JLU 12.vi.11 Piano Duel

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Julian Joseph presents a concert set featuring the Japanese pianist Makoto Kuriya and Peter Sarik from Hungary

JLU

names new to me so an opportunity for hearing new performers ... hyped as a duel ....

Plus the Avalon Trio ...English whimsy?

[Serial_Apologist]

JLU
Plus the Avalon Trio ...English whimsy?

Missed them on both recent occasions in London, but it's interesting that they play materials of composers from the Vaughan Williams/Ireland generation of English music, given the influence that school has had on Michael Garrick, John Taylor, John Surman, Norma Winstone and quite a few others.

I also see a track is to be played by the Quentin Collins/Brandon Allen group; I hope our Trevor is well, of course, and will be tuning in; he will find in Mr Collins one of the very finest exponents of hard bop trumpet we have produced.

S-A

[hackneyvi]

JLU

names new to me so an opportunity for hearing new performers ... hyped as a duel ....

Plus the Avalon Trio ...English whimsy?

I thought this was shaping up to be a very strong edition of JLU.

Didn't like Liane Carroll's voice on the Kenny Wheeler - there was a bit too much Bassey for the effect she seemed to be going for.

But - now slightly doubting myself - liked the Impossible Gentlemen track enough to buy a ticket for Ronnie Scott's tonight. Liked it's jockey bustle but the convincing moment was a little 'breakdown' of the pianist for a bit of Taborn-like rubble rumble that pottered inside the band's overall sprint without knocking it over.

I need/NEED! to hear more live club jazz. Radio is one thing but the one gig I've been to so far was soul food of some kind to me.

Avalon Trio! Their version of Linden Lea was as pure and live and full as a deep river. Not perfect, perhaps, but continually surprised me by how moved I might be at its moments. At a single listen, I was less touched by the other tracks but the Trio seemed to me really to have and be on to something. Their love for the music and sincerity in it was delightful, I thought; very loving music-making. Enjoyed the instrumentation; maybe the percussion 'pops it up' a bit but I didn't dislike that at all.

Very much liked the Denys Baptiste track featuring Coleridge Goode. I only heard of for the first time in JLU's report from the Parliamentary Jazz Awards; my response to his gentlemanly, older-fashioned English mingled with the warmth I'd felt from Linden Lea; it seemed to me that his voice set into the music had the richness of another, deeper sax in addition to the actual sax playing in the piece.

I didn't catch all of the alleged 'piano duel' but didn't find the opening very arresting (it was late, though) and when I tuned in for a moment in the middle, they seemed bombastic and I went to bed. Listening again, it all seems a bit rambling still but there was a cinematic moment (Oh!, there went another - and another!) which reminded me of the rather familiar music I hear from the accompanists at the NFT shows of silent film. I don't see anything in the first piece that has the character of duelling, more like a long chat about shopping.

Their second piece has suddenly gone all quasi-cod Celtic with just too much reminiscence of Kate Bush. The Man with the Child in his Eyes? Wuthering Heights? They're on shaky ground taking that music on when the definitive versions for the century have been done so lately ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0VaBxb27w&feature=related

[hackneyvi]

I've just tuned in again and they're still at it but this time it's a bit of chinoiserie. Variations on Chopsticks?

Are they playing in a supermarket? I ask because I think a pyramid of those new bouncing, rubberized bean tins may have collapsed on their keyboards. But it could have been the '2 for 1' pizzas. Can a more discriminating pair of ears than mine tell exactly what collapsed foodstuff is making all this noise?

Oh, for crying out loud, the most ludicrous-sounding upward key changes are being thrown at me now! It's like listening to someone try to bring themselves to orgasm when they're not turned on but feel they must 'perform'. A strange, dry agony to hear.

BTW, I'm not unsympathetic to this problem, I just don't want to listen to it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Must say I thought the two *duelling* (dualling? ) piansts a bit lightweight...

[hackneyvi]

What did you make of the Avalon Trio, SA? I have slightly mixed feelings because I feel the playing had some limitations but the overall sound and intentions were very warming but not, to my ears, sentimental.

[burning dog]

complimentary rather than duelling?

[Serial_Apologist]

It was OK Phil; I played the Frank Bridge violin & piano sonata (1932) to a jazz pianist friend of mine, and his immediate reaction was to find it full of "jazz harmonies".

About 15 years ago, as part of a series titled "Fairest Isle", the composer Anthony Payne gave a talk about the prevalence of modal thinking in English composers of the Vaughan Williams-Gustav Holst generation, resulting from the influence of Debussy and Ravel on their thinking, part of a parallel process with others at the time escaping the influence of German 19th century music, and their passion for indigenous folk music and Renaissance music, sacred and secular.

There has been an indentifiable influence of folk music on British jazz, going back to stuff John Dankworth was doing in the '50s, but especially from the 1960s on - in part by way of that school of English music that more-or-less died out with Vaughan Williams's passing in 1958. There's a good quote somewhere from Michael Garrick in which he says words to the effect that to be born in Enfield meant little point in pretending it was New York or Chicago, and one had to make the British best of it and make the most of influences closer to hand - which is what Pete Churchill and Tony Woods were in so many words saying to Julian Joseph. Other posters will disagree I'm sure, but this is fine imv - by the 1960s jazz had evolved to the point where it could be taken up beyond its birthplace as a universal means of expression with different dialects, to misquote John Surman slightly; I didn't think these three musicians made a bad job of what they were doing - they've appeared at least twice in London (where I live) in the past month, but I had to miss 'em due to other priorities. Once I've heard them "in the flesh" I'll consider as to buying the CD or not.

S-A

[burning dog]

Whatr I dislike about the Pastoral business (and the Fjordic thing for the "Scanda Jazz") is they tend to presume that their England is mine. Enfield of the late 50s was surprising far from Paddington of the late 60s/early 70s and St. Ives wasn't on the radar. The Folk music of the time was early reggae and if, like me, kids were into Classical it was Beethoven/Mozart maybe Prokofiev/Ravel.

[Serial_Apologist]

Whatr I dislike about the Pastoral business (and the Fjordic thing for the "Scanda Jazz") is they tend to presume that their England is mine. Enfield of the late 50s was surprising far from Paddington of the late 60s/early 70s and St. Ives wasn't on the radar. The Folk music of the time was early reggae and if, like me, kids were into Classical it was Beethoven/Mozart maybe Prokofiev/Ravel.

Partly a generation thing, innit...

[burning dog]

Yes certainly, also an urban, suburban, rural one. I think the rural influence is fine but its a bit idealised and romantic

What does annoy me are the all too glib comments about Scott, Tracey and Hayes apeing the Americans until the next generation came along. Naturally they would have diverged from the tradition at some time but so would an outpost of Black New Yorkers on Mars, though those would still connect to Blues and Swing for a while (maybe Wynton's best hope?)

All music exists in a Social Economic context but IMO there is no need, in fact its sometimes a pain in the bum, to lay it on thick in the calling tunes Stonehenge Blues or adapting Scottish Reels or brass band music, just get on with playng 'jazz' however you want and it will develop IMO.

At the time the British Boppers were just playing JAZZ... 'american' Jazz was the only game in London town. Asking them why they didn't play <British Jazz tm.> wouldn't have meant anything to them other than the response 'We're British and we're playing Jazz' "

Under the "British Boppers" banner for varying degrees of time were Coleridge Goode, Dizzy Reece, Sheake Keane and Joe Harriott, but that would make a good topic of it's own sometime.

PS Mustn't forget Harold McNair

[hackneyvi]

It was OK Phil; I played the Frank Bridge violin & piano sonata (1932) to a jazz pianist friend of mine, and his immediate reaction was to find it full of "jazz harmonies".

There has been an indentifiable influence of folk music on British jazz, going back to stuff John Dankworth was doing in the '50s ... Other posters will disagree I'm sure, but this is fine imv - by the 1960s jazz had evolved to the point where it could be taken up beyond its birthplace as a universal means of expression with different dialects ... I didn't think these three musicians made a bad job of what they were doing - they've appeared at least twice in London (where I live) in the past month, but I had to miss 'em due to other priorities. Once I've heard them "in the flesh" I'll consider as to buying the CD or not.

I know nothing of Bridge's music so thanks for the tip.

Not knowing the original pieces, I'm unsure what I'm responding to in the Avalon Trio's music. A part of it is, I think, an absence of irony, a general sincerity which means the performances speak to me even though I'm also unsure of the calibre of musicianship. But music-making of almost any calibre, if it's unpretentious, can carry the heart with it in a way that much more sophisticated performances often can't. (I think I'm saying I like a bit of rustic rough. Honest and sophisticated is great but I can find pleasure in honest on its own.)

The question of sincerity hovers a little though because in the excerpt from the Delius piece, I thought the sax playing was a bit 'off' and ineffectually shrieking, it seems to me the playing was 'for effect' and failed for that reason. The music didn't require or bear the style employed.

I'm ballroom dancing (beginners) this Wednesday otherwise I'd be off to Richmond. But they're at the Bull's Head, Barnes (is this venue any more congenial that PizzaShed at Soho?) for a Sunday lunchtime concert (does that mean full of drunks?) on 24th July. I shall go and see.

[burning dog]

Bulls Head used to be pretty good, way back it was brilliant by all accounts

Henry Lowther's playing there - July 3 -
Don't know if it's a free improv gig or straight ahead bop, probably the latter considering the venue

[Serial_Apologist]

Bulls Head used to be pretty good, way back it was brilliant by all accounts

Henry Lowther's playing there - July 3 -
Don't know if it's a free improv gig or straight ahead bop, probably the latter considering the venue

Thanks for posting those 2 clips of our 'Enery, BD. Never before seen him playing the atonal stuff, though of course he was in the group Sounds Five in the mid-60s, which was one of the first improvising groups here after Joe Harriott went onto Indo-Jazz, and before the SME.

S-A

[burning dog]

Thanks for posting those 2 clips of our 'Enery, BD. Never before seen him playing the atonal stuff, though of course he was in the group Sounds Five in the mid-60s, which was one of the first improvising groups here after Joe Harriott went onto Indo-Jazz, and before the SME.

S-A

First I heard of him was on Peter Clayton's late night show in the early 70s playing fusion in a 'Milesian' way, ie. not just bebop with a rock/funk beat. Pretty versatile musician.
This kind of thing