Monthly Archives: November 2011

Mostly Jazz – what’s in a name?

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Labels shlabels and all that,  but thejazzbreakfast is pleased to see the Mostly Jazz Festival, just three years old next June, has been doing the ol’ deed poll business and has come up with a much more accurate name for what it does.

So, let the festival, which is set for 29 June to 1 July 2012, be known as of now as The Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul Festival.

Here’s how they tell it like it is in their press release which recently arrived:

“Doing exactly what it says on the tin, The Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul Festival offers a blistering weekend of Jazz, Funk & Soul with a host of household names bringing the party atmosphere back to Moseley Park!

“With the success of the festival growing each year, we are delighted to announce that BBC Radio 1’s purveyor of eclectic sounds Gilles Peterson and BBC Radio 6’s Funk & Soul maestro Craig Charles will be returning to curate the line up with some of their favourite acts. They’ll also be jumping behind the decks for sets at the official after show parties as well as DJing in the park!

“In 2011, Over 5,000 Jazz, Funk & Soul enthusiasts filled the park to witness the Hammond Legend, Booker T close the event in style following epic headline performances from The Cinematic Orchestra and Matthew Herbert Big Band. Further performances came from  the likes of Pigbag, Hidden Orchestra, Brandt Brauer Frick, Alice Russell, Smoove & Turrell & Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra.

“In 2012…. There will be, once again, two stages side by side at the festival, the second of which will feature up and coming talent. As in 2011, Tony Dudley-Evans’ development agency Birmingham Jazz and Birmingham’s premier jazz & funk parlour The Yardbird will be curating the second stage, whilst Gilles Peterson’s favourite Birmingham promoters Leftfoot will be taking the reins on friday. Each will showcase some of their top acts so expect to see a wealth of emerging sounds.

“The line ups for both stages will be announced gradually over the coming months but we can already guarantee some amazing artists for 2012! We’ll also be keeping you updated with further events happening in the build up to the festival!”

Tickets for Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul 2012 will be going on sale from next Monday via www.mostlyjazz.co.uk. To avoid booking fees there will also be the option to send in a postal form which is now available from the website. Alternatively, you can visit one of their outlets listed on the site to pick up the tickets in person.

They will be announcing the first set of artists on 21 January 2012 at an official launch party at the Hare & Hounds featuring Smoove & Turrell with their six piece live band. Details for this show and how to buy tickets are available at www.mostlyjazz.co.uk

Bryan Corbett Benefit gig by Garry Corbett

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Chris Bowden in full cry with Neil Bullock in the background showing his enjoyment. They were just two of the many musicians who gathered at No1 Chapel Street in Stratford last night for a special benefit gig organised by Stratford Jazz. They were helping to raise much needed funds for trumpeter Bryan Corbett, who has been unable to work due to ill-health and has just undergone surgery.

Garry Corbett writes: “The Bryan Corbett Benefit gig saw a packed house and a shifting ensemble that filled the room with enough good will and energy to power a rocket to the moon!

“Some old warhorses had new life breathed into them, the capacity audience responded with warmth, and the band responded in turn. Everyone was clearly enjoying themselves.

“Lots of money was raised for Bryan. One moving highlight came when Neil Bullock read out a text received from Bryan. He certainly had plenty of good vibes heading in his direction. What a fantastically uplifting evening. All musicians – all friends – working to the same end. Fantastic!”

For more of Garry Corbett’s rich and insightful photographs, not only with a jazz theme but a whole lot more, go to his flickr site here.

Bryan Corbett Benefit © Garry Corbett

Concert review: Bobby Wellins Quartet

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MAC, Birmingham UK
26-11-2011

The 75-year-old saxophonist apologised for forgetting the setlist and thanked us for “coming out this evening to Help The Aged…” Of course the joke was that even if he was old enough to be pianist Barry Green’s grandfather, they were still equally virile, equally quick-witted where playing music was concerned.

Completing the foursome were Wellins’ “son” Dave Whitford on double bass and “younger brother” Dave Wickens on drums.

Whether reworking a WC Handy Blues, a well-worn standard like My Funny Valentine, I’m Wishing from Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, or Antonio Carlos Jobim’s If You Never Come To Me, Wellins is a delight.

He leaves lots of space in his solos, declaring bits of the melody, breaking them up with boppish runs, sometimes articulating the note precisely, sometimes slurring them into each other, and adjusting his tone from bright and clear to breathy and diffuse, as it suits him, and as it suits what he wants to say. He has been playing long enough to sound, really, like no one but himself, the only other tenor player than springs to mind being Stan Getz, especially when the beat is a bossa.

All four musicians had generous solo space, and all made the most of it. Green often made do with just the right hand; leaving space for Whitford’s gorgeous sounding bass to deal with the lower registers. He might have pushed the worrying of one melodic fragment a little too far on one occasion, but his desire to find a new twist in the evergreen melodies was always fascinating.

There was a lovely moment when Wickens refused the offer of a solo near the end of the Jobim – he knew that his perfectly executed, brushed Brazilian rhythm which he had held throughout could not be bettered by breaking the magic.

Wellins’ new album is called Time Gentlemen, Please. Although the band on that session is not the same as this touring group, those three words are equally applicable: all have exemplary timing, all are musical gentlemen, and all left their audience well and truly pleased.

Late reminder: three good gigs tonight

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The in-yer-face option: Lea Delaria

Depending on where you are in the Midlands and whether your taste is for the quietly classy or the in-yer-face brilliant, there is some lovely stuff going on this evening.

If you are near Birmingham, head for the MAC in Cannonhill Park for an 8pm start and the quietly eloquent tenor saxophone stylings of Bobby Wellins. More here.

If you are closer to the Welsh borders, you might just be lucky enough to get the last tickets for the elegant Acoustic Triangle – double bassist Malcolm Creese, saxophonist Tim Garland and pianist Gwilym Simcock – at The Edge Arts Centre in Much Wenlock, also from 8pm. More here.

And if you are further east in the Midlands, and Derby is but a drive away, then the powerful and powerfully funny Lea Delaria is at the Darwin Suite in the Assembly Rooms. “Talks like a coffee grinder and sounds like a cross between Ella Fitzgerald and a Broadway diva,” wrote The Guardian. Shy and retiring is not the word. Lea lights up the room from 8pm. More here.

Concert review: Harold Budd/The Necks

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A E Harris Building, Birmingham UK
24-11-2011

This was the first time the American ambient composer Harold Budd had appeared in Birmingham, and it has come very late in his career. He has been making music since 1962 and although at the time he suggested a 2004 album and 2005 concert would be his last, luckily for us he changed his mind.

Budd played sparse motifs at the grand piano which were then manipulated electronically by Werner Dafeldecker. The music that resulted was gentle and subtly textured, full of space and light, and although the stage, when Dafeldecker moved about, was a little creaky for such quiet and placid music, this did not overly detract.

What The Necks – Chris Abrahams, Tony Buck and Lloyd Swanton – do is so rich with elements that confound and appear to contradict.

For a start, the instruments they play – piano, double bass and drum kit are, with the exception of arco bass – capable of making noises with a short sustain; yet the music the band wants to make depends, increasingly, on long, long, long unbroken sound. So long in fact, that the ultimate aim seems to be to create a sound that lasts as long as a Necks performance, usually little short of an hour.

Take clips of a performance 30 seconds apart or two minutes and the difference in what is happening would be minimal; do the same at ten minute intervals and the difference would be profound.

And in essence every Necks piece could be said to be the same: a large and gentle arc from quiet beginning through slow build and fill to slow descent and loosening; and yet every Necks piece is completely different and unique.

There does seem to have been a development over their 20-plus years together – and it has changed as subtly and slowly as one of their individual pieces – away from the more conventional rhythmic “grooves” – more identifiable melodic fragments, more conventional rock drum patterns – to an even further elimination of space in the music. It sounds and feels more compacted.

A prime example is Rum Jungle, the first track – there are only two, you will be relieved to note – on their new Mind Set disc (ReR NECKS 10), and last night’s performance in the perfectly apt surroundings of a former factory was another.

Abrahams started with a reflective piano figure that could have prompted a Keith Jarrett improvisation. Except that where Abrahams goes with such a figure is nowhere near where Jarrett would go. Buck added some mallets on toms and Swanton bowed low to produce a fairly mellow sound.

Fast forward three quarters of an hour and Abrahams was hammering out a high, jangling tattoo, Swanton was strumming speedily on a high chord and Buck was running a hand cymbal round the tom rim while rattling chimes against it. Such were the complex overtones and sonic clashes that the sound they were making – the listener would be prepared to swear to it – surely emitted from a hall full of pounding, pressing industrial machines such as might have been found in such a space as this 50 years ago. But no, this was still three acoustic musical instruments.

Yep, The Necks had entered RSI City and were having a riding triumphant.

The intellectual concentration and physical endurance of a Necks performance is compelling, the effect that it has on the listener and his or her concentration is unlike any other musical experience, and the consistency and singularity of purpose that the trio has refined over the last 20-plus years is remarkable.

No one else does this, no one comes even close. A superb performance and an event to remember for a long time.

Harold Budd & The Necks was a presentation by Sound And Music and Birmingham Jazz.