Sounds from The Smoke

[Serial_Apologist]

A friend and I Overgrounded our way to Dalston to experience Paul Dunmall's newish quartet with Liam Noble (p) John Edwards (b) and Mark Sanders (d) at the Vortex last night. The first time round I was impressed enough to buy the CD "Go Straight Round the Square" (FMR), which had been recorded at the club on that very date back in November 2016. Some might see this as a re-incarnation of the equally free-wheeling Mujician, the quartet of Dunmall, Keith Tippett, Paul Rogers and Tony Levin, but the spirit of latter could never be re-invoked without Tippett's characteristic combination of whimsy and determination to kick the music in new directions by-your-leave at an instant's choice, but above all the presence and in-depth experience of Tony Levin. This is a harder, more focussed project. Two sets, two "numbers" apiece, few bands, it has to be said, manage to encapsulate the unsettled feeling of the times we live through with equal vehement determination, matching in all essentials the sense of outrage that typified earlier eras when jazz represented opposition keeping faith in communitarian values through music - one of them being the trio of the apparently inexhaustible Trevor Watts with Veryan Weston and Eddie Prevost at L'Klektik, back in July, and the other, this particular gathering of musical heavyweights. At the start of the second set, Paul paid a warm tribute to John Jack, in the audience, for his encounragement and promotion of the music over the many years, remarking that he still had his first-ever MU card from 1949!

[Serial_Apologist]

Bluesnik has just brought our attention to John Jack's passing, courtesy Richard Williams's Twitter. Not sure if this is permitted, but here goes:

https://twitter.com/rwilliams1947?lang=en

While aware of John from earlier years, I only ever got to meet him as a consequence of his presence at the Vortex -always with his missus, always at the same table, by the wall, opposite the window, three back from the bandstand. His omnipresence will be greatly missed. While gruff of manner, he was always friendly to me. Sad to say, but that tribute to him by Paul Dunmall from the stand at that gig was timely.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

If you Google -wallofsound.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/ -there's a very interesting interview with him about the late 1960s Brit scene, Surman, Europe, the Bluenotes, Westbrook, Cadillac records, David Murray etc.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

If you Google -wallofsound.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/ -there's a very interesting interview with him about the late 1960s Brit scene, Surman, Europe, the Bluenotes, Westbrook, Cadillac records, David Murray etc.

BN.

Will do later. Muchas gracias.

[Serial_Apologist]

Trish Clowes's My Iris at The Vortex, Tues 12 Sept

I saw Trish perform some of the material from her album of this rather strange name at the Barbican as part of last November's London Jazz Festival. Trish had announced the recording as being due out this last January, but that she had a few pre-release copies going for the usual tenner. As the band were packing up, I queued behind 3 or 4 prospective buyers, only for Trish to apologise that all had sold! Come january, there were several copies placed prominently on a special stand as you entered the Ray's Jazz section on the third floor at Foyles, and so I was able to get myself one, albeit at the shop price , which Trish signed for me at her duo gig with Gareth Williams at Cadogan Hall a couple of months ago.

This time the same line-up, with the added benefit of the decent Vortex piano, was showcasing some of the materials from the album, plus new material on an album due out in a few months' time, we were told. It's a week since I were there, chatting unbeknownst of the sadness to come to John Jack's widow-to-be, and so it came as something of a shock to discover that the booking for two made by my friend the day previous had given us the very table that those two had always occupied! Thoughts as to the unlikelihood of Mrs Jack - Sheila, Shirley, I can't remember - ever coming to the club, they seemed so inseparable - may have negatively affected my impressions of the evening.

There's no question that Trish is a serious committed person to the music who thinks deeply about the times - a couple of the themes, one of which she introduced by singing the words of a poem - were about exile and forced migration. He music is increasingly composition-shaped in an idiom which veered between the opener, strongly reminiscent of Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia, and one of two tunes she played spiritedly on soprano, and complex labyrinthine structures that seemed more contrived to test her abilities and those of her bandspeople than liberate improvisation, which for some of us is the whole point. It may turn out that a new genre, somewhere midway between jazz and modern classical music, is in the process of genesis; in which case, as I have argued elsewhere, jazz could be the saviour of the kind of mainstream modernism that increasingly restricts programmers to short novelty introductory pieces at Proms style events, rather than Third Stream as envisaged in my early days with the music. I have to get my head around that prospect, and what it means for conviviality, decidedly on the backburner at this event.

[Serial_Apologist]

Last Thursday we went and saw Alexandra Ridout's Solar Flares at The Vortex. People who might remember the impressive 17-year old trumpet player and RAM alumna winning the Jazz Section award from the Beeb's annual Musician of the Year competition would have been impressed by her and her group of teenage hard boppers playing a set of self-penned tunes in a decidedly Clifford Brown vein, but for those of us who demur at the "mastery" (wish there was a better word than "professionalism") undoubtedly evidenced on the basis that the tradition has had six decades to absorb the intricacies of style, there is always the answer that these kids haven't had that amount of time to take it in! - and anyway, one has to start from somewhere - didn't Wynton? Hmmm.

Tonight it's Tim Whitehead's British Standards Time at the Bull's Head - an all-star (from the Brit perspective) line-up consisting of Tim Whithead, Chris Biscoe and Pete Hurt on saxes, Dave Jones bass and the excellent if overlooked Gary Wilcox on drums, that specialises in popular music spawned from our folk and music hall traditions. Although they've been around for some years I haven't seen them, and intend to go, provided the signalling problem on the Waterloo main line has been put right!

[Serial_Apologist]

A convivial if small crowd for last evening's Bull's Head. Since they opened the converted annexe as the new club, the proprietors seem resigned to setting out the audience space to cater for only 20 or so "patrons", compared to the previous much larger space inside the main pub area. We were treated to two relaxed sets, including standards and folk settings, Tim Whitehead mainly on tenor, Chris Biscoe alto, alto clarinet and baritone, and Tim accompanying his singing guitar-playing daughter on soprano for two Beatles and John Martyn tunes (yep, the usuals) in the young Joni Mitchell style. Pete Hurt wasn't there, but ever-dependant pianist Kate Williams was, giving a rendition of a Vaughan Williams opening to a folk tune presented on bass and two clarinets, then going into 3/4 for a Bill Evansish piano trio investigation of the theme. New conditions at the club impose a 10.30 "curfew" in Chris's words, this sadly curtailing proceedings while at the same time allowing time for afterchat and my 2300 train link from Barnes Bridge to Clapham Junction, and thence home: food outlets on the long bridge linking the two sides of the station now remain open to midnight, thank either God or TfL.

I forgot the Vortex link to the Vortex site advertising last Thursday's abovementioned Alexandra Ridout gig and including a link to the number she played as her opener, which I now include to give an idea:

http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/event/blow-the-fuse-presentsthe-alexandra-ridout-quintet-solar-flare/

Alison Rayner's first half trio, Deirdre Cartwright showing her best guitar playing and Louise Elliott's flute up there with the finest, was a compensatory reminder of Blow The Fuse's once-monthly welcome at the shoebox claustrophobic Vortex, the audience heavily female-outnumbering, unlike most, now one hopes returned to its place on the itinerary with the added draw of a regular double presentation.

(Something not quite right about the syntax in that last bit, but you get my drift...)

[Serial_Apologist]

Tonight is the second of Malija's two-nighters at The Vortex - part of a tour of the south, southwest and midlands that ends on Nov 13 (Cadogan Hall) before resuming in January and Feb next year. Consisting of Mark Lockheart on tenor and soprano saxes, Liam Noble piano and Jasper Hoiby on bass, the band name amalgamates those of its three members, each of whom supplies the compositions. Most of the music is through-composed, but giving room for on-the-spot harmonic and rhythmic twists and straight-ahead linear/melodic improvisation aplenty, with a predominant mood of levity - not without adventurousness, but a far cry from the macho-ness Lockheart dealt imv questionably with, to my mind, in Polar Bear a while back. More than anyone else, the style brought the music of the French neo-classical composer Jean Francaix to my mind.

I am delighted to report the presence of Shirley at the gig last night - John Jack's widow, who seems to be bearing up remarkably well under the circs: "We'd been together since 1979" - and saying his departure by no means meant she would no longer be attending gigs! From what she told me, John had died from a lung infection, having been admitted to UCH hospital a few days earlier with breathing difficulties. She mentioned having been able to talk with him almost right to the end, despite his having to wear an oxygen mask.

[Serial_Apologist]

This Grauniad obit for John Jack came belatedly to my notice yesterday:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/sep/24/john-jack-obituary

[CGR]

Most of the music is through-composed
.

Mmm... I've never gone for that sort of stuff myself. Arranged heads, yep. But I do rather like my jazz to be mostly improv. After all, that's what jazz is all about.

Looking forward to a trip into town to see Chris Ingham's REBOP on Wednesday as part of the London Jazz Festival. An evening hard bop etc. from the classic Blue Note era.

[Serial_Apologist]

Kitted out and Bourne again

Just now back from the Kit Downes/Matthew Bourne duet gig at the Union Chapel, Islington - so billed.

In fact this was a tripartite gig, starting off with what I would describe as a novelty group: a line-up covering songs from Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" to Joni's "Yellow Taxi", and three specially commissioned originals that were only such by dint of lacking in anything but tweeness, performed by a would-be opera mezzo soprano whose tendency to suddenly deliver of herself in a very loud voice did nothing to mitigate its jangly finger-nail on-blackboard timbre, fronting a line up of clarinet, harp and double bass calling itself The Hermes Experiment. Avant garde for the Derby & Joan demographi beckoning. Aurally this has to be the equivalent of the gift shop at National Trust properties and art galleries; I wasn't sure if the sickly smell of bright orange homemade soap was coming from the stage or the direction of those clapping most enthusiastically at the end. A small group, it has to be said, for this was hardly the stuff of any named jazz festival, or those present, presumably waiting to be Bourne again. ( I won't crack that one again).

Following that we were treated to (Swiss?) pianist/composer Nik Bartsch, a rare solo set, we were told, by some who specialises in "Trance music", hair shaven in echt-zen follicular sub minimalist and dressed to suit in a billowy kind of black track suit. What followed was for the most part too predictably directional to call trance in any way, a good half of the single movement building a series of regularly paced modulatory steps over the original 5/4 motif that introduces the second movement of Borodin's second symphony in what can only be termed post-John Adams in style in the most obvious way; but halfway through something interesting began to emerge that had me glad not to have gone outside for a quick vape in the rain, as, one hand inside the instrument, dampening some strings, Mr Bartsch utilised how cross rhythms in repetition in juxtaposition with a grand piano's inner acoustic can produce a third sonority, a billowing resonance akin to breathing. This is something Keith Tippett has been doing with ideal instruments for well nigh four decades, and I well remember him telling an interviewer that he intended getting these innovations down on vinyl before some smart alec came along and made money out of them; but it was worth it from knowing that somebody has now taken up the idea, even though he must have felt necessary to take the "naive" audience by the hand through familiar territory in order to get them there.

Details were given by the person introducing the acts of Daylight Music, stagers of this, an EFG London Jazz Festival collaboration, and other acts at the Union Chapel, mostly cross-genre musical events. LJF blurb had this gig down as a fiver to get into; the lady on the door was telling incomers "Just give whatever you can afford", leading me to say, "Well, a fiver it is then!" before finding out from the stage that the Chapel, a decommissioned late Victorian church, operates as a charity on behalf of the homeless and others in need. I wasn't sure if it was volunteers running the event, but the home-made cookeries, including a delicious quiche with asparagus and goats cheese and excellent carrot cake, were ridiculously cheap by the usual London standards, and I emptied my pockets of whatever change I had left into the bucket as I left.

But back to the gig. I think the Downes/Bourne duo suffered - in part from the David vs Goliath imbalance inherent in "pitching" [sic] acoustic piano against church organ; in part from differences in creative temperament, however adaptable both men are capable of being, as evidenced across the scope of their activities. "No jokes in this set" announced Matthew as he came on, The fact that this was part of a jazz festival had not been evidenced from any of the fare thus far into proceedings; to start with, it had been pre-arranged that each man would do a solo before culminating in a get-together; the organ suddenly made the venue feel much less deconsecrated as Kit took us into sombre terrain, closer to the French organ loft of Marcel Dupré or Maurice Duruflé than John Taylor with John Surman in Salisbury Cathedral let alone Fats Waller playing "I've Found My New Baby"; and, not the least in inhibitive terms, the immediate pre-announcement that Kit had already recorded, on this very organ, for ECM! First Kit played, then Matthew attempted pastoral territory, then it was back to Kit for more of the same; when the final meeting came Matt fought gamely against the bloating mass of organ sonority emerging from stygian initial depths, and it was not until the final detumescence that followed swift on the climax that a meeting of minds of sorts brought matters to a tidyish close.

If there are any reviews of this, I wonder what will be said.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just now back from the Kit Downes/Matthew Bourne duet gig at the Union Chapel, Islington - so billed.

In fact this was a tripartite gig, starting off with what I would describe as a novelty group: a line-up covering songs from Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" to Joni's "Yellow Taxi", and three specially commissioned originals that were only such by dint of lacking in anything but tweeness, performed by a would-be opera mezzo soprano whose tendency to suddenly deliver of herself in a very loud voice did nothing to mitigate its jangly finger-nail on-blackboard timbre, fronting a line up of clarinet, harp and double bass calling itself The Hermes Experiment. Avant garde for the Derby & Joan demographi beckoning. Aurally this has to be the equivalent of the gift shop at National Trust properties and art galleries; I wasn't sure if the sickly smell of bright orange homemade soap was coming from the stage or the direction of those clapping most enthusiastically at the end. A small group, it has to be said, for this was hardly the stuff of any named jazz festival, or those present, presumably waiting to be Bourne again. ( I won't crack that one again).

Following that we were treated to (Swiss?) pianist/composer Nik Bartsch, a rare solo set, we were told, by some who specialises in "Trance music", hair shaven in echt-zen follicular sub minimalist and dressed to suit in a billowy kind of black track suit. What followed was for the most part too predictably directional to call trance in any way, a good half of the single movement building a series of regularly paced modulatory steps over the original 5/4 motif that introduces the second movement of Borodin's second symphony in what can only be termed post-John Adams in style in the most obvious way; but halfway through something interesting began to emerge that had me glad not to have gone outside for a quick vape in the rain, as, one hand inside the instrument, dampening some strings, Mr Bartsch utilised how cross rhythms in repetition in juxtaposition with a grand piano's inner acoustic can produce a third sonority, a billowing resonance akin to breathing. This is something Keith Tippett has been doing with ideal instruments for well nigh four decades, and I well remember him telling an interviewer that he intended getting these innovations down on vinyl before some smart alec came along and made money out of them; but it was worth it from knowing that somebody has now taken up the idea, even though he must have felt necessary to take the "naive" audience by the hand through familiar territory in order to get them there.

Details were given by the person introducing the acts of Daylight Music, stagers of this, an EFG London Jazz Festival collaboration, and other acts at the Union Chapel, mostly cross-genre musical events. LJF blurb had this gig down as a fiver to get into; the lady on the door was telling incomers "Just give whatever you can afford", leading me to say, "Well, a fiver it is then!" before finding out from the stage that the Chapel, a decommissioned late Victorian church, operates as a charity on behalf of the homeless and others in need. I wasn't sure if it was volunteers running the event, but the home-made cookeries, including a delicious quiche with asparagus and goats cheese and excellent carrot cake, were ridiculously cheap by the usual London standards, and I emptied my pockets of whatever change I had left into the bucket as I left.

But back to the gig. I think the Downes/Bourne duo suffered - in part from the David vs Goliath imbalance inherent in "pitching" [sic] acoustic piano against church organ; in part from differences in creative temperament, however adaptable both men are capable of being, as evidenced across the scope of their activities. "No jokes in this set" announced Matthew as he came on, The fact that this was part of a jazz festival had not been evidenced from any of the fare thus far into proceedings; to start with, it had been pre-arranged that each man would do a solo before culminating in a get-together; the organ suddenly made the venue feel much less deconsecrated as Kit took us into sombre terrain, closer to the French organ loft of Marcel Dupré or Maurice Duruflé than John Taylor with John Surman in Salisbury Cathedral let alone Fats Waller playing "I've Found My New Baby"; and, not the least in inhibitive terms, the immediate pre-announcement that Kit had already recorded, on this very organ, for ECM! First Kit played, then Matthew attempted pastoral territory, then it was back to Kit for more of the same; when the final meeting came Matt fought gamely against the bloating mass of organ sonority emerging from stygian initial depths, and it was not until the final detumescence that followed swift on the climax that a meeting of minds of sorts brought matters to a tidyish close.

If there are any reviews of this, I wonder what will be said.

Enthralling stuff. You venture forth into the jazz mists and festival smog like Sherlock Monk so that the nervous can safely avoid the footpads! And "detumescence", that must be a first time for that term on this bored. But it does seem highly appropriate. And a mezzo soprano stripping the wallpaper...takes me straight back to a early 60s grammar school recital by a Welsh trio of advanced years "introducing the boys to proper music". Yewww wat?

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Enthralling stuff. You venture forth into the jazz mists and festival smog like Sherlock Monk so that the nervous can safely avoid the footpads! And "detumescence", that must be a first time for that term on this bored. But it does seem highly appropriate. And a mezzo soprano stripping the wallpaper...takes me straight back to a early 60s grammar school recital by a Welsh trio of advanced years "introducing the boys to proper music". Yewww wat?

BN.

Well, no hard feelings, eh?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Erected Dolphy, is that a bass clarinet or are you really pleased to see us. And then there's Bill Hardman: trumpet and Stiff Smith : violin...not forgetting Long John Baldry. Or, Jimmy Smith and his pulsating organ.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

I am afraid to say that all of the three combination are exactly the kind of stuff I normally avoid. The "novelty" trio seems a nightmare but this kind of horror show is all too familiar thee days.

I would have to own up to the fact that one of the CDs I have been playing to death this year has been Steve Reich's "Music for 18 musicians." I love this music even if the whole Minimalism thing seems to be nowhere as near as popular as it was when I encountered if for the first time in the late 1980's. I find it sometime can be boring but there are some compositions like "18" and things like John Adams' "The chairman dances" which really hit home for me. Oddly, the whole ethos of "18" was the subject of a debate back in September when it was in the car when I was giving my mother and my sister a lift to a restaurant. Both hated the music and found it totally annoying, Neither could see the point in it. Back in the 80's, this stuff did have a lot of traction within jazz circles even if the likes of Willem Breuker were not above ridiculing it. Therefore, I can understand where the Swiss Nick Bartsch is coming from even if it is now billed as "Zen Funk." There was an interesting review I read on line of one of his performances which I read recently where the listener made a comment that it took a while for what was going on to sink in. However, the music, to my ears, is any interesting adjunct to Minimalism that has almost nothing to do with jazz. I can see why this music would appeal so much to Manfred Eicher's aesthetic yet he seems to me to be a musician who is maybe thirty years too late. I don't really like it but can understand the concept behind the music. I have an aversion to Eicher's concept of music making which seems to be extremely patience in waiting for the music to truly hit home but increasingly I feel some of the records he puts out sound beautiful and highly polished yet don't really deliver. I would quickly lose patience with someone like Bartsch which is essentially a re-packaging of 80's New Age music.