After last week's packed out gig for Christian Scott, this week's gig at the Turner Sims saw less than 100 poeple turn up to heat the Aaron Diehl trio. Diehl was clearly astonished to see a 2/3 empty venue which has previously seem big audiences for piano trios which probably represent the most popular idiom in jazz at the moment. Five minutes before the gig, it looked like there would be less than 40 people there as the auditorium was empty.
The first set opened with Joe Zawunal's "Frog legs" and this set the tone for the whole gig. The repertoire went on to include music by host of jazz composers from the mainstream including Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver , Bud Powell, Walter Davis and Archie Shepp. I felt that the originals weren't too interesting but a jazz version of a Philip Glass etude was extremely successful. Diehl started off as a classical musician and has worked in some of Glass's own ensembles and therefore it was quite strange to witness a piano trio that effectively eschewed anything as modern as Bill Evans. Talking with friends afterwards, names like Ray Bryant, Hank Jones and Red Garland came up in the conversation. There were two solo numbers, the first of which was Fat's Waller's "Viper's Drag" which showed Diehl's musicality and his ability to employ his left hand to conjure up improvised lines in opposition to the lines being played in the other hand. However, the attempt at earlier repertoire exposed the fact that he did not have the monstrous technique of a player like Fats Waller.
The bass and drums accentuated the feel of the kind of jazz performed in the 1950's (right down to the Philly-Joe accents on the 4th beat of the bar) and the absence of young members in the audience clearly demonstrated the lack of appeal of this kind of jazz with anyone under the age of retirement. I would suggest that there were less than about 5 people younger than 60. If you are going to consider EST as a "vintage piano trio", players like Diehl have no relevance to you. I was reminded a bit of another earlier player, Junior Mance even if the block chord elements of his playing were clearly derived from Red Garland. The whole sense of swing put me in mind of a gig I had heard Mance play back in the 1990's.
I must admit that I find piano trios very boring. The oeuvre is on it's last legs and it is one of the least appealing line ups because there does not really seem that much left to do with a combination of piano, bass and drums. Piano gigs are the only ones where I have fallen asleep in except for a Japanese group I caught earlier this year! (I have gone to sleep twice on both occasions I saw Tord Gustavsen) Solo piano is far more compelling, I think. I was intrigued by Diehl's approach which is clearly to revisit an earlier style as opposed to continually re-invent the format with nods to other musical styles. During the first half, I nearly fell asleep during the Archie Shepp ballad but the repertoire chosen by Diehl in the second set was more interesting, largely because so much of jazz composition from the 1950's remains so unexplored. Who is familiar with the under-appreciated Walter Davis these days, for instance? I quite like his crisp and light touch and he was extremely personable with some fascinating insights in to the music when introducing each composition. That said, I think that there are many players in the UK who are head and shoulders above him technically and, if you take the Finnish pianist featured on JLU this evening, he was not in the same class in comparison with the European. I would have to say that the JLU track left me cold and contrasted with Diehl's repertoire-based approach which seemed to connect better in my opinion. It was interesting simply for the fact that you wondered which jazz composer he was going to interpret next as much as for what he actually played.
All in all, it was a strange concert. The emptiness of the venue was a bit of a shock and evidence that the British audience is more likely to plump for an unknown European act as opposed to a relatively-unknown American these days. I don't think that the gig was have appealed at all to SA and I would envisage that Jazzrook and Bluesnik would have been pretty dismissive simply because the originals tackled this kind of jazz so much more effectively. When Diehl played Bud Powell's wonderful bop composition "Celia", the brittle, edgy and compulsion of the original was replaced with an easy-going bounce. In fact, I would expect SA to have been extremely dismissive of this gig and maybe not considered it seriously. I do think that Calum would have loved the concert though. Personally, I can see both sides of the argument. I like this style of jazz yet it palls in comparison with the original masters and I am not convinced he is as good as the likes of players like Bill Charlap who pursues a similar, rigidly conservative agenda. If anything, last night's gig demonstrated the antipathy towards the jazz mainstream by today's audiences and the indifference to an artist who has garnered rave reviews in his native America yet is relatively unknown over here.
I would be fascinated to read what other people think of Diehl's music as you can imagine this approach being as polarising as someone like Wynton Marsalis.
The first set opened with Joe Zawunal's "Frog legs" and this set the tone for the whole gig. The repertoire went on to include music by host of jazz composers from the mainstream including Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver , Bud Powell, Walter Davis and Archie Shepp. I felt that the originals weren't too interesting but a jazz version of a Philip Glass etude was extremely successful. Diehl started off as a classical musician and has worked in some of Glass's own ensembles and therefore it was quite strange to witness a piano trio that effectively eschewed anything as modern as Bill Evans. Talking with friends afterwards, names like Ray Bryant, Hank Jones and Red Garland came up in the conversation. There were two solo numbers, the first of which was Fat's Waller's "Viper's Drag" which showed Diehl's musicality and his ability to employ his left hand to conjure up improvised lines in opposition to the lines being played in the other hand. However, the attempt at earlier repertoire exposed the fact that he did not have the monstrous technique of a player like Fats Waller.
The bass and drums accentuated the feel of the kind of jazz performed in the 1950's (right down to the Philly-Joe accents on the 4th beat of the bar) and the absence of young members in the audience clearly demonstrated the lack of appeal of this kind of jazz with anyone under the age of retirement. I would suggest that there were less than about 5 people younger than 60. If you are going to consider EST as a "vintage piano trio", players like Diehl have no relevance to you. I was reminded a bit of another earlier player, Junior Mance even if the block chord elements of his playing were clearly derived from Red Garland. The whole sense of swing put me in mind of a gig I had heard Mance play back in the 1990's.
I must admit that I find piano trios very boring. The oeuvre is on it's last legs and it is one of the least appealing line ups because there does not really seem that much left to do with a combination of piano, bass and drums. Piano gigs are the only ones where I have fallen asleep in except for a Japanese group I caught earlier this year! (I have gone to sleep twice on both occasions I saw Tord Gustavsen) Solo piano is far more compelling, I think. I was intrigued by Diehl's approach which is clearly to revisit an earlier style as opposed to continually re-invent the format with nods to other musical styles. During the first half, I nearly fell asleep during the Archie Shepp ballad but the repertoire chosen by Diehl in the second set was more interesting, largely because so much of jazz composition from the 1950's remains so unexplored. Who is familiar with the under-appreciated Walter Davis these days, for instance? I quite like his crisp and light touch and he was extremely personable with some fascinating insights in to the music when introducing each composition. That said, I think that there are many players in the UK who are head and shoulders above him technically and, if you take the Finnish pianist featured on JLU this evening, he was not in the same class in comparison with the European. I would have to say that the JLU track left me cold and contrasted with Diehl's repertoire-based approach which seemed to connect better in my opinion. It was interesting simply for the fact that you wondered which jazz composer he was going to interpret next as much as for what he actually played.
All in all, it was a strange concert. The emptiness of the venue was a bit of a shock and evidence that the British audience is more likely to plump for an unknown European act as opposed to a relatively-unknown American these days. I don't think that the gig was have appealed at all to SA and I would envisage that Jazzrook and Bluesnik would have been pretty dismissive simply because the originals tackled this kind of jazz so much more effectively. When Diehl played Bud Powell's wonderful bop composition "Celia", the brittle, edgy and compulsion of the original was replaced with an easy-going bounce. In fact, I would expect SA to have been extremely dismissive of this gig and maybe not considered it seriously. I do think that Calum would have loved the concert though. Personally, I can see both sides of the argument. I like this style of jazz yet it palls in comparison with the original masters and I am not convinced he is as good as the likes of players like Bill Charlap who pursues a similar, rigidly conservative agenda. If anything, last night's gig demonstrated the antipathy towards the jazz mainstream by today's audiences and the indifference to an artist who has garnered rave reviews in his native America yet is relatively unknown over here.
I would be fascinated to read what other people think of Diehl's music as you can imagine this approach being as polarising as someone like Wynton Marsalis.
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