Monthly Archives: August 2010

Russ’s pic of the week: 09-08-10

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Dave Douglas on possibly his first ever visit to Birmingham, playing at the Custard Factory on 26 April 1997. 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.

To the hills! To the hills!

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Phronesis - trio of the moment

It’s that weekend when the city slickers of Birmingham head towards the Black Mountains and the charming town or Brecon. There they mix with other cool jazzers and happy young farmers, united in their enthusiasm for good music and good drink.

Brecon Jazz has been saved from near certain extinction by Hay Festivals and they have secured some big names for 2010, including Hugh Masekela, Charlie Musselwhite and Orchesta Buena Vista Social Club, but as with all jazz festivals it’s usually to the less established names that one goes for the deeper pleasures. Brecon certainly offers its fair share of young British bands as well as some interesting international visitors. Here’s my pick:

Friday 6 August

  • Dave Stapleton Quintet – pianist Stapleton has not only become a vital force in British recording through his excellent Edition Records, he also leads a fine modern hard bop quintet with a new disc, Between The Lines, to promote. Christ College Stage 6pm.
  • Get The Blessing – a bright two horns, bass and drums band from Bristol which mixes tasty jazz harmonies and rocky beats (the rhythm team are Jim Barr and Clive Deamer from Portishead) and manages to be both edgy and richly textured. Roland Stage, Christ College 9.30pm.
  • Jason Yarde and Andrew McCormack – saxophone and piano duo, both strong composers, too. Brecon Cathedral 10.30pm.

Saturday 7 August

  • Kairos 4Tet – Exceptionally fine, richly melodic, young quartet led by saxophonist and composer Adam Waldmann and including two thirds of Phronesis, Ivo Neame on piano and Jasper Hoiby on bass. Roland Stage Christ College 12pm.
  • Phronesis – among many good piano trios, this really is something. Jasper Hoiby leads from the double bass, with Ivo Neame on piano and Anton Eger on drums. Roland Stage, Christ College 3.30pm.
  • Orchestre National De Jazz – This French big band has been responsible for a series of fascinating and critically acclaimed projects down the years and for their latest director Daniel Yvinec has chosen to concentrate on the music of Robert Wyatt. Christ College Stage 7.30pm.
  • Gwilym Simcock Trio – a piano trio that already has an international stature, led by the most brilliant young player to come out of these islands in a while. Amazing bass from Yuri Goloubev and the drummer of choice in James Maddren.

Sunday 8 August

  • Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – the idea of the New Orleans marching band gets a streetwise update from the sons of former Sun Ra Arkestra musician Kelan Phil Cohran. Second line meets hip-hop. Market Hall 5.30pm.
  • Andy Sheppard – a chance to hear the saxophonist’s Movements In Colour band with John Parricelli and Eivind Aarset on guitars, Arild Andersen on bass and Kuljit Bhamra on tabla and percussion. Christ College Stage 7.30pm.

For more information and all the other bands playing over the weekend, go to www.breconjazz.org or call 01497 822 629

Disc of the day: 04-07-10

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Richard Fairhurst’s Triptych: Amusia (Babel BDV 1087)
This piano trio consists of British pianist Richard Fairhurst, Danish bass player Jasper Hoiby and New York drummer Chris Valataro. All the music is by Fairhurst, bar a couple of spontaneous group improvs, and some of it was commissioned either by Cheltenham Jazz Festival or Birmingham Jazz.

It’s fairly tightly-packed stuff, with Fairhurst favouring knotty little melodic fragments with equally knotty rhythmic motifs. There is a certain amount of minimalism going on here, with repetition and packages of content moving about harmonically here, together with cross rhythms and intricate instrumental interplay. Some of this stuff sounds quite formally written but then again, such is the expertise of the new breed of jazz musicians it could be all extemporised and the listener might not know. But it’s certainly  jazz, as well.

Take a tune like Dense Fur for example – it might start with an expressionist solo piano but it soon establishes a good groove and a nicely developing piano solo, culminating in some tight three-way formal stuff. Or Figments, which is busy and urgent from the start with brief holding of breath before the next wave of notes crashes around us.

Daringly Poised sound just as a song with that title would be expected to sound – lyrical with a melody that calls to mind Julian Arguelles or Iain Ballamy (and in fact Ballamy played on Fairhurst’s first album); I’m not sure what the title Fish Magic prepares us for, but what we get is a kind of contemporary classical piece full of silences and fragmentary tunes with intriguing harmonic and rhythmic content.

Disc of the day: 03-08-10

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Dave Holland & Pepe Habichuela: Hands (Dare2 Records/Emarcy 2738853)
Flamenco and jazz are in many ways fairly easy-going bedfellows, united by an improvisational bent and a rhythmic flexibility.

So the jazz double bassist Dave Holland and the flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela rub along pretty well, though it has to be said that Holland has a more adaptable skill and, as those of us who witnessed this band live earlier this year at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival will have noted, it is more like Holland playing flamenco than the Habichuela band, and particularly Pepe, playing jazz. In fact, at Cheltenham Pepe left the stage for Holland’s compositions, the jazz chord changes and musical language being too far outside his experience.

Not so for his son Josemi Carmona, who was something of a star at the concert as he brought his flamenco style and guitar virtuosity to bear upon Holland’s original tunes, and he performs to equal pleasure here.

Holland’s The Whirling Dervish and Joyride sound fresh and new in this Spanish context and his lithe, supremely accurate and melodic solos both here and on the Spanish tunes are exemplary examples of jazz art while never sounding inappropriate to the flamenco aesthetic.

The Habichuela band, and it is made up mostly of Carmonas, so family, is a wonderfully tight outfit, while at the same time having an air of relaxation and freedom about it. It is the most natural sounding group, and you just know they were all born to do this, make music, just like their family has been doing for generations.

Don Cherry described Pepe Habichuela’s guitar sound as like “a tree crying”; you can hear exactly what he means.

Not a particularly integrated jazz/flamenco project and perhaps all the better for that.

Russ’s pic of the week: 02-08-10

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Mirror – James Allsopp on saxophone, Dave Smith on drums and Dan Nicholls on keyboards – at the July Jazz Club session, last Wednesday at the Rainbow. It’s Russ Escritt’s pic of the week.

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. It’s a work in progress as Russ consolidates the content from his previous two sites and moves it all to the new one – as you will realise, he has reached 2006. And now there is the added bonus that you can search for a particular musician. 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.