Opening doors ~ Steve Coleman

[Ian Thumwood]

I've just got back from one of the most amazing gigs I've been to your years. Although I have records within my collection with Steve Coleman on, this was the first time that I have heard him play live. The visiting group played tonight after playing at the LJC yesterday. Featuring a trio with Daivd Virelles on piano and Marcus Gilmore on drums, I was staggered at the alto-player's approach to improvisation. Not a note seemed to be wasted and, as I said to a couple of friends, his ability to create a long improvised line has only been matched from my experience having heard Sonny Rollins and Lee Konitz live. The most amazing aspect of the music was the use of unusual time signatures which , coupled with the use of accendental harmonies and modulations, delivered a seemingly impossible realm of possibilities. Steve Coleman's tone on his horn has a wonderful, golden roundness and, like many great horn soloists, there is a quality which makes the music seem to stand up so that the unaccompanied sections of the gig still managed to swing in that wonderfully astmetrical fashion.

I don't think I have ever heard any jazz group quite explored the possibilities of time signatures so rigorously. The effect was hypnotic at times and hugely compelling. The gig went down extremely well with the audience and you can readily appreciate how the how draws people in. I would defy anyone not to be swept up with the infectious nature of the music. The interaction between Gilmore and Coleman was worth the price of the gig alone and I also very much liked Virlle's playing too. (Met him after this gig and found him to be a top bloke as well.)
Consisting largely of originals, the second set closed with a brilliant version of "Indianna" and the most original version of "No more blues" I've ever heard which swept away my previous lack of enthusiasm for this Jobum tune. The encosre consisted of a Monk re-working for the pianist and then a further duo with the drummer.

Because of the pulling power of a major festival, most of the better gigs over the last few years have been in Vienne. This, for me and many of my friends, was simply the finest concert Turner Sims have put on for years and is easily the best gig I've been to this year. Afterwards we were saying that Steve Coleman's concept of jazz is so original yet so "right" in it's execution that he really challenged the way that you think about jazz being performed. As original in his way as Ornette.

Did anyone go to the London concerts?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

sounds a great gig Ian ... will look out for the group on the steam radio

[Ian Thumwood]

Don't know if it is scehduled for J o3.

The aspect that really grabbed me was that Coleman definately has his own very personal concept of jazz which throws down all sorts of possibilities. If you take Brubeck's seminal "Time out" as a confident basis from which to start exploring time signatures, I would suggest that the music Steve Coleman is producing effectively fulfills the potential but in a way that is wholly organic, not at all pretentious and offers a fascinating possibility of how to extend form. Some of the ideas start off a simple motifs but the way that the material develops and expands is compelling. I doubt if there are many other musicians who are able to burn at such a low heat. The music simmered and built up a level of excitement that is the antithesis of some other styles of jazz performed by musicians which wear their passion on their sleeve. I was gripped by the music.