Monthly Archives: November 2011

LJF Concert review: Gretchen Parlato

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Kings Place, London UK
18-11-2011

There are gigs, there are good gigs, and there are gigs that are preceded by a measure of excited anticipation and deliver the bright shining faces of real jazz satisfaction. This was one of the last named.

The New-York based Californian and her band are terrific on record – just a cursory listen to The Lost And Found, their latest disc on ObliqSound, confirms the freshness of their take on the jazz and piano trio form – but in live performance they fill this music with even more energy, stretching it like some magic pliable plastic into new and exciting forms.

They began with Within Me, from her previous In A Dream album, double bassist Alan Hampton kicking it off with the low thrum, pianist Taylor Eigsti adding the floating chords and drummer Kendrick Scott stirring up a quiet storm with the brushes and rods. Parlato establishes her signature tone and place in the mix.

From this beginning and through material from The Lost And Found, Holding Back The Years, Juju, Still, Alo Alo, Circling, Better Than, All That I Can Say and How We Love, as well as Butterfly from In A Dream, the quartet develops a singular character, with the instrumentalists forming a bubbling hot vortex at the centre of which the singer maintains a cool, in every sense, fulcrum.

The rhythmic and dynamic expertise of all four is extraordinary. They shift the accents around, they pause, and fall back in perfectly, they deepen the groove and then “shallow” it gently again, Eigsti dams the notes of his solos up with tension and then lets them tumult and dissipate, Scott moves seamlessly from dramatic room-booming thumps to gorgeous fast yet gentle high-hat skitters.

Gretchen Parlato - oblique take on modern jazz singing

Parlato’s voice is as unmistakeable live as on record, small but perfectly formed and slicing clearly through the centre of the music, its power far greater than should be expected from such restrained delivery. The ripples on this water are barely discernible but there is no mistaking the depth beneath.

Hampton’s tune Still, with words by Parlato and delivered as a duet with Hampton on guitar, shows the links of this music to a folkier trend in contemporary American jazz, while her covering of Lauren Hill’s All That I Can Say, and the influence of Robert Glasper, who co-produced The Lost And Found, makes the connection with contemporary R’n'B and hip-hop beats.

On the inner sleeve of The Lost And Found, Parlato’s fringe echoes perfectly her neckline, creating an oblique line which upsets the conventions of the body; it’s an appropriate image to reflect Parlato’s oblique way of refiguring jazz singing in the 21st century.

 

LJF concert review: three free gigs

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Gwilym Simcock
St James’s, Picadilly, London UK
16-11-2011

To hear the solo pianist, nominee for The Mercury Prize 2011, playing in this lovely church and for no charge (a donation to the church was recommended) was a real privilege – and a real treat.

He started with These Are The Good Days, the title tune from that Mercury Prize album, and it summed up the joie de vivre Simcock brings to jazz. It’s an acknowledgement of how much he appreciates being able to make music for a living, and this joy was most effectively conveyed to a packed church – late-comers had to stand – through the music’s plethora of notes and melodies.

As with other of his compositions, one tune is not enough for Simcock – he multi-layers a few of them and then, somehow, seems to play them all simultaneously. Quite how he manages this with just ten digits on two hands, I have no idea.

More originals, The Gripper, Little People and Northern Smiles, followed, along with an improvisation on themes from Beethoven’s 5th which Simcock had been commissioned to write for a Radio 3 concert, and the finale was his very personal take on On Broadway.

Simcock welcomes his audience in to this often complex music with warm introductions and explanations. He is developing into one of the finest jazz “salesmen” we have.

Julian Siegel/Liam Noble
St James’s, Picadilly, London UK
18-11-2011

Another free lunchtime concert, more players who record for Basho Records, and another satisfying way to spend an hour in this lovely space. The autumn sun was angled through the clerestory windows as old friends Siegel and Noble held extended exchanges on Cedar Walton’s Fantasy In D, Siegel’s own Heart Song and Young And Foolish among others.

For both this and the Simcock gig, the sound started out rather hard and jangling but seem ed to settle and warm a little after a while. Since both were purely acoustic, this must have been down to my ears adjusting. Either that or the players adjusted their touch and breath to the space…

Siegel has a wide-ranging sound on tenor, able to be blowsy on One For JT, yet smoother and tighter of tone in Young And Foolish – and seeming to follow Tony Bennett’s phrasing in his duo version with Bill Evans, when stating the standard’s melody. Noble does fascinating things with closely-voiced, double-handed chord clusters of pummelling rhythmic power.

Both men imbue their expansive virtuosity with great depth of feeling and emotion intelligence.

Chris Mapp’s Gambol
The Barbican Free Stage
18-11-2011

Rather disconcertingly, the first sound I heard from a distance was the voice of Birmingham Jazz’s Tony Dudley-Evans over the PA. It was Friday, 5.30pm, I was in a foyer, but 120 miles from the one where I would usually hear this introduction.

But this was Birmingham Jazz’s showcase at the London Jazz Festival and not only does Chris Mapp’s band (mostly) hail from the second city but electric bassist Chris writes music inspired by its life and characters.

Secondhand Telly, Blues Blues and Locals all sounded good and strong, but the standout tune for me was Time’s Arrow – Chris was apologetic about the title – which pianist Dan Nicholls stoked to raging fire, before saxophonist Lluis Mather fanned the flames.

I’m not sure the electronic intro to Bill’s Mother’s quite yet feel integrated fully enough into the music, but once the players settle into their more usual ways with their instruments it builds a fine head of steam.

This was the first time the trumpet role in this band has been filled by Percy Pursglove, and he brings an extrovert presence and stronger vitality which greatly benefits the band.

Sons of Dave, plus the rest of the week’s top gigs

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It’s a week showing the wide range of jazz available in Birmingham and around the Midlands, from wild and free to retro, plus the music of a real jazz legend.

The major concert of the week features one of the biggest names from the jazz canon, Dave Brubeck, though the man himself will be present only as the inspiration of his sons. Brubecks Play Brubeck features pianist Darius, bassist Chris and drummer Dan with Dave O’Higgins as guest saxophonist, and reinterprets those famous tunes like It’s a Raggy Waltz and Unsquare Dance. The band also plays some of their own material.

Brubecks Play Brubeck is at Warwick Arts Centre tonight, starting at 8pm. Tickets are available at 024 7652 4524 or at www.warwickartscentre.co.uk

Tonight at The Yardbird we have the wild and free. Trio Riot met in Helsinki, seem to be working out of Trondheim in Norway, and comprise Mette Rasmussen on alto saxophone, Sam Andreae on tenor saxophone and David Meier on drums. They should suit the city streetwise crowd down to the ground with their edgy, free jazz and rock influenced music.

It starts at 9pm and entry is free. More at www.cobwebcollective.com

Tomorrow, former Birmingham Conservatoire student and 2010 BBC Scotland Young Jazz Musician Of The Year, saxophonist John Flemming brings his quartet back to Birmingham for a Rush Hour Blues session. The music starts at 5.30pm and runs till 7pm in the Symphony Hall foyer bar. Free entry. More at www.birminghamjazz.co.uk

Meanwhile, if you happen to be in London tomorrow early evening, you can still catch some Birmingham jazz music because the Steve Tromans Quartet and Chris Mapp’s Gambol are playing on the Barbican’s free stage as part of the London Jazz Festival. See. www.londonjazzfestival.com

On Sunday down in Stratford-upon-Avon the amazing guitarist, composer and bandleader Nic Meier leads a trio for Stratford Jazz. Nic, who is from Switzerland but bases himself in London, has a highly original style, drawing influences not just from jazz but from Flamenco, Latin and Middle-Eastern music as well.

As well as playing a fairly regular guitar, he also plays something called the glissentar, which I suspect might be a guitar without frets. Yes, he’s a brave player.

On bass is Paolo Minvervini and on drums is Demi Garcia.

The Nic Meier Trio play from 8pm at No 1 Shakespeare Street, and tickets are £8 on the door. More at www.stratfordjazz.org.uk

Something a bit different on Monday evening. The Australian singer and bandleader C W Stoneking is now based in Bristol, which means we might get to hear a bit more of his extraordinary bellow of a voice, and his mainly brass band.

Described as “a composer of blues, hokum and jungle music”, Stoneking is in the strangely timeless troubadour tradition, and inhabits a Tom Waits meets Joseph Conrad world full of sailors in tricky situations, whether on shore leave or stuck up tropical rivers.

He plays all kinds of interesting stringed instruments, from resonator guitars to banjos, most of them as ancient as the musical world he favours.

If he has a band with him it is likely to be the Primitive Horn Orchestra, a brass band with tuba for bass.

CW Stoneking is playing at St John’s Church, near the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, at 8pm. Find out more at www.cwstoneking.com

Finally, two dates to get in the diary are Thursday, November 24, and Sunday, November 27. The former is a very special double bill of Australian piano trio The Necks and ambient keyboard maestro Harold Budd (see www.birminghamjazz.co.uk to book) and the latter is a special benefit gig for trumpeter Bryan Corbett who is unwell and needs urgent surgery (see the line-up at www.stratfordjazz.org.uk). More about both these gigs next week.

LJF concert review: Nik Bartsch’s Ronin

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Kings Place, London UK
16-11-2011

There is something completely right about hearing this band within the oak veneers of Hall One at Kings Place – oak that all comes from the same single oak tree. There is that kind of  unity in Nik Bartsch’s Ronin.

Except that while that single oak now finds itself split into parts, whether panelling, columns or seat backs, in Ronin the parts come together before our very eyes and ears, to form one  complex and fascinating whole.

Pianist and composer Bartsch, saxophonist/clarinettist Sha, percussionist Andi Pupato, bassist Thomy Jordi and drummer Kaspar Rast really do make music that lives up to the hyperbolic statement: like nothing you have ever heard before.

It gets to the very elemental parts of music, and explores group cohesion and interaction of the subtlest kind, while it’s about it. In the liner notes to the band’s most recent CD, Llyria (ECM 2742820), Bartsch refers to the band as a “socio-musical organism”. He quotes Wittgenstein – “The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity” – and, essentially, Ronin seems to be a vehicle to explore the  aspects of music that bring us delight.

Listening to this band is to be reminded of just how integral to one’s life is the pulse, and how we enjoy its manipulation, whether in rhythmic grooves, unexpected accents, one rhythmic accent crossing another and both confusing our expectations and stimulating our interest. The pieces, from Llyria, often start in fragments, and, as a second, seemingly contradictory fragment is overlaid on the first, one thinks – “how the heck is this going to work”. And then, somehow, it all slots into place and acquires the momentum of a speeding train.

Nik Bartsch

Bartsch is also fully aware of the importance of making this music live. “As the band’s composer, I precisely set down most of the pieces in notation, but in live performances it becomes, at some point, impossible to tell what is composed, interpreted or improvised.”

There are times, during the performance, when the fully focussed Bartsch will break into a shared grin with a member of the band. From the auditorium, and without such comprehensive knowledge of the music, we can only guess at what joke they are sharing, what delight at a particularly subtle, or perhaps mistaken, bit of detail in their playing. What we can share in is the sheer exhilaration that comes from interplay so difficult to attain but so seemingly lightly worn.

All the players are exceptional, and special mention should go to electric bassist Thomy Jordi, who has replaced Bjorn Meyer since Llyria was made – it can’t be easy slotting in to a band in which the organic whole is so important – but my attention is always drawn, ultimately to kit drummer Kaspar Rast, a groove-meister of the most sublime kind.

The music on Llyria is wider in scope and more liberated from its zen funk essentials than its two predecessors, and the material acquires even more “looseness” in performance, though “looseness” is a highly relative term when discussing Ronin’s music.

Their single 90-minute set was greeted with a unanimous standing ovation, and we were rewarded with a terrific encore, the most extraordinary aspect of which was a fade from pretty full-on funkiness to absolute silence, perfectly graded over seven minutes or so. It was as mesmeric as a sun ever so slowly sinking over the horizon.

LJF concert review: Robson & Tobin

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Phil Robson IMS Quintet featuring Mark Turner
Christine Tobin – Sailing To Byzantium
Purcell Room, South Bank, London
15-11-2011

This was a concert of two substantial halves: one the official launch of a new CD, and of music heard earlier in the year, the other a preview of music not heard before and due for more exposure in 2012.

Tobin first.

When it comes to making sense of a lot of words in a short space of time, and bringing clarity and immediacy to complex ideas and statements, Christine Tobin has to be the first choice. Which is why the works of Ireland’s greatest poet are perfect for her.

Some of the poems we heard transformed into music were familiar – Sailing To Byzantium, The Second Coming, Wild Swans At Coole, Long-Legged Fly – while others were new to me. Tobin’s music – full of her own characteristic melodic turns and intervals – manages to be rich and rounded while still able to transform into spikiness when the words need it, so this first half of the evening had both remarkable cohesion and remarkable range.

Her integration of a variety of vocal effects, from whispers to groans and grating, were particularly effective in the discordant “beastly” interlude within The Second Coming.

And the band – guitarist Phil Robson, pianist Liam Noble, cellist Kate Shortt and bassist Dave Whitford, all old friends – is wonderfully cohesive around her.

Pianist Liam Noble, in particular, contributed fine solos, especially in Byzantium, the third song in and the moment when the band’s slight new material stiffness gave way to a more relaxed enjoyment.

Christine promised that more extensive touring of this material would accompany the CD release next year, and I can’t wait to hear it again, sounding even more lived-in and developed.

Now Robson.

I was lucky enough to hear Phil Robson’s IMS Quartet earlier this year when the band first played these Derby Jazz-commissioned, communications-themed original compositions, and it was great to hear them again in a much more sympathetic acoustic than the boxy recital hall at Birmingham Conservatoire could provide.

The band was more comfortable with the music, too, and Robson soloed more than I remember from before.

A major highlight was Mark Turner’s exemplary solo on Telepathy And Transmission, a classic example of how, with his singular melodic take on the material, his use of long, complex lines, subtle timing and almost imperceptible dynamic development, the saxophonist can create intense heat from a cool manner. It certainly inspired Robson, who followed it with an overdrive-drenched and intense solo of his own.

The rhythm pair of Michael Janisch on double bass and Ernesto Simpson on drums, were  clearly enjoying themselves greatly with the accented groove of Immeasurable Code, and the blend of soprano saxophone and alto flute on long harmony lines in Fire And The Drum brought extra deliciousness to the final tune of the evening.

The great thing about jazz is that no two performances can ever be the same and, while a player can be on fire on one night, on the next he might not quite reach that special place. So it was for flautist Gareth Lockrane, who had shone at the Birmingham performance but last night, despite working strongly at the material, never quite managed to break into the sunlight and remained stuck beneath persistent low cloud of endless, and quite repetitive, trips up and down his instrument.

By contrast, the most radiant musician of the evening was undoubtedly Christine Tobin, whose every note felt inspired. With this Yeats material she really does deserve fulsome bouquets and acclaim – and not just from those in the know in the jazz world.