Round up: Azhar Saffar, Jazz Factory, Emma Hutchinson

Much as I love my CDs (and mp3s, 4s etc), its  good to remember jazz is a live music. The visceral excitement of sensing a band go up a gear in a heartbeat as somethings clicks is unbeatable. Friday last week at the Bebop (27th) we arrive a bit late – sorry Azhar – but walked into the rythmn section really fizzing. Anders Olinder on piano and keyboards and Will Harris on bass were really driving the band. They both play a bit ‘up’ on the beat and impart a real sense of energy and excitement to the simplest of swing tunes. A mark of class. I liked Azhar’s repertoire as well, ranging from Chic Corea, John Mclaughlin tunes, through originals and even a beautiful ballad credited to Kurt Elling which summoned a show stopping melodic bass solo from Will Harris – I swear everyone stopped breathing. On Monday, I popped into the Jazz Factory concert,  an end of term concert for the Bradford on Avon based workshops. This is one up for the inclusive end of music making. My random pleasurable moment was wondering what the approx 14 year old alto player and the flute player who could surely have been his gran, chat about whilst waiting their turn to have a blow on C-Jam blues. There are a good 50 ish people involved in this on a regular basis. I do sometimes wonder, if there are that many people doing the music (there are a number of other such workshops in the area) why the relatively few jazz gigs struggle for audience. Emma Hutchinson down at the vaults tonight had pulled a few folk in, but numbers have been a bit low this autumn. I hear that its likely that the pub will only support a monthly gig from January. Wade Edwards has sustained a minor miracle keeping the gig going. My source tells me that Iain Ballamy will be down at the end of January to put the trio through its paces so that will start the new year with a bang. If you can’t wait that long, get down to Future Inn in Bristol on Sunday to see Iain with his stellar ‘Anorak’ band.

Talks with a punter – Jonthan Gee Trio, November 21st, Chapel Arts Centre: Bath

Jonathan Gee played to small but enthusiastic crowd at Chapel Arts Centre last night. Sadly I was not there to boost sorely needed numbers (how long can they continue to put on gigs of this quality to tiny audiences? It’ll not be just Bath’s loss if it goes). I was attempting to entertain a somewhat larger but considerably less attentive audience nearby. Happily, I was able to discuss the gig with a pair of ears that were present so here’s what I’ve gleaned.

Sometimes words fail. We just hear music. The experience isn’t filtered through language and description. So the very first notes of the trio last night evoked a simple sigh of recognition for my spy. “Ah… that’s what it should sound like”. There were a few more ‘Ah…’ moments as lyrical, unaccompanied, piano intros morphed into a melody with the bass joining at the perfect moment. Joseph Laporte on bass appeared like Gee’s ‘third ear’, hearing what he was hearing and responding as if they were one. Many tunes built from these beginnings into driving post bop swing, surfing on the urgency of Nasheet Waits drumming. This was the pattern repeated perhaps once too often for the taste of my informant, but there were plenty of other moments. The first set closed with a beautiful Hermeto Pascoal ballad Santa Caterina and the second set contained a somewhat unexpected vocal number from Gee and a couple of roaring drum solos from Waits. This was an evening of world class piano trio music with the ceaseless flow of lyrical ideas fron Jonathan Gee at the piano to the fore.

Thanks then to R for the report. This is a first for me – remote reviews! I’d be happy to relay, post or link to comment and reviews if anyone else would like to chip in who comes across this little blog.

Not Rollins Week; the ones that got away

Were I to have been loaded (financially you understand), capable of zipping around London at speed (and possibly in two places at once), I might have got in to see Thomas Stanko  on Saturday, or Bobby Hutcherson at Ronnie’s. The one I really regret not seeing is Kurt Elling at pizza express. This is just too much. I’d have been broke by Sunday and not able to afford Chick Corea and his mates. Being quite hip and in the know, I’d have checked out Robert Glasper as well. That’s without trying to catch all our home grown stars scattered all around London – and there’s still a week of it to go. Just as well we are skulking at the other end of the M4. I’m glad that others made these gigs though. So if you want to know how it was; Chick here or here, Robert Glasper here or here, Bobby here and a Stanko review here (but not from London).

Rollins Week Part 2b: Sonny Rollins, Barbican, Saturday 14th November

My abiding recollection of Saturday’s gig is the feeling of warmth that seemed to emanate from the the stiff legged, white haired, near octogenarian bundle of energy that  fronted the band . He was clad in a  baggy, silky shirt of more or less the same orange as all the signs around the Barbican, and it was tempting to assume that they had refurbished their look in his honour. That I’m recalling what it felt like to be there more than the musical content seems appropriate. I can’t better the description in the programme notes: muscular hard-bop, lilting ballads and cheeky calypsos. It was the first cheeky calypso about half way through that sent the energy levels through the roof. He stood at the footlights, honking, swaying, conducting himself and generally firing everyone up. My other pair of ears summed it up. “He’s getting down” she whispered. She also commented on the musical conversations that seemed to go on. After the theme of a lilting ballad say, Sonny honks and nudges, playing fragments of melody and long notes as one of the sidemen gets going on their moment in the spotlight – a bit of one to one on stage coaching. And all to soon it was the blues to jam out. We couldn’t believe how the time had flown. The encore? Don’t stop the Carnival of course.  This is what he does. Compare the review of yesterday with that from three years ago by John Fordham here and here. Not quite the same set but not far off. But it doesn’t seem to matter. Somehow he manages the trick of making it feel he’s communicating directly so the instrument and the material are a bit secondary.

Rollins Week Part 2a: Liam Noble Trio, Barbican Free Stage, Saturday 13th November

Saturday of Rollins week and Liam Noble’s Trio were playing on the free stage at the Barbican giving their interpretations of Dave Brubeck tunes an outing. This was the opening weekend of the London Jazz Festival and its quite something if you can hear a band of this quality just by stumbling in out of the rain into the Barbican foyer. Liam is a phenomenal improviser and Dave’s Whitford and Wickens seemed to effortlessy follow every whimsical twist and turn.  Several of the themes they played are incredibly well known (Take 5, Blue Rondo a la Turk, In your own Sweet way) but this treatment never seemed hackneyed. The band sidled up to themes after an extended group improvisation the melody gradually emerging, or stated them with the utmost simplicity on piano over a stripped down bass line. The piano improvisations were percussive and quirkily melodic by turns. Liam Noble seems led by melodic ideas and motives and the sense of him pursuing ideas and inspiration on the hoof is almost palpable.  This is was exciting stuff. It was often dense, abstract music and not to everyone’s taste. For me, it couldn’t have sounded less like what was to come from Sonny Rollins later and couldn’t have been more in the spirit of committed, melodic and rhythmic improvisation that the great tenor player exemplifies. No surprise that the pianist seemed genuinely awed to be a kind of curtain raiser for him as well as citing him as a hero.

Rollins Week Part 1; Chapel Arts Centre, 12th November

What do you do on rainy Thursday evening in Bath if you are local resident Clare Teal say, or Pee Wee Ellis of nearby Frome? Why you chip along to Chapel Arts Centre in Bath to see Denis Rollins with his new organ trio – Velocity Trio. I’m glad they did,  bringing their singing voice and sax respectively; when they joined the trio later in the evening it tied a very large bow on the evening. Not that Denis and his two pals (Pedro Segundo on drums and Ross Stanley at the organ) were in need of assistance. It was already a special evening before the guests joined in. The trio seemed to be on fire from the outset. They launched into a Rollins original, Hot to Trot, with no ceremony. This is organ trio music. Infectious grooves, the beat more coiled spring than merely propulsive, fiery soloing and the fun they were having very evident; there was nothing accidental about this – every chart that Ross Stanley produced seemed to need two music stands to accommodate it and about seven pages! There were plenty of great moments, Stanley’s soloing offered several; Segundo’s drum solo link between two tunes was another,  running the range from whisper to shout and from abstract shimmers to impossibly groovy, percussion like tatoos on the rims of drums and cymbals. The judicious use of some electronics by Rollins added such depth to the sound that i wondered a few times why he  would ever need more than three in the band. The material was varied. The funky samba like Hot to Trot was followed by slightly more classic organ trio grooves but veered of into  out and out swing as well as dipping into the funk pile.

Clare Teal and Pee Wee joined for a rendition of Georgia. We just sat back and revelled in the moment. Everyone on stage was having such a good time it woudl have been churlish not join in.

We are excitedly anticipating Rollins Week part 2 with Sonny at the Barbican on saturday. John Fordham has done an interview with the great man. A little voice is telling me however that this evening’s unheralded moments will retain a warm glow as intense as anything we might experience at the weeked.

Shadowing Vyv…. just coincidence: Local gigs and dark backrooms, 5th & 6th November

I had moment of anxiety when I realised that i was going to see Vyv Hope Scott playing on both Thursday and Friday nights this week. Were he to have noticed, I was fearful he might think I was stalking him or making a special study.  My main impression of the two evenings (watching local singer Ros Cuthbert with the house band at St. James Wine Vaults on Thursday and Vyv’s band The balance on Friday at the Be-Bop club in Bristol) was two striking thoughts. The first, not for the first time, was a warm glow at how many people there are singing, playing, composing just in our little corner of England, and really bringing something creative and thoughtful to our ears with no particular expectation of great reward – other than many be a bit of a cheer and petrol money plus  bit. This is repearted in most cities and many towns across the country – what a rich vein of our cultural life it is. My second thought was what a versatile and complete pianist Vyv is. These were two very different bands and he brought the same focus and intensity to both gigs sounding very different. So Ros, while not really straying far from standards territory brings an interesting twist to a singer repertoire, choosing material that is often not sung (Night in Tunisia; Mercy Mercy), always arranged with care and includes some soul and bluesey material. This gave Vyv plenty of opportunity to give his blues and swing muscles a workout. We have taken to popping into the Vaults as a regular haunt – long may it continue – and Ros’s confident delivery  and the bands tight groove made us glad we did on Thursday.

The Balance on the other hand whilst not actually playing oodles of ‘European jazz tunes’, have created a distinctive sound with guitar and piano led arrangements which brought an altogether different feel from Vyv. There were some great, gently grooving Ballads which evoked a rich melodic sound reminiscent of EST and Marcin Wasilewsky’s Trio and much ’straight 8s’ feel jazzy progressions with lilting, slightly abstract melodic lines,often doubled between piano and guitar. I think this band should be heard more. There’s a slight sense of them getting used to the material as an ensemble; I’m looking forward to keeping track of where they go next.

Jonny Bruce, St. James Wine Vaults, October 22nd

This was my first visit to the Vaults since the summer break and I was keen to hear Jonny Bruce.  I’ve seen him play previously with Dave Stapleton’s Quinet and he sat in with Ben Waghorn here a while back. He’s a fine, fluent player with plenty of imagination and has been getting some nice gigs so I’m not the only one to think so. This particular set made strangely little impression on me. Everyone played well. Vyv Hope-Scott is back in the piano chair for the house trio. He’s a more muscular swinging player than Andy Nowak so brings a different flavour to the band. You can count on fiery, blues inflected soloing when Vyv is in the house! I’m hoping to catch Vyv’s ‘European Jazz’ project The Balance at the BeBop Club on 6th November – it’ll show a different side to him. Tonight then, the standards reportoire and ’scratch’ nature of the gig didn’t quite let anyone’s personality shine through but but it was good to be back and it was a pleasant evening.

Who Dares Comment

Whose comments count on music and more specifically jazz? I’ve been meaning to post  one on this ever since my fellow Bristol blogger alluded to the issue in a post (about my trio – eek).

A few years ago I heard a well known player on the British scene ask of someone working for the production company  of an influential jazz broadcaster, whether the broadcaster was a player. The clear implication was that the broadcaster’s  aesthetic judgement about the music was  faulty  if he hadn’t passed a sort of qualification test by playing the music (presumably to some standard that would satisfy the rather legendary grouchiness of this musician). I’m still trying to unpack my instinctive horror at that sentiment and the reference in the blog has re-kindled the thought.

The essence of what I think is that everyone can hear the sentiment and intention behind a performance.  I’ll grant you some are gifted sharper ears than others, but my judgement is that ears for the qualities in music which move and excite (soul? authenticity?)  are not necessarily players’ ears. Its a commonplace that technical mastery is not the same as powers of expression. Who hasn’t been to a gig where the undisputed brilliance of the performance has failed to move?

That one may hear different things in the music if you play is natural; is it a qualification for sole licence to comment or opine? I think not. What a limited audience there would be!

There is an interesting development over the last 15 years or so  of increasingly  large numbers of jazz workshops and summer schools from which many, many people derive pleasure .  I came this route myself.  Most people will never perform much or desire to.  There are invariably a smattering of such folk in any jazz audience.  That experience certainly adds a dimension to the listening experience – I’m not sure it always alerts you to the ‘authenticity test’.

I finish with another recollection. This time of a hotly anticipated (by me)  Greg Osby gig a few years ago at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. What a band he had with him. They played a relentlessly abstract, hip, set. After duly slavering at the proximity of (newish) gods I had to admit to myself that I hadn’t been very excited or stirred by it. Me or them? Did I not understand? Or maybe they were just going through the motions and I was hearing a lack of fire from them.

Kit Downes Trio, Be-Bop Club, Friday 16th September

Flowing, elegant grooves; singing melodies; group improvisations that shifted from a whisper to exuberant, driving cascades of notes and a sense that this band breath as one. Kit Downes has been winning awards in other bands and in his own right for a couple of years now, deservedly so, but this was unquestionably a bravura collective effort albeit playing principally the pianist’s compositions. Drummer James Maddren provided one quintessential listening moment when, as he was clattering out a wonky rhythm providing a beautiful foil for the accents from the piano, he suddenly froze, played nothing and then struck the cymbal at the perfect moment to join the piano.  His drum solo consisting mainly of him gripping the ride with one hand whilst flailing at it with a brush in the other was another high light. Callum Gourlay’s bass insinuated its way into every tune, pitch perfect and singing as well as driving the music forward.

This music is firmly located in a particular contemporary territory. It was no accident that somehow I was moved to play Brad Mehldau’s Art of the Trio Vol 3, aptly entitled Songs, the next day. To my ears  both Downes’s trio and Curios (led by Tom Cawley to whom the bands first track (Tom’s Tune)was dedicated) are exploring territory first mapped out by Mehldau’s in the mid 90s and bringing their own particluar sound and voice to it. Tom’s Tune and the opener on Curios’ album (Little Sharks and Baby Dolphins) seem almost deliberately to reference the first track on Songs (Song-Song).

I can certainly  see what all the fuss is about with this band, I left with a spring my step and song in my heart! My other pairs of ears’ taste is slightly different – she prefers a few more swung quavers I fancy.  For me – I loved it.