London jazz festival 2012 Details

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... here

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks Calum.

Phew!!!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

review of first weekend in Graun


UGH TWEETS! BEWARE

[Serial_Apologist]

Norma Winstone, Klaus Gesing and Glauco Venier do St James's tonight - that lovely Wren church with great acoustic. a short distance down Piccadilly from the Circus. Their second album is I understand out. Their music is very much a distillation of earlier collaborations, especially Azimuth with John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler, but mising for me something of that risk-taking edge that - for me - was so important. I'll be staying in for Shabaka's ambitious-looking concert (part 2 of) on R3 - maybe (?) his last New Generation Artist project before Trish Clowes assumes the mantle.

Here's Norma talking about how Winstone/Gesing/Venier originated, and how they work, together and with Manfred Eicher, rare footage of whom is seen in this short clip - one of a number on that page offering a glimpse of their approach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f0jKIGwz7Q

Trish performs Barbara Thompson and others' string quartet arrangements including Mike Westbrook and Mike Gibbs of Kurt Weill songs at the same venue on Thursday evening - to be joined or what doesn't say in the pamphlet by a couple of Dutchmen, pianist/compose/bandoneonist Martin Fondse and that very fine Milesish trumpeter Eric Vloelmans who are down to play their own work "Testimoni".

[Byas'd Opinion]

Konrad Wiszniewski and Euan Stevenson's New Focus are at the Pizza Express tonight. They play music for jazz quartet, string quartet and harp inspired by, but by no means imitative of, Stan Getz's Focus. The Glasgow performance a few weeks back was one of the highlights of the jazz year up here: http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-e...-club.19015091

The album's excellent too.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

appeals to me Byas'd

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

in the graun today

[Serial_Apologist]

To many out there in the Provinces, the excesse de richesses offered by the London Jazz Festival might seem enviable. Rest assured, it more closely resembles the overinflated menus that used to be proffered in upmarket restaurants, and maybe still is, for all I know...

Take this weekend.

Today I shall shortly be departing for my second visit to St James's Piccadilly, this time to see Liam Noble doing a 50-minute freebie; definitely not to be missed as I consider him one of the best pianists on the Brit scene. But do I then make my way over to the Clore Ballroom, hanging around amid thronging strangers, since I never seem to meet anybody I know at the freebies there, waiting to see Adrian Adewale at six, when it is Iain Ballamy's Anorak and Panacea I rdeally want to see, which don't start until 9.30?

I could go on in like vein to peel off the rest of the weekend fare. The gigs are, unlike say Bracknell, where you could lay off a set or two and steam out in the nearby field, too numerous and too geographically spread, not to mention timings and clashes between equal choices.

Spoilt? Moi???

Next Tuesday a band named Compassionate Dictatorship plays at the Amersham Arms. It includes great names like Tori Freestone - another young woman saxophonist I think likely to draw attention in the not too distant, and James Maddren, and has a great name. I'd like to take them over.

Train to catch...

[Serial_Apologist]

Liam put in a superb performance of standards and originals of his own to a packed audience, including among a set otherwise heavily tilted to improvisation in the truest sense of the word a note-for-note rendition of a Bud Powell arrangement of a Jerome Kern tune that, as Liam pointed out, rendered the tune unrecogniseable, and showed Powell in an entirely new light for me, and coming up trumps with his time-limit busting encore after I, and evidently others present, willed him to do Brubeck in his own sweet way. Maybe I'm making to much in my detection of a line of thinking that divides post-Powell jazz piano into two main schools, followers of either Monk or of Evans; if indeed there is any truth in this generalisation, Liam Noble is an uncommon and therefore important bridge between the two.

I really should have made mention of the fact that it is the Babel record label that mounts these LJF-associated concerts at St James's, who donate the wonderful premises free for the lunchtime gigs - audience was asked to dig in pockets - hence the well-worth £20 door charge for last night's double event in front of a disappointingly sparse audience. This is Babel's tenth year at St James's. Regardless of whether or not funding is forthcoming from Jazz Services, imo they also deserve a big thumbs-up for this: the printed publicity handout on the artist - nearly a page and a half of detailed biographics today, not shying away from generous mention of other label recordings, which - unless supplied by Liam - (given that artist sites seem increasingly only to mention recent and forthcoming events and recordings), would have taken someone a fair bit of effort to cull from various sources.

[Ian Thumwood]

S-A

Curious to see that no one has mentioned the Michael Janisch quartet as I was hoping there might have been some feedback on this board. I caught this quintet last week and was largely impressed by the multi-national band. I thought that the bassist / leader did particularly well to assemble this band. The group was co-led by Cuban pianist Aruan Ortiz who elected to perform acoustic and therefore didn't really register. One of my friends was unimpressed by his playing and I would have tended to agree that is wasn't quite up to the same level as the excellent trumpeter. The pianist was a bit under-whelming whereas the trumpeter reminded me a bit of Dave Douglas. Alto-saxophonist Greg Osby took a more restrained , sideman role and perhaps from politeness didn't over-power his less known colleagues. This is the first time that I can recall hearing Osby play live although a friend told me he was in the line up on a Jack DeJohnette Special Edition that toured in the early nineties. I really like Osby's intelligent approach to improvisation which eschews pyrotechnics in exchange for orignality that I would suggest marks him out not only as one of the great alto players of our generation but in the overall history of the music. That said, most people left the gig feeling that drummer Rudy Royston was the star of the band as he pushed and pulled the music into all kinds of meters and rhythmic permutations which rendered some "standard" masterial such ass "Jitterbug Waltz", "You don't know what love is" and "Just one of those things" into unchartered territory. I've heard Royston on rcord and Youtube before yet until you catch him perform live it is easy to forget what a creative drummer he is and his playing is indicative of the manner in which jazz groups now approach the concept of swing. an encore at the end offered a funkier style than the more traditionalist post-modernism offered beforehand.

It's odd how there now appears to be a desire to return away from more modish approaches to jazz and re-engage with the post-bop vernacular to the extent that I feel these kinds of bands are presenting some of the richest jazz played since the music rejuvenated itself in the 1980's. Whilst this group obviously took it's cues from Miles' 1960's band (as you could expect to hear on the 1967 live performances that have recently become available) the approach to swing has become even more fluid. I didn't have any expectations beyond enjoy Greg Osby's playing. However, the whole concert was extremely rewarding.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

graun round up and reviews

[Serial_Apologist]

graun round up and reviews

Calum

Good to catch up on stuff I didn't make it to from the pretty much reliable pens of John Fordham and John Lewis (no relation).

[amo]

I was lucky enough to be taken to the Brad Mehldau trio concert by a friend. It was a master class in music making. All 3 musicians were just incredible, humble, involved and generous. As a pianist, I found Mehldau's playing just beautiful.
Jazz musicians listen to eachother so well in performance...

[Serial_Apologist]

I was lucky enough to be taken to the Brad Mehldau trio concert by a friend. It was a master class in music making. All 3 musicians were just incredible, humble, involved and generous. As a pianist, I found Mehldau's playing just beautiful.
Jazz musicians listen to eachother so well in performance...

Not always..............