Here’s Casey Greene in full cry. Garry Corbett took this photograph at last Friday’s Rush Hour Blues session in the Symphony Hall foyer. For more of Garry Corbett’s rich and insightful photographs, not only jazz but a whole lot more, go to his flickr site here.
Picture © Garry Corbett
Russ Escritt’s choice for his pic of the week is one from the archive: Andy Sheppard when he was with John Law’s Cornucopia at the CBSO Centre in Birmingham in October 2004. Just click on the picture to find Russ’s website with loads of his other pictures plus his blog. Russ has another book of his photographs available to buy. It’s called A Jazz Year In Birmingham and covers September 2009 to August 2010. Get a preview of this and also of his previous collections here.
The Last
(Loop Records Loop 1014)
This quartet is made up of leader and saxophonist Tom Challenger, drummer Dave Smith, organist Ross Stanley and electronic manipulator Matt Calvert. While the band and Challenger’s writing shares that rock/trance/industrial trend that many young British bands are finding attractive, it doesn’t really sound like those other bands.
Partly it’s the overall sound. While Challenger is making a characteristic tenor saxophone sound and Smith is playing regular kit drums, Stanley’s organ takes on a myriad of sounds, most of them adding some distortion, very few of them sounding remotely like Jimmy Smith, for example.
But the most crucial participant here is Calvert, who provides some deeply dubby bass lines but also envelops the whole thing in a large and dark, echoey soundscape. This is jazz made in a gigantic metal-bashing factory of the future, with searing cauldrons of molten lava at the centre and all kinds of dark industrial arts being practised around it.
There are 12 tracks, and they do have distinct textures and moods but they don’t really have specific melodies or obvious chord progressions, or even particularly consistent rhythms. I found it best to listen to the album as a whole, with each section segueing neatly into the next. Nevertheless, Track 6, Shake, remains a real stand-out, perhaps for its lighter touch, for the sinuous saxophone line and for Smith’s great groove. Track 9 has a Wayne Shorter feel to the saxophone and a Miles-at-his-darkest atmosphere to the electronics.
There are clearly loads of non-jazz influences being brought to bear here – whether from rock bands like Burial and improv outfits like Supersilent, or from once avant-garde composers like Varese and Stockhausen. Challenger and Ma synthesise them into a strong and specific identity. That, and the range and richness of the textures/atmospheres/grooves they create, makes Ma, for me, the most interesting band working in this field, and supplanting Trio VD in that spot.
Al Jarreau
For those of us who enjoyed the overlaps between jazz, soul and R ‘n’ B in the 1970s, singer Al Jarreau has a special place.
The uninitiated might find his voice a little too reminiscent of Daffy Duck, but it gives him a lithe and flexible instrument, and if the vehicles he chooses to use it on are his own soft-soul compositions, his musical imagination and attitude have always been those of a jazz singer. And a jazz singer up there with the best.
If in doubt, just have a listen to his fine 1977 album Look To The Rainbow.
Jarreau hasn’t been around much in this country for more than a decade but he returns to Birmingham on Sunday to fill Symphony Hall with that extraordinary voice.
Al comes to Britain fresh from appearing at the North Sea Jazz Festival where he performed with Jon Hendricks and Kurt Elling in front of the Metropole Orchestra, conducted by Vince Mendoza.
His Birmingham concert starts at 7.30pm and tickets are available here or on 0121 780 3333.
Jazz in film is being celebrated tonight in the Town Hall as the National Youth Jazz Orchestra plays music originally written for films from Austin Powers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to Dirty Harry and The Taking Of Pelham 123.
These are players of great vitality and growing expertise, and the mix of youth and celluloid inspiration should deliver some explosive big band jazz.
It starts at 7.30pm and tickets are available here or on 0121 780 3333.
Although some of the local jazz venues are beginning to wind down for summer, the nonagenarian Andy Hamilton just keeps going. He leads his Blue Notes at the Bearwood Corks Club tonight and will be in the Symphony Hall foyer bar at Saturday lunchtime for one of his Sax In The City sessions.
Tonight’s gig starts after 8.30pm and entry is £4 on the door; Saturday’s session is free.
The Cobweb Collective is also keeping busy. Tonight Husk trumpeter Sam Wooster and Gambol bassist Chris Mapp take the stage with two giants of the free jazz scene, saxophonist Paul Dunmall and drummer Mark Sanders. These are all players of great personal character and it will be fascinating to hear their interaction.
It all happens at The Yardbird in Paradise Place with the band on from 9pm and the usual jam session following at 11pm. Entry is free.
Tomorrow’s Rush Hour session features saxophonist and flautist Casey Greene and promises contemporary jazz with a Latin tinge – just perfect for a balmy summer evening, or even a rainy one… The music runs from 5.30pm to 7pm and entry is free.
Finally, on Tuesday the Mike Fletcher Quartet is at The Spotted Dog in Warwick Street, Digbeth. It’s great to have his talented alto saxophonist and composer back on the Birmingham scene. The music starts at 8.30pm, a jam session usually follows, and there is an “audience donations policy” so please do support this one.
Come Together Move Apart
(No affiliated label)
Reviewed by JJ Wheeler
As the title suggests, there seems to be a lot of conflict in this record. We all know that jazz (like most music) is defined by tension and release, but there’s an edge to this second release from New York guitarist Nat Janoff that goes beyond the basic push and pull of most contemporary Bop-tinged music hailing from the other side of the Atlantic at the moment.
The realisation creeps in after several listens that, for me, the main conflict is between the bandleader’s composition and improvisation. In composition, melodies unravel slowly, they sit and groove in similar fashion to a classic organ trio. With unashamed simplicity the lines exuberate whistle-ability with great joy. However, as soon as the improvisation hits, the guitarist reels through melodic and harmonic lines at double tempo, granted with ease, but filling out the landscape with runs so fast the listener is almost out of breath by the second chorus.
Is this a criticism? Maybe. Some might argue that the improvisation could relate to the stimulus material more, rather than flying away in a more technically proficient but slightly more abrasive direction. On the other hand, many may find the change in textures provide a breath of fresh air, allowing the tunes to evolve into new creatures.
Bassist Francois Moutin seems to embrace the bandleader’s approach, providing densely populated bass lines which bubble and boil underneath the simplest of harmonic progressions, although perhaps threatening to spill over the edge occasionally? The level of technical proficiency from all four musicians on the album is highly commendable and ranks with the very best musicians of our generation. However, occasionally this level of competency seems to hinder the basic appeal (in an almost Neanderthal sense of human connection to the music) for the listener.
One musician who does seem to strike the balance between technical wizardry and connection with the music and audience is England’s own John Escreet. I’ve personally never heard John play in such a “straight ahead” (can we find a new term please? This one’s almost becoming a curse) context, but here his credentials in this area (as opposed to the more edgy, experimental and improvisational fields we might usually find Escreet in) are in no way damaged. Chris Carroll on drums also sounds like someone who is going to become a favourite of jazz musicians and audiences everywhere, although in a very similar mould to his contemporary, Johnathan Blake.
I’d like to finalise this piece by stating that this CD is definitely worth checking out. For all my gripes about technical ability impeding basic connection with the stimulus material (and these are intended more as question than statement of fact), the playing on this record is unbelievable, comparable to anything coming out of mainstream New York contemporary-Bop at the moment. Not only this, but Janoff’s compositions are delightful, with simple structures yet maintaining interest throughout. There’s no ‘skating’ or getting by, each moment seems to project meaning; something I find comes with experience and maturity.
You can read more about Nat Janoff and buy this CD here.
