy Coqs Room, May 15th.Review by Sebastian Scotney)
"I don't even see them. They're GOOD". Among her acknowledgements at the end of Whistling Away the Dark, her tribute show to Julie Andrews at the Crazy Coqs, Shana Farr paid tribute to the serving staff. The venue team have progressively developed a confidence in making this astonishing room with its particular character work as a performance space. It was always going to happen. The management people at the top happen to be the most successful restaurateurs in London in the past thirty years, and this, their first venture for them into live entertainment has had the stamp of quality (and a knowledge of how to keep visitors/customers/audience happy) right from the start. Crazy Coqs is a room with real character, the decor is unforgettable, it is right in the heart of London, and, bit by bit, it is starting to feel established. The jazz industry had the good fortune to hear Kurt Elling at a private LJF lunch launch a there few weeks ago. So the word is getting out.
Missouri-born Shana Farr's Julie Andrews show brought an audience which absolutely loved the performance, and cheered it to the echo. Farr enjoyed the irony of performing it in our city with its (quote) "magical sidewalks". I wasn't completely convinced, but was pleased to be introduced to a couple of wistful, reflective, characterful yet out-of-the-way songs - Arthur Schwartz's Once Upon a Long Ago from the film High Tor, and Bricusse/ Newley's Crazy World from Victor/ Victoria. Shana Farr sings with an operatic soprano voice, has constructed a continuous show of twenty songs and delivers welter of statistics, but how could the audience resist the temptation to sing along in Feed The Birds and Spoonful of Sugar. They were having a great night, and they didn't.
Shana Farr continues at Crazy Coqs till Saturday. The singers open mic and jam hosted by Harold Sanditen is on Thursdays late. Future attractions include stride pianist Judy Carmichael. WEBSITE.
Sincerest best wishes on her 50th birthday today to one of the hardest-working and most popular people in British jazz, pianist / composer / educator Nikki Iles, currently half way through a tour with Printmakers, which ends at Pizza Express Dean Street on June 5th. We recently interviewed Nikki about the tour. The podcast includes a track from her trio album with Rufus Reid and Jeff Williams Hush. Praise for Hush (and buy it) HERE. Tour dates HERE
Gwyneth Herbert spoke to us about the launch of her new album The Sea Cabinet which is released on 20th May on Herbert's own label, Monkeywood Records. A copy of the CD is next week's prize draw for LondonJazz newsletter readers
We talked about the inspiration behind the album, including the history of the island of Alderney, and also chatted about her album launch extravaganza.
Musical excerpt (sneak preview of The Sea Cabinet): 'Alderney' at 07:59
DATES: 23-26th May at Wiltons Music Hall and a subsequent tour ending on 22nd August at Aldeburgh, Snape Maltings.
Three nights of the Wynton Marsalis Quintet, two sets a night, July 22-24 are confirmed and are currently on sale to club members. Public booking opens next Wednesday 22nd May.
Line-up: (as in the photo above) Wynton Marsalis- Trumpet, Walter Blanding Jr.- Saxophone/Clarinet, Carlos Henriquez- Bass, Ali Jackson- Drums, Dan Nimmer- Piano. The only change in the line-up from 2011 is the pianist - previously Johnathan Batiste
We moan about the weather in London, but occasionally it does us a favour. There's been a change of venue for this Friday's gig, and the organizers, not wanting to risk it, have decided to move a gig by a (possibly by THE) top band of rising talent on the London scene out of a park, and into a space indoors where it can actually be heard. So here's an unqualified LondonJazz recommendation to go at 9 30 pm this Friday 17th- and with FREE ADMISSION - to:
Battersea Mess & Music Hall:
51 Lavender Gardens
Battersea
London
SW11 1DJ
in order to to hear...the band directed by Scottish trombonist Kieran Macleod
HUMAN RESOURCE SYSTEM:
Trumpets: Reuben Fowler, Jack Davies, Laura Jurd Trombones: Richard Foote, Tom Green, Raphael Clarkson Tuba: Callum Au Saxophones: Matt Herd, Nick Roth, Rachael Cohen, Sam Rapley, George Crowley, Joe Wright Bass Clarinet: Rob Cope Pianos: Tom Taylor, Matt Robinson Guitars: Alex Roth, Alex Munk Basses: Chris Hyson, Tom McCredie Drums and Percussion: Jon Ormston, Simon Roth, Corrie Dick, Felix Higginbottom, Dave Hamblett
It's part of a series of events under the aegis of Simon Roth's Pop-Up Circusandis part of the Wandsworth Arts Festival
Kevin Figes Quartet - Tables and Chairs
(Pig Records PIG 04. CD review by Chris Parker)
For his fourth album as leader, saxophonist/composer Kevin Figes
has again surrounded himself with musicians sympathetic to – and skilled
in interpretation of – his musical world, which consists chiefly of
straightahead contemporary jazz (jaunty pieces with the occasional tricksy
time signature) interspersed with flashes of drum and bass, free
improvisation and tasteful funk.
Long-time collaborator Jim
Blomfield (piano), bassist Will Harris and drummer Mark
Whitlam bring a pleasingly informal live-in-the-studio feel to Figes’s
pieces, their default setting an attractive breeziness well suited to the
leader’s tumbling alto style, but the band is also capable of grittier
playing (especially when Blomfield switches to Fender Rhodes), and even
the perkiest numbers are likely to contain passages where airiness
alternates with funky shuffling (‘Scrap Board’) or fleet
double-time passages (‘Here You Are’).
An intelligently varied set
also includes a dreamy ballad (‘For Becky’), a slightly more
adventurous, multi-textured piece (‘Last Outpost’), and a baritone
feature (‘Hability’), and overall, Tables and Chairs is a
worthy successor to Figes’s work with the likes of Riaan Vosloo and Tim
Giles and his more recent band, 4-Sided Triangle (reviewed HERE).
The New Gary Burton Quartet - Guided Tour
(Mack Avenue Records MAC 1074. CD Review by Chris Parker)
‘From the first recording of this band, everything just clicked perfectly’
is Gary Burton’s reaction to the tightness, cohesion and brisk
inventiveness of his New Quartet, which is completed by guitarist
Julian Lage, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Antonio
Sanchez.
This is the band’s second album (Common Ground was
their 2012 debut), and it is indeed, as Burton points out, notable for
‘the richness of the content, the range of the compositions, and how well
the group captured each piece’. In addition to the elegant, assured vibes
soloing of Burton himself, this richly varied and unfussily musicianly
album also features another in the line of superb guitarists championed by
him (Pat Metheny and Larry Coryell got their first breaks in his band).
Julian Lage is immediately noteworthy for eschewing the electronic
gimmickry so prevalent in the approaches of other contemporary guitarists;
his is a clean-picked, limber, fleet approach where each note is precisely
articulated and plays its vital role in a pleasingly logical but
delightfully unpredictable solo, and he blends his neat but muscular sound
perfectly with Burton’s alternately glowing and cascading vibes.
The
rhythm section, too, is simply exemplary, whip-smart, purring or
strikingly rackety as required by the wide-ranging in-band original
compositions, whether these are latin-flavoured (Sanchez’s opener,
‘Caminos’), affecting ballads (Colley’s‘Legacy’) or what
Burton calls Lage’s ‘devilishly challenging melody themes’.
There are also
nods to Burton’s past recordings and projects (his own ‘Remembering
Tano’, dedicated to late tango mentor Astor Piazzolla; ‘Jane Fonda
Called Again’ musically referencing not only Bill Evans but also Carla
Bley and Steve Swallow), but whatever they’re playing, Burton’s group
addresses it with vibrancy, subtle power and – most important –
discernible enjoyment of each other’s playing.
Cathrine Legardh, vocal, Brian Kellock - Love Still Wears a Smile - (Storyville Records 1014282. CD Review by Jeanie Barton)
Cathrine Legardh’s vocal/piano duo album opens with the melancholy First Song by Haden/Lincoln; its soaring introduction has an almost ecclesiastical nature which pitches Cathrine’s androgynous soprano against Scottish pianist Brian Kellock’s spacious keys, setting a very classical tone.
Things are jazzed more with Hammerstein and Kern’s Nobody Else but Me and Close Your Eyes by Bernice Petkere, where she pulls around the phrases and swings with and sometimes against Brian’s fatter piano lines.
Born in Denmark to Danish/Norwegian/Swedish parents, Cathrine’s accent is quite strong when singing in English; she clips the close of her words with a short purr and never truly opens out - her lips I imagine to be pursed. This style can be advantageous, particularly lending itself to the bebop scat lines she weaves through This is New by Weill/Gershwin.
I particularly enjoyed Two for the Road by Mancini/Bricusse; Cathrine has a continental air that I feel marries perfectly with this delicate harmonic progression.
Together Brian and Cathrine explore many possibilities within their duo, both rhythmically and structurally; the more outlandish and contemporary numbers being Peace by Horace Silver encompassing lingering space, dynamic tensions, spoken word and the entirety of the keyboard. Also the percussive, aggressively syncopated No Moon at All by Mann/Evans.
Although I admire risqué arrangements, I personally derived most pleasure from the simpler pieces within this album. The calm resumes in the final number, The Party’s Over by Styne/Comden and Green, and I consider retiring to bed, when a secret track, starting with a poem halts me – a final solo of delicate cocktail piano by Scot, Brian, is the perfect night cap.
Kit Downes writes about his upcoming gig at the Vortex on 22nd May with saxophonist Ben van Gelder.
I first heard Ben van Gelder through former London based pianist Con Cellar regular John Escreet (now making big waves in NYC) who had been playing with Ben since the time he arrived in New York from Holland in 2006.
I heard a few bootlegs of Ben playing standards (on alto saxophone) and was blown away by the fluency and creativity of his lines and the depth and control of his sound. He studied with Dick Oatts for a while and you can hear that lineage in his playing, but it's married with something very personal and unique - as well as an amazing concept of space and breath.
About two years ago we did a few gigs together in the UK after I invited him to play at the Vortex (and a couple of other UK clubs) with my trio. We enjoyed it and wanted to repeat it again, so we will be playing standards together (with me on piano, Tom Farmer on Bass and James Maddren on drums) at the Vortex on May 22nd, and I'm very excited about it.
See above for a video of van Gelder playing with some other amazing musicians.
Trumpeter Andy Davies write about the Wednesday night jam sessions upstairs at Ronnie Scott's, the fifth anniversary of which will be celebrated next Wednesday, May 22nd.
We have some great times at the Wednesday night upstairs jam session. The night has definitely become an institution. We get all sorts of characters, from regular punters who keep coming every week, to experienced jazz pros, young cats learning the ropes, celebrities looking for a swinging hang, hipsters catching the jazz bug and the jazz A-listers over from the States.
We try to make the jam as high a level as possible, but we also make sure that musicians of different levels get to play together and learn from each other and, most importantly, that they have a great time.
The music we play is all very much in the hard bop tradition and we try and cover that repertoire, from Bird to Benny Golson to Wayne Shorter and even Branford Marsalis. The only rule we have is you have to know the tune we call. If you don’t know it, I’m going to suggest you learn it and we’ll happily do it next week.
The audience has a riot too. A lot of young people come to the jam who might not be that familiar with hard bop, but they really get into the music. They must have a good time because they come back in numbers with their hipster chums firmly infected with the jazz bug. I’ve had loads of people from the audience coming up to me asking for the name of a tune we played, then the next week they come back having bought the album which the tune is on.
We have had some great players sitting in at the jam. Some highlights include the great American drummer Kendrick Scott dropping by and playing about 5 or 6 tunes with us. He really got the vibe of the jam and gave great encouragement to some younger players just beginning their jazz journey.
Jaleel Shaw was another US jazz star and who came and jammed and was also brilliantly encouraging with all the young musicians. Its fantastic for the younger guys to be able to jam with their heroes in such an informal enviroment. The same can be said of the great British players too, its awesome for young jazz cats to hang and play with great players such as Benet Mclean, Jeremy Brown, Nigel Price, Mark Lockheart, Pedro Segundo, Mark Fletcher and Jim Mullen... the list would be a big one- apologies to the many I’ve missed out.
The success of the jam really has to go down to Simon Cooke and Paul Pace at Ronnies who know exactly what works for the Wednesday night. They let everything flow in the correct manner and realize how to make the jam accessible to the audience and musicians without compromising the hard bop music that we play. Thus, we can just get on with it and try to swing as hard as possible.
Come and find us upstairs on a Wednesday. We start at 9.30pm with a house band set, and we’re normally still going strong until 3am.
Ketil Bjørnstad - La notte
(ECM 372 4553. CD Review by Chris Parker)
Commissioned by, and performed at, the Molde International Jazz Festival,
La notte is composer/pianist Ketil Bjørnstad’s eight-part
tribute to the work of a man he considers one of his formative influences:
film-maker Michelangelo Antonioni.
The ‘slow, rhythmic authority’ of
Antonioni’s cinema was apparently the inspiration for what Bjørnstad
refers to as ‘the soundtrack to an inner film’, and there is an overall
shape to his music that does indeed mirror the dramatic logic of cinematic
narrative: gentle thematic exposition, exploration of issues raised, final
resolution and reflection.
Bjørnstad has published poetry, as well as
fiction and non-fiction, and in La notte he has combined a writer’s
awareness of the importance of structure with a musician’s sense of the
subtly emotive power of melody and the almost subliminal effect of
underlying rhythm.
To realise his conception, he has assembled something
of a dream sextet: alongside his deceptively simple piano, bassist
Arild Andersen brings over 40 years’ ECM experience to the band,
and with another label stalwart, Marilyn Mazur, providing the most
delicately imaginative but propulsive percussion and cellist Anja
Lechner bringing sonorous elegance to the ensemble sound and a
plaintive clarity to her solo contributions, Bjørnstad has created a
richly accommodating setting for his two main soloists,
guitarist/electronics operator Eivind Aarset and tenor/soprano
saxophonist Andy Sheppard.
Both provide powerful, personal but
carefully tailored solos where required, Aarset’s multi-textured guitar
soaring, Sheppard’s saxophones bustling, blustering and roaring over the
music’s more turbulent moments, but they and their fellow musicians are
also sensitive enough, when negotiating Bjørnstad’s more restrained,
graceful moments, to ensure that the truth of his statement ‘visual art
creates music in our minds, and music creates pictures and visual
expressions with the same intensity’ is borne out throughout this
consistently affecting, sometimes downright mesmerising, live performance.
Michel Camilo Trio
(Ronnie Scott’s, 11th May 2013. Review by Alison Bentley)
It's 25 years since pianist Michel Camilo last played at Ronnie's, and they'd brought in a Steinway concert grand for him. It took up most of the stage, but there was just about room for his US bassist Lincoln Goines and drummer Cliff Almond. It was hard to believe we were listening to just a trio. The opening tune, Camilo's own From Within, drew so much excitement from the Saturday night crowd, that it sounded as if he'd begun with the encore. Camilo has played with Tito Puente and Paquito D'Rivera, and his arrangements for the trio had all the drama and colours of a big band: the dynamics were ferocious- from pp to ff in seconds.
Camilo's piano technique was startling. He trained classically in his native Dominican Republic, and at New York's Juilliard School. As a teenager, he heard Art Tatum on the radio and knew instantly he wanted to play jazz. You could hear some Tatum in Camilo's rich opening style, stirred in with a sprinkling of Bach and somersaulting Listz-like arpeggios. Camilo likes to take audiences on a 'journey', and as the groove settled into a cha cha, we were right there with him. His solo had the singing rhythms of Chick Corea, but Camilo drew more on the repeated musical patterns of his Latin background. The mood changed: My Secret Place began with slow, liquid pentatonic piano. Camilo coaxed extraordinary sounds out of the instrument- here it had the percussive resonance of a Japanese koto. The brushes on the cymbals were like hummingbird wings. The piano solo had trills and ornamentations, Herbie Hancock-like phrasing and taut delicacy, then lush Shearing-style block chords. It felt very calming after the heady rush of the first tune. Goines grinned as Camilo played something particularly daring- you felt the trio were appreciating each other.
Repercussions is on Camilo's album Spirit of the Moment, Camilo's term for improvising in the moment- it's 'very difficult to capture, because it's so elusive.' Expressing emotion through music is very important to him, and the trio had a volatile quality, jumping suddenly from the intimate to the wild. The crash cymbal caught our attention as the drums slipped into fast swing, just a stick on the ride cymbal. The trio grew increasingly boisterous, with blustering left hand chords in fourths and fifths, McCoy meeting Corea. The bass solo was dramatic, yet had very precise intonation; Goines stood very serene and still as his hands created a storm. The tune built into an almost Bad Plus-like rock energy.
Camilo tours constantly (90-100 gigs a year), and the Ronnie's dates came after a week at NY's Blue Note Club- next stop, Copenhagen. His tune Hello and Goodbye seemed appropriately titled. The samba grooves and Cuban bass lines culminated in a piano solo based on montunos, expanded or exploded, hands bouncing off the keys at twice normal speed, with chattering staccato quavers. It was almost too fast for human hearing. Poinciana showed their gentle Latin side, its dreamy suspended chords hanging in the air, offering infinite possibilities, the sumptuous bass tone lulling us into the rhythm. Camilo had an eerie way of manipulating the keys and pedals, so it sometimes sounded as if he was stroking the piano strings. His composition Sammy Walked In had a 60s bluesy feel (he started out playing hard bop in the Dominican Republic, before moving to NY in 1979 and rediscovering his musical roots). The cha cha, with rimshots emulating a guiro and timbales, evolved into a hip-swivelling Sidewinder. Camilo played increasingly complex montunos across the drum solo, as if the piano itself were a drum kit. Cue more happy yells from the audience.
To misquote Dorothy Parker, Camilo had run the gamut of emotions from A-Z. To quote Camilo, there was: '... that indescribable magic that happens when everything falls into the right place, when we hear things the same way and complement each other perfectly, and the energy is just right.'
Michel Camilo's solo album What's Up has just been released on Okeh / Redondo
Dobrinka Tabakova – String Paths
(ECM New Series 2239.CD review by Rob Edgar)
Polish Playwright Sławomir Mrożek, in his 1965 play Tango, asked how can progress be possible if everything is permissible and tradition is dead?
Bulgarian/English composer Dobrinka Tabakova in String Paths (her debut release for ECM which is released today) answers this question by constantly referencing the past on one hand, but peppering it with contemporary innovation and neat compositional tricks on the other.
The album's opener Insight (for string trio) provides a good introduction to the composer's style, starting with long, morose, modal melodies before morphing into octantonic V-I chords (one of several phrases in the piece where Tabakova deliberately set out to make the trio sound like an accordion), a chorale-like theme and some complex Bulgarian folk sounding rhythms.
Tabakova is fortunate in that she has assembled a group of musicians with whom she works closely and they clearly put the effort into perfecting the intricate tasks she sets them. The first movement of the Concerto for Cello and Strings has an incredibly difficult solo part in the first movement, the cellist (Kristina Blaumane) is required to make some gargantuan leaps up and down the fingerboard set against a backdrop of some intensely contrapuntal strings (courtesy of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra) before exploding, in the second movment (appropriately subtitled Longing), into slow, melancholic, resonant chords with an aching solo cello melody and snatches of the theme from the first movement appearing briefly before being consumed by the rich harmony of the orchestra.
The concerto ends with more of that fast paced contrapuntal interaction between Blaumane and the orchestra and there are some further delights to be heard in Frozen River Flows (written for the unusual ensemble of violin, accordion and double bass) and Such Different Paths for string septet, but the real highlight of this album is the Suite in the Old Style. Tabakova said she had in mind a family in the Nineteenth-century sitting making music together when she wrote this piece. This description does not even begin to do it justice however, Tabakova takes us on a journey through the entire history of music with the Medieval isorhythms of the opening through to baroque figurations in the viola (played by Maxim Rysanov and featuring prominantly throughout the piece), a gypsy style theme which gets progressively more grotesque as it goes on (bringing to mind Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso), a musical cypher spelling Respighi (a composer of special significance to Tabakova) and more of that dense, harmonious chordal work.
Taken as a whole, the album hits the delicate balance between clarity, complexity, tradition and innovation perfectly and is one that reveals itself little by little with each listen.
To mark today's 25th anniversary of the death of Chet Baker, we are pleased to reproduce the following article by the much-missed Mike Zwerin (1930-2010), written shortly after the trumpeter's death. Thank you Ben Zwerin for the permission to reproduce it.
Death of A Jazzman: Last Notes on Chet Baker's Final Days
By Mike Zwerin
Amsterdam - Marking eras by some event or other is bound to be arbitrary, but it can be said that the myth of the bebop junkie, the image of jazz and drugs hand in hand, died along with Chet Baker when he fell out of the window of a hotel near the drug dealers' area on Zeedijk at 3:00 A. M. on Friday the 13th.
Peter Huyts, his road manager, identified the body in the morgue. Chet (he must be called Chet, Baker alone won't work. Chet was his pianissimo, swinging sound, there are many Bakers but there was only one Chet) had disappeared into the drug subculture for two days before his death. When he did not arrive for a radio broadcast in Laren the evening of May 12, Huyts had a premonition. "Sooner or later something was bound to happen," he said. "Everybody knew that."
An autopsy ruled out physical violence, the hotel room door had been locked from the inside and drugs were found in it, which seems to exclude foul play. The results of the blood test are not yet known, but it is widely assumed that there will be traces of drugs in Chet Baker's blood. The police did not rule out suicide although, like most people who knew him, Huyts doubts it: "It was a hot night, he was probably just sitting on the windowsill and nodded out. One time too many. I picked up his things at the hotel later. His clothes were neatly folded in his suitcase. Somebody about to commit suicide doesn't do that."
Eglal Fahri, who owns the Parisian club New Morning where Chet appeared at least once a month said, "We always did good business with Chet. I think one reason was that people thought each time might be the last." May 5 turned out to be it. The German pianist Joachim Kuhn sat in with Chet that night. "He seemed very tired," Kuhn recalled. "It was so sad. I remember thinking that this can't go on much longer."
Chet was one of the first generation of masters who created the powerful American urban music that came to be called bebop. He was the last of them to remain faithful to heroin, long after the others had cleaned up or died young. It was a love affair more than a habit.
Chet was no revolutionary. He was responsible for no dramatic breakthroughs on a level with Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie. But his sound, certain turns of phrases and where and how he place notes have entered the vocabulary. He touched you in a summertime place where the living isn't easy. People who had never met him cried when he died.
Bebop's creators had to live with critics who said the jazz they played wasn't really "music." But they all heard the sounds they'd discovered in the compositions of acclaimed "serious" composers and on the soundtracks of popular television series. They worked in Mafia-controlled saloons and collected no royalties. They fought alienation by constructing a secret culture with its own style and language - "bad" meaning "good" is vintage bebop argot. Heroin was part of the huddle. It seemed to cure alienation for a minute.
All of this is now a big budget subject. Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins make gold records and play the White House. Today's young "post-bop" jazzmen wear three-piece suits, arrive on time, drink mineral water and negotiate six-figure contracts. It is no coincidence that heroin disappeared as respect arrived. The death of Chet Baker dots the last "i" of that sad old story.
The creases on his face multiplied and deepened and his lips turned in over the dentures had had worn since he teeth were knocked out by angry dealers in San Francisco. He began to resemble an old Indian, the last of a tribe that had seen a heap of suffering. He looked like he needed taking care of and he did and there were always people around to do it. His persistence and ingenuity in pursuit of heroin and his muse and the ability of that parched body and spirit to survive such a relentless onslaught earned him (sometimes reluctant) respect from people of all ages, races, nationalities and stylistic preference who agree on little else. Chet was the real thing.
A few years ago, he recalled how embarrassed he had been in the 1950s when he placed higher that Clifford Brown and Dizzy Gillespie, both of whom he adored, in the polls because he was a "great white hope" with a pretty face that reminded people of James Dean. He knew he wasn't in their league yet. In the middle 1980s, when on a good night he was capable of playing as well as jazz can be played, he was dismissed as a has-been. Great white hopes had gone out of style, along with pianissimos. But it was to a large degree his own fault; falling off a chair on stage is not a good career move.
Chet once told a reporter: "I have a medical problem and in Europe they treat it as a medical problem." So he came to Europe for love and medicine, moving around three weeks here, two days there, in hotels or wearing out welcomes with hosts. He had a methadone prescription from a doctor in Amsterdam. Methadone cures the craving for heroin. On methadone the grace would be healthy. But he always returned to Zeedijk in Amsterdam for the hot flash he needed.
The Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine describes touring with Chet: "He would drive from Paris to Brussels by way of Amsterdam; sometimes he'd fly up there between two nights in Paris. He'd be late a lot and there would be some very heavy panics. The pay wasn't always it was supposed to be, or when, but there were so many magic moments in the music, they made everything else worthwhile."
The Dutch impresario Wim Wigt handled Chet in Europe and Japan in the 1980s. It was not an exclusive contract but Wigt estimates that Chet earned over $200,000 after taxes last year. The two albums he made for Wigt"s Timeless Records have sold over 25,000 units each and are still selling. It is not difficult to guess where the money went.
One friend recalls Chet arriving at his house with 30,000 guilders in a shopping bag. He had recently bought a cream-colored Alfa Romeo Giulia with Italian plates. According to Peter Huyts, who drove with him often, Chet was an expert driver who would miraculously sober up behind the wheel no matter how stoned he might have been.
The lanky, bespectacled Huyts looks too young to be a grandfather of two and too straight to be a road manager for jazz bands. He had been running a part-time jazz club when he lost his job as an electronics engineer five years ago. Knowing and loving the music, he began to travel with Wigt's clients like Gillespie, Art Blakey and John Scofield. He figures he's heard more than 150 Chet Baker concerts and he probably knew him as well as anyone.
Last Thursday, Huyts was in Schiphol, Amsterdam's airport, waiting to accompany the coffin on a flight to Los Angeles, where Chet's mother owns a plot.
"I wanted to be with him until the very end," he said. "I'm surprised how much I miss him."
Traveling with Baker was no piece of cake. But despite the fact that Chet spent 16 months in a Italian jail and had at one time or another been deported from Switzerland, West Germany and Britain, there was never any trouble crossing borders.
"Not once," Huyts said. "That always puzzled me. But Chet had a good 'act' for the douane. He knew how to play that game. He could turn on the charm."
"He was always losing things, leaving things behind, but he kept the mouthpiece Dizzy Gillespie gave him for years. He was very proud of that. It had 'Birks' engraved on it," Huyts added, referring to Gillespie's middle name.
Gillespie got Chet his first comeback engagement in New York after he had learned to play with false teeth. In a telephone interview Saturday from his home in New Jersey, Gillespie said:
"The major thing he lacked - you see, Chet was so tender. Jazz is a gut-bucket thing, great soloists have got to be able to get tough sometimes. He was too vulnerable."
Mrs Eglal Farhi says she was "very fond of him, with all his faults. He was friendly, loyal, warm. He did not forget his friends. There ws something very special about him, he was surrounded by myths."
Joachim Kuhn had recently found him a house to rent near his own outside Paris. Chet told him he had not had a home for too long, he wanted to settle down, to travel less for higher prices, maybe take a few students. Kuhn heard Chet for the first time when he was 8 years old in Berlin in the '50s.
"He moved me so much I immediately wanted to be a trumpet player," he said, "only nobody gave me a trumpet. It would have been so nice to have my old hero living in my village."
Chet was surprised and delighted when the Dutch trumpet player Evert Hekkema told him that he and his teen-age friends had combed their hair and dressed like him. He had the key to Hekkema's apartment for more than two years. He paid no rent but was always arriving with gifts and never forgot to take care of his long-distance calls.
A rehabilitated addict who asked not to be identified remembers seeing Chet strip naked in search of an uncollapsed vein. He found one in his groin but raised it several times until the needle finally entered. Then his knees buckled and he held onto the sink, moaning "saline solution." The former addict recognized an overdose and prepared the solution quickly. He gave Chet the syringe and this time he hit a vein in his neck on the first try.
Several hours later, when Chet had recovered and was dressing to go to work, the former addict asked him: "Hey, man, don't you ever get tired of this stuff"
"It's a drag," he replied. "Hotel rooms and airports and getting guys for gigs. I hate the road."
"I don't mean that," he said. "I mean using dope."
"Oh, that." Chet shrugged. "I never think about that."
Georgie Fame at Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2013
Photo Credit: Ruth Butler. All Rights Reserved
Georgie Fame
Van Morrison (Cheltenham Jazz Festival. 3rd and 5th May. Double review by Luke Davidson)
Take two performers. Find a festival. Introduce one performer near the beginning of the festival and let the other bring us to its end. Put them both in a Big Top. Add a lifetime’s experience and outstanding musicianship. Result? An opportunity to reflect upon remarkable evenings of jazz and soul history, one starring Georgie Fame, celebrating his seventieth birthday with the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the other starring Van Morrison.
Fame’s concert was an occasion. As he remarked with humour, it was the equivalent of a ‘gong' from Radio 2. The Van Morrison gig was an occasion, too, if only because every performance of Van’s is an occasion. Trite it may be, but both gigs exemplified so well the vitality of great artists. Part of this vitality comes from the fact both Fame and Morrison embrace jazz, not only in terms of their musical language, but in terms of their spirit: they never want to play the same thing in the same way. Performance is an opportunity to make it new. A lovely example of this was when Fame covered Willie Dixon’s ‘I’m the Seventh Son’ - in 7/8! Not content to demonstrate his mastery of blues set to Maximum Mojo, this witty refashioning showed Fame as a willing experimenter, a risk taker. Fame’s set, too, was more wide-ranging stylistically than Morrison’s. As a career retrospective, it covered Ray Charles, Country and Western, Be-Bop, as well as the blues, all of it powered by Guy Barker’s V8 big band and a wonderfully arranged orchestra.
Morrison’s set was more predictable but his performance exhibited his mercurial talent. Like Dylan, Morrison has an extraordinary deep well of songwriting achievement to draw from, but he is not content to sit back and watch the cheques for endless cover versions roll in. He is an artist. He must perform. On the night, he shared with us that urgency, that defiant assertiveness, that marks him. While he and Fame have mined equally deeply from the mine of Black American music, perhaps only Morrison has been comfortable studding his music with the riches of gospel.
Van Morrison gets the righteousness of the Baptists that is found in Jacky Wilson and Otis Redding. He is a preacher; he has something to say. And for me, who enjoys his peerless four-minute soul cuts as much as anyone, it was his ‘sermon’ mid-set uttered over a hypnotic 12/8 groove of repeated II/Vs that justified the entry ticket. ‘This is it!‘ he shouted. ‘This is it!’. He spoke without parody a message that has animated pulpits for centuries: time is running out and we need to get our house in order. Well, Amen to that.
But for all Morrison’s welcome mysticism, there is something slightly uncomfortable about his stage presence, something unsettling about his occasional barks at the band; his band, magnificent though it was, never looked especially at ease, never looked as if they too were in on Morrison’s message. They were workmanlike, perfect, but not happy. Perhaps they, like me (shh!), can’t stand Van Morrison’s saxophone sound and wished he would put the thing down. So, while I could have listened to the trombonist all night, since he never once gave a bar that was not perfectly shaped, it was not until Morrison had left the stage during the final valedictory rock-out, did the band as a whole appear visibly to relax, to allow themselves, and the music, a smile.
Which brings me back to Fame. Wearing an entirely unremarkable dark suit, he neither struts nor preaches. Yet he was enjoying himself. He has a relaxed presence on stage. His special guests, Alan Price, Zoot Money and Madeline Bell, seemed to be enjoying themselves quite as much as he was.
As for Morrison, for his special guest he had Gregory Porter on stage for one number, and as soon as that bass voice, rich and deep, was heard reverberating round the tent, there was an audible gasp of pleasure. Yet, when Porter left, something was lost. Not so with Fame; his fellow singers gave him the limelight, and that always felt right.
Zoë Schwarz/Rob Koral/Ian Ellis - Slow Burn
(33Jazz229. CD Review by Chris Parker)
Singer Zoë Schwarz and guitarist/composer Rob Koral are a
popular live attraction, dispensing their trademark mix of personalised
standards and blues (both classic and original) to festival and club
audiences worldwide, and this is their fifth album in three years.
Slow
Burn adds the powerfully emotive tenor of Ian Ellis to the duo
sound, but the pair’s formula remains basically the same: well-honed songs
are soulfully and intelligently interpreted by the versatile Schwarz, her
robust, gutsy but sensitive treatments of both standards (here ‘Angel
Eyes’, ‘I Cover the Waterfront’, ‘Detour Ahead’ and
‘Willow Weep for Me’) and blues skilfully complemented by Koral’s
unshowy but perfectly judged guitar.
Ellis brings a throaty urgency to
proceedings, both in his solo commentaries, and (particularly in the
closer, the Lloyd C. Glenn/Lowell Fulson burner, ‘Sinner’s Prayer’)
his musicianly blending with Koral on theme statements, and the resultant
album (purposely recorded ‘live’ to re-create the spontaneous spirit of
their stage show) is a worthy successor to its much-acclaimed predecessor,
Celebration.
Soweto Kinch 
