Monthly Archives: August 2010

Russ’s pic of the week: 30-08-10

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Sara Colman, singer, pianist, songwriter and educator, soothing those Rush Hour Blues on 21 April 2006 in the Symphony Hall foyer in Birmingham. It’s Russ Escritt’s pic of the week, chosen from his extensive archive.

Russ has hundreds more like this – in fact when it comes to jazz musicians, if they’ve played in Birmingham he has probably taken their picture. And they are all on Russ’s website which is here. Russ also has available three books of his photographs: two of general pictures and one dedicated to the legendary great grandaddy of Birmingham jazz, Andy Hamilton. Go to the ABOUT section of the site for more details.

The week ahead in gigs

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Mike Hatton, leader of MJHQ, at the City Inn tomorrow.

Good vibes on the bill this evening at the Bearwood Corks Club sessions, hosted by Andy Hamilton.

Playing them will be Julian Powell who leads the Julian Powell Collective, a group of young musicians playing a mix of Latin, fusion and jazz with compulsive rhythms and a fine sense of what makes for a good groove.

The doors open at 8.30pm, entry is £4 and the club is just opposite Aldi in Bearwood Road, Bearwood. More information at www.bearwoodjazz.co.uk

Tomorrow the Friday early evening session is at City Inn in Brindleyplace and on the stand is MJHQ, led by bassist Mike Hatton with Andy Wheeler is on drums, plus some fresh associates in the form of Phil Bond on keyboards and vocals, Andy Isherwood on saxophone and Steve Banks on guitar. For this gig Sarah Winton is also added as special guest vocalist.

The music starts at 5.30pm, goes till 7pm, and it’s all free. All you need to do is buy a drink. Find out more about Mike Hatton and his music at mjhq.co.uk

Sunday is ‘bone time in Stratford as the exuberant and explosive Andy Derrick leads on the trombone with MYJO pianist Jo Ruddick on the keys, and the dream rhythm team of Ben Markland on bass and Neil Bullock on drums.

Andy brings a real spice to the big slide horn and the band can get seriously funky while maintaining that jazz swing.

It all happens at The Chapel, No 1 Shakespeare Street in Stratford-upon-Avon from 8pm, and entry is £6. Find out more at www.stratfordjazz.org.uk

Disc of the day: 25-08-10

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Stacey Kent: Raconte-moi (Blue Note 682305)
A natural move and a clever one from the US singer, sometimes resident in the UK and increasingly sounding equally at home in France.

An all-French album including her interpretations of classic chansons by the likes of Paul Misraki and and others by young contemporary French composers.

The opener, on the other hand, is Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Aguas de Marco. It might sound better sung in French, as Les Eaux de Mars than in English as The Waters of March, but still nothing beats the Portuguese original and although this stands well beside some other covers, nothing beats Elis Regina’s version, naturally.

Kent’s tone, a cool mix of sophisticated ennui and little-girl innocence, is as perfectly attuned to French songs as is are her gamine looks, and her French pronunciation feels schoolgirl precise and all the more charming for it.

The band is cool and Jim Tomlinson’s saxophone and clarinet solos as precise and fitting as always, though it feels like there are fewer of them this time around. The rhythm team of Jeremy Brown on bass and Matt Skelton on drums keep the grooves suitably relaxed, while pianist Graham Harvey has all the right passing chords. John Parricelli adds some nice guitar, especially on La Venus du Melo.

The stand-out tracks are Benjamin Biolay’s Au Coin du Monde, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s C’est le Printemps and Claire Denamur’s Mi Amor.

Disc of the day: 24-08-10

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Marilyn Crispell/David Rothenberg: One Dark Night I Left My Silent House (ECM 179 9220)
The music pianist Marilyn Crispell makes might have grown quieter down the years but she claims it is not really that different. “To me the energy music I did earlier and the quieter stuff I’ve been doing lately are equally intense. They’re just two sides of the same coin.”

For this latest quiet but intense, ECM disc, Crispell is joined by clarinettist David Rothenberg. You might have seen him on BBC TV a couple of years back exploring the ideas behind his book Why Birds Sing – the result of his experiences going out into the country and trying to engage birds in a musical back and forth, and sometimes succeeding.

He certainly succeeds in the back and forth with Crispell. They make some really lovely music together, some of it quite experimental in sound, some of it surprisingly conventional in its lyricism and relatively simple melodic patterns, and all of it, I suspect, formulated with very little discussion or practice beforehand. The freshness of spontaneous improvisation seems to suit both players.

Occasionally Crispell adds other sounds, including bells and some from the soundboard of an old beat-up baby grand.

For some great bass clarinet with spooky sounds try Snow Suddenly Stopping Without Notice, for some chirruping stuff listen to Still Life With Woodpeckers, and for a charming slice of almost folky duetting, play  Evocation. That latter has that hard-won purity and plain beauty that only the true experimenters are capable of when they return to conventional harmonic and melodic material.

Disc of the day: 23-08-10

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Phronesis: Alive (Edition EDN1021)
Of the many recordings I have listened to over the past few months, and many of them piano trios, surely the most popular small group instrumental line-up in 2010, this is the one that keeps grabbing my attention and is currently bringing me the most joy.

The Danish double bassist Jasper Hoiby, who, very luckily for us, has made his home in England, is bringing his big, accurate tone and pliant style to all manner of British bands, but it is in this band which he leads that he sounds even bigger, even more pliant. Ivo Neame is well-known both as a saxophonist and pianist, but here he restricts himself to the keyboard and brings a mixture of strong harmony and a real searching spirit to his playing. And then there is drummer Mark Guiliana.

The sound of surprise, what chance brings, is often what makes jazz most interesting and exciting. When Phronesis’s regular drummer, Anton Eger, was unable to make these dates, Hoiby called in the US drummer who is best known from his work with two other brilliant bassists, Avishai Cohen and Meshell Ndegeocello. And what a good move that has turned out to be.

Just listen to the bass and drums behind Neame’s solo on the opener, Blue Inspiration. It’s worth the price of the disc on its own. But this is just the start. The jumpy groove of French, with its momentary easing and then return to urgency, just draws the listener closer and closer to the speakers. If it’s a hallmark of a good album that it makes you want to climb into your hi-fi, then this is indeed a good album.

The music might be busy but it never loses its heart to its head, in fact it maintains a huge heart throughout.

For a prime introduction, just try Hoiby’s virtuoso introductory riff to Abraham’s New Gift, which, after another gloriously jumpy melody, stops momentarily for calm solo piano before a more open groove widens the piece’s landscape and brings all kind of delights, from an almost singing solo from Hoiby through a great conversation between piano and bass. Then Neame worries the upper reaches of the piano while Hoiby and Guiliana boil like the sea beneath. Guiliana rises to a solo while piano and bass hold a riff pattern, and the crowd, quite rightly, go crazy.

There is loads more to follow: the sparer, more abstract beauty of Rue Cinq Diamants, the playfulness of Happy Notes, the lithe North African feel of Love Song with a particularly strong and articulate solo from Neame, and finally the simple and strangely compulsive tune of Untitled #2.

Finally, a word about the recording. It’s live at the Forge Arts Venue in London’s Camden Town and has one of the best live sounds I’ve heard in ages. Hats off to Matt Robertson and Dave Moore, as well as August Wangren who mixed and mastered it, and Dave Stapleton, whose Edition Records, has put it out.