Monthly Archives: April 2010

Disc of the day: 26-04-10

Posted on
1

Nette Robinson’s Little Big Band: The Little Big Band Plays (33 Records 33JAZZ206)
A young woman singer, a list of tracks that includes April In Paris, In A Mellow Tone, All Of Me, Makin’ Whoopee… no disrespect to the many excellent singers doing standards out there, but still my heart sinks.

And then I press play, and the heart rises! The hint has been there in the title. This disc gathers tunes made famous by the Duke Ellington and Count Basie bands, and presents them in stripped down form in a band of equals. Nette Robinson provides the voice and does the arrangements, her husband Tony Woods plays saxophone and flute, one-time Back To Basie player and transcriber Adrian Fry is on trombone, Will Hyland supplies the double bass and Chris Nickolls the drums.

In case we haven’t noticed, the press release usefully points out that despite the music being created by two band-leading pianists, there is no piano in the band. That absence of a chordal instrument gives the sound considerable freshness. Robinson not  only sings in a cool, vibrato-free, attractively deadpan fashion, and also blends her voice with saxophone and trombone in three-part section, the rhythm team are tight and cooking, and Fry and Woods provide some fine solos, often providing some backing support lines to each other. Robinson bides her time to give the rest of the band a lot of space to improvise, and delivers just the right sophisticated tone for each song.

Woods especially makes sure things are never going to get flabby: his solos are wonderfully muscular, bringing a thoroughly contemporary attitude to this music when making it sound archival is always a risk. And try the written sax and scat section on Cute. That title says it all, too.

This disc is being launched on Wednesday at the Orange Tree Cellar Bar in Richmond. Should be a big little gig.

Book review: Windfall Light: The Visual Language of ECM

Posted on
Reply

Photographer Garry Corbett has a look at the
latest volume to celebrate CD cover art


Windfall Light : The Visual Language Of ECM (Lars Muller Publishers)

There are a few record labels in the history of contemporary music whose visual language is instantly recognisable and so interwoven with the musical content it packages as to be inseparable in the minds of the ardent fan. Blue Note, Impulse! and CTI spring to mind. Each label with its own visual identity as strong as its unique sonic landscape. To hear a Blue Note album from the 1950s conjures up instant black and white images to the mind, Art Blakey at his drums, Lee Morgan, horn aimed at the camera in full flight. Sound and images fused in the imagination of the listener.

So it is with German contemporary music label ECM who since its first release in the early ’70s has set a standard in both sound and packaging which speak of quality. The sleeve designs entice the potential listener, often with their simplicity and a stillness which echoes the music within.

It was the photographer Alfred Stieglitz who coined the phrase “The Equivalent” in photography. A concept which explored the idea of photograph as metaphor and not merely about the subject placed before the lens. This concept was further developed and explored by American photographer and teacher Minor White, who took up the baton from Stieglitz, developing a near Zen-like approach with his students in championing the concept of “The Equivalent”.

ECM as a label seems to have absorbed this concept naturally. Each ECM cover photograph hints at a meaning beyond the mere image it carries. At its best it shows an equivalent to the music contained within. Following on from its predecessor, Sleeves of Desire, Windfall Light : The Visual Language of ECM further explores the development of the label’s cover designs bringing the story up to date. The format is similar to its predecessor though the book itself is physically slightly larger. Contained within its soft covers are 447 pages of esoteric food for the ECM gourmet.

The bulk of the book features single page single sleeve design images reproduced at full CD booklet size complete with original ECM catalogue number and brief description. These are interspersed with an opening poem by Edmond Jabes and a sequence of five original essays on the art of ECM by a variety of writers including ECM recording artist Ketil Bjornstad and publisher Lars Muller. The remainder of the book is taken up with a complete ECM catalogue illustrated by all sleeves in miniature and finally a page and a half of biographies of those involved in the project.

On one level Windfall Light : The Visual Language of ECM might be seen as a glorified catalogue. As such it is flawed by being already out of date. On another level for those who love the whole ECM aesthetic it is a contemporary photographic and design exhibition between soft covers. Either way it is a visual, sumptuous treat. As such it comes highly recommended. © Garry Corbett 2010

Prviously reviewed at thejazzbreakfast: Horizons Touched: the Music of ECM

Concert review: Dave Stapleton Quintet, Mark Lockheart In Deep

Posted on
1

Mark Lockheart's In Deep at the CBSO Centre last night (Picture: Russ Escritt)

CBSO Centre, Birmingham UK
23-04-10
If Dave Stapleton were just a fine jazz pianist, an adventurous composer and a strong bandleader, he would be contributing quite enough to British jazz. But he is much more than that. Together with a photographer friend he started Edition Records and it has grown quickly – no doubt due to tireless efforts on Dave’s part – to become a vital conduit for some of the finest musicians this country has to offer. And what I like about it most is that it supports a broad sweep of musicians, both in age and style.

Last night’s Birmingham gig was a kind of showcase for the label – you could buy a whole bunch of CDs in the foyer – but it was also a chance to hear two very strong groups, united in instrumentation but strongly distinctive, both reflecting their leader’s musical vision and the musical personalities of the players.

First up was Stapleton’s own band, playing all his music, most of it from his imminent new CD Between The Lines (it’s released this coming week I think but was available last night). There is a lot to listen for in this music – it has for me strong film noire connotations, conjuring up the kind of West Coast, slightly claustrophobic lushness of a 1940s LA crime thriller. For one fellow listener it recalled the Ian Carr/Don Rendell band with Michael Garrick on piano, revealing that Stapleton is working in the modern British tradition but also expanding it.

Stapleton does a great thing in that he writes not just one melody or head tune , he rights a number of different sections so each piece of music feels like a mini-suite.

He favours knotty left-hand riffs on the piano, tracked by bassist Paula Gardiner, and his hornmen, Ben Waghorn in tenor and soprano, Jonny Bruce on trumpet, explore a wide range from complex pattern-playing on Waghorn’s part to gruff and explosive excitement from Bruce. Elliott Bennett has an almost balletic approach to playing the drums, striking in a big man.

The second half featured something of a supergroup. Tenor and soprano saxophonist Mark Lockheart has earned the kind of respect in British jazz – from Loose Tubes through Perfect Houseplants to Polar Bear – that means when he forms his own band he can call on a bunch who are themselves bandleaders. So we had fellow Tube Chris Batchelor on trumpet, Liam Noble on piano, Jasper Hoiby on double bass and Dave Smith on drums.

The music – all Lockheart’s – was again richly  and interestingly composed, avoiding head and solo arrangements and encouraging interaction, especially between the two horns. Even more than with Stapleton, the compositional influences are so well  woven in that it is hard to identify them, this being simply glorious contemporary jazz music as heard in Mark Lockheart’s head. The empathy between him and Batchelor was clear, and Hoiby and Smith locked in terrifically. Noble played the outsider at times, a vital role to avoid too much cosinesss. Not that this is comfy music at all – though not spikey either. It perfectly reflects the title Lockheart has given to his most recent CD (on Edition, of course) and to this band: it goes In Deep.

Judging by the number of empty seats, there were many Birmingham lovers of fine jazz who were absent last night – you missed a superb gig.

Sign up for more jazz on the Beeb

Posted on
Reply

Want more jazz on the BBC? Here’s an appeal from Chris Hodgkins, Director of Jazz Services:

On 19 January  2010, at London’s Cockpit Theatre, the University of Westminster’s music business network MusicTank and Jazz Services hosted the launch of a major Jazz Services report into the media representation of jazz in the UK. Representing the broadcasters were BBC Radio 3 Controller Roger Wright, Radio 2 Head of Music Programmes Lewis Carnie, and German radio producer Peter Schulze.

Entitled The BBC – Jazz, Policy and Structure in the Digital Age, the report was presented by jazz lecturer, journalist and broadcaster Professor Stuart Nicholson, with Emma Kendon and Chris Hodgkins of Jazz Services. This report is available on Jazz Services website. Professor Nicholson outlined the particular needs of jazz as a live-performance art, unfavourably compared the BBC’s role in this area with that of other European broadcasters, and suggested a way forward using the new resources made possible by niche-targeted digital radio programming.

The BBC is currently undertaking a Strategy Review Consultation. This consultation is undeniably special as it provides an ideal opportunity to press the case for more jazz on BBC Radio. We need you to add your voice, the licence fee paying jazz audience.

What you’ll be doing is letting the BBC know loud and clear that jazz must be a vital part of their music mix. You’ll be telling them that they have a duty to make sure jazz receives its fair share of airtime. You’ll also be reminding the BBC that they have championed and influenced jazz in the past and contributed to a truly flourishing scene. And they can do this again.

All you need to do to influence the BBC is to join the online campaign. Jazz Services needs you to do this by 20 May so we can collect all your voices and make sure the BBC and press know just how many people have taken part.

I hope you’ll take a few moments to get involved, and please forward this to your network and friends too – anyone you can think of who would want more jazz on BBC radio.

Want to make your voice heard? Just click here and add your name to the petition.

Disc of the day: 21-04-10

Posted on
Reply

Lokua Kanza: Nkolo (World Village WVF479043)
It’s the sound of the thumb piano, the kalimba, that opens this recording, and the warm, clear, clean voice of Lokua Kanza, swiftly enriched by a lush chorus of voices over a skittering beat.

Kanza is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, but he now spends as much time in Paris and in Rio as he does in Africa. He paid his dues in various bands, developing multi-instrumental skills and learning jazz guitar, while in the bands of such African superstars as Papa Wemba and Manu Dibango, all the time building to a solo career. He has been making his own records since the early 1990s but  with this album he sounds like he is really primed and ready now for international stardom.

There is the kind of ease and comfort with a wide variety of musical styles and influences you find with musicians like Richard Bona or Lionel Loueke, though he is not as jazz as they are. It’s vocally that he really shines, sliding in and out of harmony choruses, always sounding almost conversationally natural in his singing.

It’s a glorious acoustic world music with great South American and European influences washing over the African sources and yet it sounds remarkably cohesive, too. Just as I imagine the man himself might be a citizen of world but his distinctive character is never in question.

Beautiful, gentle, graceful, deeply human music. And just right for warmer weather…