JLU 20.xi.11

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Featuring interview and music from Empirical, Trish Clowes' Tangent and Aquarium

straight ahead .....

[Serial_Apologist]

straight ahead .....

Pretty much, yep, but not without interest for all that, as I vacillated between these young guys and the free free3bies offered in lobby to the QEH/Purcell - not a good place I have to say for attending to improv: last year the Bore Claw Room in the Festacle Hall offered more of a womb-like environ better suited; I hope Jez and his retinue are looking in on here...#

Trish Clowes I thought the most interesting, having seen her group a few weeks earlier at a local: mainly for her compositions; In some ways the band features these, the collective perfomance of the band, but especially her fine guitarist, over the competent though somewhat underwhelming character of her own playing. Her CD - pleasant enough, but a bit too arrangerly with, to these ears, superfluous add-ons.

BTW the one real pleasant surprise waas seeing Bobby Wellins in duo with the Richmond-based pianist Kate Williams on a string of standards in the National Theatre foyer. This had been billed as Kate Williams, and I'm sure many more would have drifted under Waterloo Bridge from the direction of the main venues had they known. Kate approaches solo playing with quiet assuredness; a CD of this duo is in the offing; maybe the relationship might have gone a bit further: Ms Williams tends to follow her own agenda, not in the main picking up on the rhythmic hints Bobby throws his partners in the way the late lamented Pete Jacobsen always did, with the exception of on "Bobby's Blues", where that sort of odd natured tease and respond did show welcome evidence.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

very enjoyable three sets, would have made great night in a club ... each group very distinctive with something to offer ... teh excellent as bRUCE USED TO POST ....