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June 2019 – upcoming varied gigs – folk and improvisations with Kristin McClement and Triofolio in Cheltenham (7th); big-band horn assurance with Jim Rattigan’s Pavillon in Mold and London (11th, 17th); musical Cherry genes and post-hardcore jazzracket with Exotic Sin and Run Logan Run in Cheltenham (19th)

This was supposed to be a news post about jazz gigs and about improv, but the diversity and waywardness of the music concerned ran away with it a little. Good.

Let’s start with the straight jazz. Jim Rattigan qualifies under that, despite the fact that he’s leading and working with the French horn, by rule and nature not an instrument that fits into jazz too well. Reviewing Jim in the past, fellow horn-player Pip Eastop has noted “jazz is by nature cool, laid-back, spontaneous and easy. The (French) horn is none of those things. Its traditional use is to convey a reassuring degree of control, finesse, and romantic heroism. In film music it’s horns you’ll hear whenever something heroic is going on. The horn is terrifyingly difficult to learn and virtually impossible to control. For rhythmic bounce, speed, clarity and ease of use the instruments of choice for jazz are always going to be trumpet, sax, piano, guitar, clarinet, voice; almost never something so fiendishly difficult as the horn.”

That’s as may be, but if there are challenges Jim’s overcome them. He may have started out as a classical symphony player with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but he always loved jazz and moved into it full time twenty-three years ago; establishing himself as a powerfully convincing big band player while working with McCoy Tyner, Mark Lockheart’s Scratch Band, Mike Gibbs Orchestra and Twleve and the late Michael Brecker’s Quindectet (as well as keeping up some pop and folk credentials while sessioning for Nerina Pallot, Ultramarine and June Tabor). In and amongst his assorted quartets and trios (in which he’s played with Liam Noble, Gene Calderazzo, Phil Robson, Amy Gamlen and Thomas Gould) he’s built up his his own twelve-piece, Pavillon. So far you can only hear them on one album – 2011’s ‘Strong Tea’ – but whether you encounter them there or, preferably, live you’ll find confident, breezy, swing-happy music seamlessly blending inspirations from different times and places; beery, wise and cosmopolitan but also very English. It’s the sort of sound you’d expect to hear currently curving its way around London’s seawall, if such a thing existed.

A full Pavillon tour’s being cooked up for the autumn, but a few earlier gigs have materialised during the summer for London and for Mold, in Wales. Besides pianist Hans Koller, double bassist Dave Whitford and drummer Tim Giles, Jim’s brassline is currently expanded by saxophonists Martin Speake, Andy Panayi and Mick Foster; by trumpeters Percy Pursglove, Steve Fishwick and Robbie Robson; and by Mark Nightingale and Sarah Williams on tenor and bass trombones. Here’s footage of them all from a typically warm night.

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Cheltenham’s quixotic Xposed Club – dividing its time between its regular home of the Francis Close Hall Chapel and the newer Chapel Arts venue – has a couple of shows scheduled.

Uncommonly straightforward for an Xposed guest, folk singer-songwriter Kristin McClement (part of Brighton’s Willkommen Collective, and playing on 7th June ) began her life in South Africa but ended up refining it in Sussex; with the consequence, as she puts it, that her songs are “born of two separate worlds; the vast shapeshifting landscape of her childhood South Africa engraved with the melancholic romance of old England’s sacred woodland, rivers and valleys.” There’s nothing especially surprising in her meditations and sharings on love, life and emotion – the selling point is her tone (a rich, understated greenwoods sigh haunting similar paths to those walked by Christine McVie and June Tabor) and the gentle resilience of her melodies, which saw her praised by ‘Folk Radio UK‘ for “gravitas and maturity… a songwriter and musician of depth and character”.

Reedsman Chris Cundy, on the other hand (who’ll be joining Kristin for certain songs along with fellow clarinettist Emma Gatrill), is an Xposed regular and a veteran of the club’s more usual experimental approach. His new Triofolio trio has an unusual low-end lineup, working his bass clarinet around double bass and drums with an additional, familial tint (rhythm section Paul K Scott and 12- year-old Saul Scott are father and son). Triofolio’s interest in improvisation is matched by “a tactile approach to acoustics”; they claim to be modern jazz, although ‘Jazzwise’ described them as “lyrically neo-classical” when they performed at the Stroud Jazz Festival last month. Without any recordings or clips to go on, I can only guess which account is true, or how the forms mingle.

On Wednesday 19th June, Xposed is back at the FCH Chapel to lay on a show for Exotic Sin and Run Logan Run. Run Logan Run (Dan Johnson’s drums and percussion with/against Andrew Neil Hayes’ effected sax) have been in here before a few times; a raucous yelling blend of spiritual jazz, duo post-hardcore, circular breathing and heavy experimental improv, or “a head-on collision of pounding tribal drums and screaming guttural saxophone” or “architects of intense contrast.”

Emerging out of London’s art underground (handy connections notwithstanding), Exotic Sin are a collaboration between keyboardist/percussionist Naima Karlsson and trumpeter/percussionist/ Kenichi Isawa. Kenichi’s a game-for-anything-boy who’s previously played with maddening psych-electric repetiteurs Xaviers, pummelled taiko and drumboxes for No Wave-inspired noise act Blood Music and helped birth a kind of pocket psychedelic jazz lounge with Humanzee. Naima, meanwhile, is one of those polymathic artists for whom music is one of several routes of expression (alongside, in her case drawing, photography, collaging and text). She’s also Neneh Cherry’s daughter, which makes her the granddaughter of visual artist Moki Cherry and cross-cultural jazz pioneer Don Cherry.

The influence of her grandparents’ collage-heavy work is evident in her own work with Kenichi: a mix-and-match mass of repetitive improvisation drawing on and repurposing a broad, disparate mass of sources and wandering instrumentation (centred on organ and piano Naima also works on harmonium, vibraphone; while I’m sure that I hear at least a zurna being employed in Kenichi’s blowing). Some of it’s sustained organ pedal drones, overlaid with bells and an alternating bevy of wind instruments from around the world; some of it journeys between ritualistic cave music and inching free jazz. You could tag part of it as sounding like multitrack dropouts from Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit of Eden’ (or, indeed, its ‘O’rang spinoff) while other parts look back towards some of papa Don’s one-world/fourth world experimentations – Exotic Sin have stated that “the project began with, and continues to take roots from, the music and instruments in the Cherry family household – not to emulate, but to put into practice the teachings and spirit of the art and music as a living thread.”

Clips below for windows into their approach. In the second and jazzier of these – an explicit tribute to Don and Moki – Neneh Cherry joins in too (as does double bassist Maxwell Sterling, jazz musician-turned-Los Angeles film scorer and son of post-punk graphics legend Linder Sterling). The third sees them at work in London’s Café Oto, apparently encouraging a communal singalong.

https://soundcloud.com/user-773286109/the-centre
https://soundcloud.com/user-773286109/exotic-sin-concert-nottingham-contemporary

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Dates:

Xposed Club & Jazz At The Chapel present:
Kristin McClement + Trio Folio
Chapel Arts, Knapp Road, Cheltenham, GL50 3QQ, England
Friday 7th June 2019, 7.00pm – information here, here and here

Jim Rattigan’s Pavillon:

Clwyd Room @ Theatr Clwyd, Raikes Lane, Mold, Flintshire, CH7 1YA, Wales – Tuesday 11th June 2019, 8.00pm – information here and here
The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, England – Monday 17th June 2019, 7.45pm – information here, here and here

Xposed Club presents:
Exotic Sin + Run Logan Run
Francis Close Chapel @ Francis Close Hall, University of Gloucestershire, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, GL50 4AZ, England
Wednesday 19th June 2019, 8.00pm – information here

Tags: Andy Panayi, Cheltenham (England), Chris Cundy, Dave Whitford, Don Cherry, Emma Gatrill, Exotic Sin, Hans Koller, Jim Rattigan, Kenichi Isawa, Kristin McClement, Linder Sterling, London (England), Mark Nightingale, Martin Speake, Maxwell Sterling, Mick Foster, Moki Cherry, Mold (Wales), Naima Karlsson, Neneh Cherry, Paul K. Scott, Pavillon, Percy Pursglove, Robbie Robson, Run Logan Run, Sarah Williams, Saul Scott, Steve Fishwick, The Xposed Club (event/promoter), Tim Giles, Triofolio

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Categories 2019, big-band jazz, experimental music, folk music, improvisation, instrumental music, jazz, post-bop, singer-songwriter

April/May 2019 – upcoming jazz gigs – a massive Barbican celebration of London jazz from the Total Refreshment Centre (13th April); the Steam Down collective hit Shoreditch (24th April); Warmer Than Blood in London and Cardiff (22nd April, 21st May)

10 Apr

When landlords and developers mark a city building for extra, blander profit – and when they put the squeeze on an existing tenant – they don’t only change and narrow the future, they can also asphyxiate the past. I don’t mean that they somehow delete what’s come before, it’s more that they pinch it off and remove its potential for continuance. The meaning that’s associated with a building and what goes on inside it, its history, becomes obscured to people who’ve not had the chance to discover it yet; or to people who might, in the future, grow up nearby never knowing what used to take place there.

For myself, I feel pretty damn ignorant for not having known about Hackney music space Total Refreshment Centre until, ooh, last year. It seems that, in various forms, it harboured and encouraged music for at least half of my lifetime, curating the historical while encouraging the current and never losing touch of the ethos that music should be inherent to and conversant with its community rather than being a little rarified enclave. The fact that sometime, quietly, last summer, the TRC was forced to shut down (presumably to make way for luxury flats or something which can generate a greater ground rent) makes me angry. Fortunately, the place is resilient enough as an idea – effectively, as a movement – not to rely entirely on bricks and mortar. Scheduled gigs have continued (still run by the existing team but moved to other venues), the programs still run; the concept of the place still has legs.

In some respects the people involved with the TRC are making a virtue of their new and more itinerant existence, using it to spread the word a little wider; extending their ongoing work in what ‘Clash Music’ has called “a means of pursing social engineering, a way to build communities up at a time when the political establishment seem content to break communities apart… Music can be used to re-imagine your surroundings, to transform concrete, glass, and brick into something magical.” Still, it must make life a little tougher, a little more challenging, that much more of a forced hack at a time when it’s already pretty exhausting.

With that in mind, it’s good to see that the TRC gets its own jazz tribute – more accurately, its own self-propelled celebratory showcase – this coming weekend at one of London’s more inviolable culture fortresses, the Barbican. There’s an opportunity here to carp about centralization, or about how certain establishments are protected while others are not (and for distasteful reasons – race and class also have a role to play here), but let’s just sound the obvious note here and move on. Better to bounce back and roll on as the TRC are doing; better to celebrate the recognition and cooperation which such a show also represents.

There are still a few tickets available for what’s promising to be one of the events of the London jazz year. Blurb follows:

“Total Refreshment Centre is part and parcel of east London’s recent music history. The building’s musical journey started as a Caribbean social club and studio and evolved into the musical hub that it is today. On April 13th, the Barbican Centre will host Dreaming The City, celebrating a previously untold story in east London’s music history. To mark nearly thirty years of influential music in the building, TRC has teamed up with Boiler Room – the revered global music broadcasting platform – who will broadcast the gig live.

“The concept of the show is a live mixtape exploring three decades of musical excellence that took place inside an Edwardian warehouse in Hackney. The building began life as a confectionary factory and by the 1990s had become Mellow Mix, a Caribbean social club and rehearsal space. In 2012 it began running as Total Refreshment Centre, an influential studio and venue that has played an integral role in the upsurge of new London jazz, which is now gathering worldwide attention. The narrative of ‘Dreaming The City’ is inspired by the history of this building, made special by the communities that inhabited it over the years. This story, researched by writer Emma Warren, is explored fully in her new book, ‘Make Some Space: Tuning Into Total Refreshment Centre (And All Places Like It)‘.

“Over thirty musicians from the thriving jazz scene (including Cassie Kinoshi and her Seed Ensemble, drummer-producer Kwake Bass, Jazz Warrior Orphy Robinson, Tom Skinner’s Wildflower, folk-crossover artists Rozi Plain, Alabaster DePlume and Joshua Idehen) will team up to perform. Also on the bill – Chelsea Carmichael, Cherise Adams-Burnett, Crispin Spry Robinson, Deschanel Gordon, Donna Thompson, Dylema Amadie, Emma-Jean Thackray, Idris Rahman, James Howard, Joe Bristow, Leon Brichard, Maria Osuchowska, Miguel Gorodi, Mutale Chashi, Noriko Okaku, Oscar Jerome, Patrick Boyle, Rai Wong, Rio Kai, Sheila Maurice-Grey, Shirley Tetteh, Tyrone Isaac-Stuart, Yael Camara Onono, Yohan Kebede and more special secret guests to come. This milestone event will unfold over five chapters, blurring the lines of what jazz is and creating new, exclusive and unexpected collaborations.

“There’s a strong link between club culture and live music in today’s vibrant music scene – what some have called ‘jazz-rave’ – and Dreaming The City will offer an energetic journey through time, space and London’s rich culture. The evening will start with a celebration of Caribbean sounds, recognising the community that first established the space as a musical hub. Following this, we trace the contemporary lineage of jazz music between inner-city London, West Africa, the Caribbean and continental Europe. Expect a session showcasing household names premiering new outfits, dropping old classics and brand new tunes. The music will reflect the diversity of sounds that have been danced to at TRC, from reggae and dub, to Krautrock via jazz and West African grooves.”

Some glimpses…

…and here’s a short film about the state of London jazz (with plenty of TRC-ing) which was released into the wild a few months ago in January…

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Back in January I did some praise singing for Steam Down, the south London jazz collective who bring regular African-inspired but London-cooked communal music events to Deptford. For the benefit of those north and east Londoners who for some reason never cross the river, they’re playing Shoreditch’s Village Underground towards the end of the month.

“Join Steam Down as they take over Village Underground, with members on the decks and some very special guests joining them on stage. Jumping off from the sonic springboard of Afrofuturism, grime and future soul, all fused together with the fearless spontaneity of jazz, Steam Down is an arts collective comprised of Ahnanse, Alex Rita, Brother Portrait, Sawa-Manga, Theon Cross, Nadeem Din-Gabisi, Benjamin Appiah, Dominic Canning and “Nache. The collective congregates mid-weekly for a live performance where healing vibes and compulsive dancing are just as important as the music. Previous sessions have included guest appearances from Kamasi Washington, Sampa The Great, Nubya Garcia, members of Ezra Collective, SEED Ensemble and Sons of Kemet. Every week proves to be a co-creative piece of magic where everyone’s participation matters.”

There’s a new Village Underground interview with Steam Down here, but below is part of what I wrote about them three months ago:

“(An) African-inspired collective ethos… a diverse, voluntary hive mind, their individualities fused and encouraged by common purpose… a simmering pot of phuture soul, West African rhythms and cheerful Afrofuturism, the rapid offset breakbeat-splash and electrophonic edge of grime and broken-beat, and (in particular) spiritual jazz. That said, they’re well aware that they should steer clear of romantic oversimplifications about roots. As Ahnanse remarked in an interview with ‘The Vinyl Factory’ last year, “the roots of what we are creating starts outside of that context, jazz is not the only source of improvised music in the world. It happens in many forms and many cultures, we all come from different spaces and cultures, and it isn’t black American culture, none of us were born there, so actually we are bringing all of those other experiences into this… In a society that is so hegemonic and monotonous it’s nice to surprise yourself and be surprised, by people that you know well.” More than anything else, Steam Down work is inspired by the interlocking of Afro-diasporan culture with week-by-week London life – the information-rich bustle and challenges of a world city made up of people from everywhere, many of them sometimes pushing (or knocking heads) against half-invisible restrictions and oppressions as well as providing broad-mindedness and opportunity.”

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Also this spring, guitarist/composer Chris Montague revs up his jazz trio Warmer Than Blood (with bass guitarist Ruth Goller and pianist Kit Downes) for a couple of month-apart gigs in London and Cardiff. As I noted when I wrote about them in February, between them they can draw on a massive range of potential influences (including Sephardic music, manouche, punk jazz, Latin folk and Maghrebian sounds, the bouncing imagined world-jazz of the F-IRE Collective, Chris’ six-string avant-mapping in Future Currents) but in practise tend to go somewhere else – somewhere more uprooted and peril-flecked. Compared to the broad communality of Steam Down or the TRC community, they’re coming from a different place – tenser, more abstract and (if we’re being honest) whiter – but it’s still a collective communal effort, just shrunk down to a smaller chamber and a slender triangular format.

As I wrote last time, “all three are longtime friends and collaborators, seeking yet another new approach. They seem to have found it with Chris’ newest batch of compositions and improvisation-seeding situations, which he suggests consist of “intricate textures, dark pools of harmony, layered melodies, kinetic group improvisation and percussive prepared piano… fractious composed passages can inhabit the same sonic space as spare, ambient melodies, often described as melancholic and uplifting at the same time…” Introverted and ominous, their name-track’s a quiet etiolated piano exploration over a minimal pulsing guitar-chord cycle and locked-in bass rumble. The excerpt from a longer piece, FTM, is a gradual evolver in which Chris hovers in menacing sustain/volume-swell textural clouds and momentary dust-devils over ghost-Latin clicks and bass piano thuds (Kit muting the piano at both ends) before the trio expand into what’s partly a kind of haunted country music (like a Bill Frisell ensemble scoured to the bone by plains wind), and partly like a salsa band coming to terminal grief in a badlands dustbowl.”

Here’s a rare recent live recording and an album taster for their imminent debut…

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Dates:

Boiler Room and Total Refreshment Centre present:
BR x Total Refreshment Centre: ‘Dreaming The City’
Barbican Hall @ Barbican Arts Centre, Silk Street, City of London, London, EC2Y 8DS, England
Saturday 13th April 2019, 8.00pm – information here and here

Warmer Than Blood:

The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, England – Monday 22nd April 2019, 7.45pm – information here, here and here
The Flute & Tankard, 4 Windsor Place, Cardiff, CF10 3BX, Wales – Tuesday 21st May 2019, 9.00pm – information here

Steam Down
Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3PQ, England
Wednesday 24th April 2019, 7.30pm – information here, here and here

Tags: Ahnanse, Alabaster DePlume, Alex Rita, Benjamin Appiah, Brother Portrait, Calabashed, Cassie Kinoshi, Cassie Kinoshi’s Seed, Chelsea Carmichael, Cherise Adams-Burnett, Chris Montague, Crispin Spry Robinson, Deschanel Gordon, Dominic Canning, Donna Thompson, Dylema Amadie, Emma-Jean Thackray, Idris Rahman, James Howard, Jazz Warriors, Joe Bristow, Joshua Idehen, Kit Downes, Kwake Bass, Leon Brichard, Maria Osuchowska, Miguel Gorodi, Mutale Chashi, Nache (Edward Wakili Hick), Nadeem Din Gabisi, Noriko Okaku, Orphy Robinson, Oscar Jerome, Patrick Boyle, Rai Wong, Rio Kai, Rozi Plain, Ruth Goller, Sawa Manga, Sheila Maurice-Grey, Shirley Tetteh, Steam Down, Theon Cross, Tom Skinner, Tom Skinner's Wildflower, Total Refreshment Centre (promoter/venue), Tyrone Isaac-Stuart, Warmer Than Blood, Yahael Camara-Onono, Yohan Kebede

February 2019 – upcoming London jazz gigs – Gemini Trio (12th, 21st, 23rd, 28th February); Adam Ben Ezra with Joseph Tawadros plus Uniting Of Opposites (22nd February); Nick Walters & The Paradox Ensemble (22nd February)

3 Feb

Having taken some first steps in public at the Putney Half Moon and Folklore Hoxton over the last few months, London-based Italian jazz-rockers Gemini Trio will be embarking on a five-gig journey around London from mid-February (with more to follow in March and April).

Formed at BIMM by three young Milanese players (guitarist Adriano Balducci Moncada, bass guitarist Edoardo Marcarini and drummer Alessandro Iannicelli, they’re a mellow, airy, accessible alliance. In terms of their jazz and rock roots, they cite some fairly predictable roots (John Coltrane and Pat Metheny at one end, Radiohead, Tool and Led Zeppelin at the other) but they also apparently harbour inspirations from African music and from progressive and indie rock and which they’re less specific about (bar a friendly name-drop for Milanese Zappa torch-bearers Elio e Le Storie Tese). It’ll probably unfold over time: it’s early days for them yet, and their stew’s still in the early stages of brewing.

Right now they’re fluent, agreeable flashboys with a likeable lightness of touch and a debut single called Vivacissimo. With a title like that you’d expect a helping of ELO or disco cheese to be stirred into their music, but instead they seem happy to win you over with something breezy and sunny to overcome English winter gloom… and here it is. I’m enjoying putting it on loop, perhaps because I still miss What?!…

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Surfing a substantial career wave at the moment (partly thanks to his canny understanding of the entertainment potential of YouTube clips) is Israeli solo double bassist and master showman Adam Ben Ezra, who’s back headlining the Jazz Café on the 22nd. Bold, humorous and technically dazzling, Adam covers a spectrum of music from serious swing to percussive melodious modern jazz tunes to flurrying flamencoid spasms to popcorn pop-culture gags (he’s enticed in a lot of jazz-wary fans thanks to the bait of his virtuosic, web-viral renditions of TV themes).

Although he’s cited Eddie Gomez and fellow performance monster Jaco Pastorius as main bass influences, Adam’s forceful flexibility, punchy tone, swinging rhythmicality and wit also happily channels the ghost of Bob Haggart. His knack for live-looping tricks’n’textures and electronic media savvy, meanwhile, echo Steve Lawson; and his tendency to temporarily set aside his bass and burst out with other instruments over the course of an evening or an album recall another heavy-acoustic virtuoso, Michael Hedges.

Adam’s guest for the show will be progressive cross-genre oud player Joseph Tawadros. An adopted Aussie with Egyptian Coptic roots (though he’s also been a Londoner for a couple of years now), Joseph has released sixteen albums over fourteen years of career. Musically, he’s a friendly rebel and natural showman who (like Khyam Allami) pulls oud music out of its Middle Eastern classical niche and introduces it to jazz, Western classical and any other cross-pollination he can get hold of.

He’s also a scarily talented bastard who took on fifty-two different instruments on a recent album. While I’ve heard that that was more spur-of-the-moment one-man-band than fully-polished ensemble, his oud playing is internationally reknowned and has won him collaborations with Béla Fleck, John Abercrombie, The Academy of Ancient Music and plenty more.

Getting things moving are show openers Uniting Of Opposites, a cross-generational contemporary Indo-jazz project allied to and releasing on Brighton label Tru Thoughts. With a past as UK dance DJ/producer Tim Deluxe, (and for 2002 house hit It Just Won’t Do) Tim Liken had long since supplemented his original career with an expanding self-education on jazz piano by the time he hooked up with the existing duo of Ben Hazleton and Clem Allford. Sitarist Clem was already a musical veteran (with five decades of work behind him including a sitar toting pilgrimage to India in order to learn from the source, plus film and session work and membership of pioneering early ‘70s Indo-psyche folkers Magic Carpet. Double bassist Ben was a former Young Jazz Musician of the Year who’d notched up time with Jonathan Gee and Tony Kofi.

To expand the music, they’ve added drummer Eddie Hick (who’s been all over ‘Misfit City’ recently thanks to gigs with Steam Down and Ruby Rushton), tabla player Manjeet Singh Rasiya, clarinettist Idris Rahman, and singer/F’ire Collective graduate Marcina Arnold. Last summer’s debut album ‘Ancient Lights‘ (arriving with a twist of psychedelic sonic illumination and dance-culture bliss, plus a pinch of surrealist flavour) reveals a band whose propulsive energy, enthusiasm, agelessness and hopefulness look set to give Adam a run for his money.

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Playing on the same day as Adam, Joseph and Uniting of Opposites is Nick Walters, known in British jazz circles as a trumpeter’s trumpeter, and on this occasion leading his thirteen-piece Paradox Ensemble big band – a thirteentet? – through a set of part-composed, part-improvised pieces mingling Mingus with Western Africa, and Woody Shaw with Eastern mysticism.

Like Eddie Hick, Nick’s known for his playing with Ruby Rushton, and at least two RR compadres show up in this group – saxophonist/flautist Tenderlonious and keyboard player Aidan Shepherd on synth and accordion. The group’s four-track mini-album ‘Awakening’ showed up at the end of last month, featuring music which runs from assured playing-around with Togo rhythms to tributes to cricket commentator Henry Blofeld (as well as employing less common jazz instrumentation such as sousaphone and harp).

Paradox Ensemble are playing as guests of the Church of Sound promotional project, which brings brings beautiful music to holy places – mostly, as in this case, the Victorian church of St James the Great in Lower Clapton, which has already seen them host shows by Kokoroko, Mansur Brown, Nubya Garcia and many others.

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Dates:

Gemini Trio:

Babel Café 86 Stoke Newington High Street, Stoke Newington, London N16 7PA, England – Tuesday 12th February 2019, 8.00pm – information here
Grow, 98c Main Yard, Wallis Road, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5LN, England – Thursday 21st February 2019, 8:00 PM – free event – information here and here
Bar Lorca, 175 Stoke Newington High Street, Stoke Newington, London, N16 0LH, England – Thursday 21st February 2019, 11:59 pm – information here
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England – Saturday 23rd February 2019, 5.00pm – information here and here
Karamel Restaurant, The Chocolate Factory 2, 4 Coburg Road, Wood Green, London, N22 6UJ, England – Thursday 28th February 2019, 8.00pm – information here

Adam Ben Ezra (with Joseph Tawadros) + Uniting Of Opposites
The Jazz Café, 5 Parkway, Camden Town, London, NW1 7PG, England
Friday 22nd February 2019, 7.00pm – information here, here and here

Church of Sound presents:
Nick Walters & The Paradox Ensemble: Blowing Gold
St James the Great, 188 Lower Clapton Road, Clapton, London, E5 8EG, England
Friday 22nd February 2019, 7.30pm – information here and here

Tags: Adam Ben Ezra, Adriano Balducci Moncada, Alessandro Iannicelli, Australia, double bass music, Edoardo Marcarini, Gemini Trio, Israel, Joseph Tawadros, London (England), Milan (Italy), Nick Walters, Nick Walters & The Paradox Ensemble, Uniting Of Opposites

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Categories 2019, acoustic music, big-band jazz, cool jazz, cross-cultural music, crossover, electro-acoustic music, improvisation, instrumental music, jazz, jazz fusion, jazz rock, loop music, previews, world & indigenous music

January 2019 – upcoming London jazz gigs – memories of black resistance and striving in Elaine Mitchener’s ‘Vocal Classics Of The Black Avant Garde’ (7th January) and Rufus Reid’s ‘Quiet Pride’ (29th January)

3 Jan

This month, there are two very different opportunities to immerse yourself in historical music stemming from black resistance and the American civil rights struggle; the conflation of brutual oppression, storms, suffering and self-assertion which inform today’s #BlackLivesMatter movement.

One of these events is an edgy art-scream of vintage fighting classics, happening inside a rough-walled underground music stronghold. The other features music that’s barely seven years old, takes place in a lofty varnished orchestral concert hall at the heart of the British classical music world, comes varnished by a couple of Grammy nominations and represents the other end of the struggle: more well-spoken, staunchly dignified, talking back at the oppressor in something closer to his own language on his own terrain.

Would each of these efforts give the other house room? I’d like to think that they would.

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Tireless vocal/physical-movement improviser and conceptual explorer Elaine Mitchener returns to Café Oto with a revival of her ‘Vocal Classics of the Black Avant Garde’ project (originally compiled and performed for the London Festival of Contemporary Music at the end of 2017). Re-examining 1960s and 1970s works composed by Eric Dolphy, Archie Shepp, Joseph Jarman and Jeanne Lee, it studies and recreates “the overflow of experiment that occurred within improvised music, often springing directly from lived experiences of racial injustice… combin(ing) vocals and text with experimental jazz forms.”

Musical direction for the evening will come from reknowned saxophonist Jason Yarde – an improviser-composer who steps confidently between jazz and conservatoire culture. He’ll be at the head of a band consisting of pianist Dominic Canning, Elaine’s regular bassist Neil Charles, trumpeter and flautist Byron Wallen and the consistently staggering drummer/percussionist Mark Sanders. It’s a little unclear as to whether Elaine’s regular sparring partner Alexander Hawkins will be joining in on keyboards this time, but expat American poet Dante Micheaux is down to join Elaine on spoken/sung word.

Joseph Jarman

It’s safe to say that while this music’s around fifty years old now, the content’s not going to be cosy. Expect some old wounds, some revolutionaries’ pride and some old fire to be raked over and rekindled. As Elaine writes, “these works illuminate an occluded moment in American cultural history, when the avant-garde aesthetics of new jazz doubled as a metaphor for the imminent politics of civil rights.

“Composed in very specific response to the perilous condition of black people in America, the works’ synthesis of experimental sensibilities, radical political sentiment, and gutbucket expression cuts across boundaries of time and space to resonate universally in the here and now. In the era of #BlackLivesMatter, these works speak powerfully of the need for resistance and resilience, sound stark and original, their hypermodernism firmly rooted in vernacular tradition.”

It doesn’t seem that anything of the previous show’s been recorded (or if it has been, it’s not been released), so here’s a little from one of Elaine’s previous projects as an indicator; plus a little Shepp, Lee and Jarman.

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Reminding us that the politics of dignity and survival (and the business of conveying an urgent message) comes in many different forms and tones, African-American double bassist Rufus Reid is reviving his 2012 jazz orchestra suite ‘Quiet Pride’ in London later in January. A limber, elegant musician and composer with profound roots in classical trumpet and bass, Rufus (like Jason Yarde) also straddles the worlds of jazz and music education with equal enthusiasm, grace and fervour. He has been playing in both small and sizeable jazz groups since the late ‘60s and composing for about the same length of time, moving into the world of large-scale compositions in 2011 with his symphonic orchestral work ‘Mass Transit’.

Rufus Reid (photo © Jimmy Katz)

‘Quiet Pride’ was written to honour and illustrate the work of late African–American sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett, and Rufus has taken it around the universities and culture halls of the USA whenever possible. This particular performance of the suite will be rendered by the Guildhall Jazz Orchestra under the direction of London jazz composer and educator Scott Stroman (with, I think, Rufus as conductor). While Rufus prefers to play alongside or surrounded by actual Catlett prints and sculptures for honour, reflection and continuity, there aren’t any to hand at the Guildhall and so the performance will be accompanied by projected Catlett images.

Set against the Oto show, it could be tempting to decry this as bourgeois slickness, a birch-and-beech art gallery indulgence co-opting jazz into the spaces of white power structures or celebrating some kind of house-Negro ethic. That would be unfair, shallow and revolting. To dispel that kind of wretched political preciousness, consider Elizabeth Catlett’s actual life; the source of her art and the ultimate inspiration for Rufus’ humming, quick-footed, assertive music in which (according to ‘All About Jazz’s Dan Bilawsky) “chamber-esque civility can give way to a feeling of uncertainty which, in turn, can morph into swing. Focus shifts from the textural to the rhythmic, the background to the foreground, and the subtle to the obvious. The music is mutable and multifaceted but that’s not really surprising; sculptures can take on different meaning when viewed from different angles so the music should certainly do the same.”

A pioneering presence as both a black and a female sculptor in America (at a time when few of either were to be found – or, more pertinently, allowed) Elizabeth perpetually fused art and activism, mostly through effort and moral choices. Flat-out rejected as a scholar by the Carnegie Institute of Technology due to her skin colour; struggling against direct, demoralising racist university policies while studying for a Masters in Iowa (and, later on, being stripped of her American citizenship as a result of her Communist associations and her gestures of solidarity with striking Mexican railway workers), hers is a story of personal industry, profound ethical responsibility, and effort against the odds.

Her time in Mexico (where she settled for much of her life, first learning and subsequently teaching) was also the catalyst for the crystallizing of her artistic vision, uniting her early influences of Henry Moore, Diego Rivera and pre-Columbian American sculpture with a commitment to combining aspirational concepts of strength and fierce dignity with representative figure forms. “I learned how you use your art for the service of people, struggling people, to whom only realism is meaningful” she’d assert, later. “I have always wanted my art to service my people — to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential.”

Elizabeth’s figures and prints survive her and bear witness to her particular vision. Emblematic of black dignity, of powerful maternal femininity, of a refusal to be chained down by prejudices and programmes, they cradle their children; staunchly assert their curves; stand straight-backed, defiant and admirable; reveal the hidden or overlooked complexities of the black mind and sense of self; or punch the air as a simple, stark and meaningful mark of resistance. They’re already, in their way, as direct and as intricate as jazz: something which Rufus clearly understood from the start and has strived himself to bring across in music.

Dates:

Elaine Mitchener Projects presents:
Vocal Classics of the Black Avant Garde: Jason Yarde + Elaine Mitchener + Mark Sanders + Neil Charles + Dante Micheaux + Byron Wallen + Alexander Hawkins
Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England
Monday 7th January 2019, 7.30pm – information here and here

Guildhall Jazz Orchestra/Rufus Reid/Scott Stroman: ‘Quiet Pride – The Elizabeth Catlett Project’
Milton Court Concert Hall @ Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Silk Street, Barbican, London, EC2Y 8DT, England
Tuesday 29th January 2019, 7.30pm – information here, here and here

Tags: #BlackLivesMatter, Alexander Hawkins, Archie Shepp, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Byron Wallen, Dante Micheaux, Elaine Mitchener, Elizabeth Catlett, Eric Dolphy, Guildhall Jazz Orchestra, Jason Yarde, Jeanne Lee, Joseph Jarman, London (England), London Contemporary Music Festival (event), Mark Sanders, Neil Charles, Rufus Reid, Scott Stroman

July-September 2018 – upcoming London jazz gigs – part three of the Jazz Herstory series at Poplar Union with Shirley Smart (22nd July), Francesca Ter-Berg (16th August, with Poppy Edwards, Ashley Paul and Simon Roth) and Cassie Kinoshi’s SEED Ensemble 5tet (20th September)

16 Jul

More shows for jazzwomen as the third set of gigs for Jazz Herstory come up at east London’s Poplar Union (following the Nerija, Laura Jurd and Yazz Ahmed gigs at the start of the year, and the Ruth Goller, Cath Roberts and Alison Rayner shows during spring and early summer).

* * * * * * * *

“The July gig is provided by Shirley Smart, one of the UK’s most versatile and creative cellists, and a rare exponent of jazz cello. She draws on a unique background that incorporates classical music, jazz and world music from North Africa, the Middle East, Balkans, and South America. As well as original compositions, she presents a fresh, new approach to the cello. Originally trained in classical cello Shirley subsequently moved to Jerusalem, where she stayed for ten years, studying and performing a wide variety of world music from the Mediterranean and Middle East, as well as being highly involved with the jazz and improvised music scene. Since returning to the UK, she has quickly become known as one of the most creative cellists on the music scene and has worked with many leading jazz and world music groups, including Antonio Forcione, Gilad Atzmon, Neil Cowley, Julian Ferraretto, Robert Mitchell, Kosmos Ensemble, Shekoyokh, Maciek Pysz, Maurizio Minardi, and Alice Zawadski, as well as leading her own projects.

For this concert (a late afternoon performance), Shirley’s bringing her own trio with pianist John Crawford and Demi Garcia Sabat on drums and percussion.

“For the August gig, cellist Francesca Ter-Berg (one half of Fran & Flora) takes influences from Eastern Europe (including Klezmer, Transylvanian and Romanian music) and blends them with experimentation in order to explore a world of sound, improvisation and live electronics. Her collaborative experience and diverse musical background has led Francesca to be one of the most versatile and in demand session and studio musicians in the UK. She has collaborated and performed with artists including Sam Lee, Talvin Singh, Floating Points, Portico, Sophie Solomon, Cosmo Sheldrake, Tanita Tikaram, Roger O’Donnell, Riz Ahmed, Hejira, Katy Carr, Lisa Knapp, Gerry Diver, The Unthanks, Kate Young, Bombay Dub Orchestra, Frank London, London Klezmer Quartet, Soumik Datta, Jyotsna Srikanth, Ahmed Mukhtar, Maverick Sabre and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

“Francesca will be inviting some musical friends on to the stage to perform two sets for this Jazz Herstory special. For the first set, she’ll meld her cello, voice and electronics in an improvisation with London-based songwriter, sound designer and Poppy Edwards on electronics, voice and keyboard (Poppy’s own main project, CRØM/LUS, should be releasing its own debut EP ‘Altered States’ shortly). For the second set, Francesca will be joined by jazz drummer Simon Roth (Sephiroth, Land Of If) and by American émigré and free-form wildcard Ashley Paul on saxophone, guitar and vocals.

“For September’s Jazz Herstory performance, Cassie Kinoshi brings the quintet version of her SEED Ensemble to Polar Union. A London-based composer, arranger and alto saxophonist also known for her work with all-female jazz septet Nérija and Afrobeat band Kokoroko, Cassie uses SEED to combine jazz with inner-city London, West African and Caribbean-influenced groove, exploring a blend of genres through both original compositions and arrangements.

“Usually performing as a ten-piece, SEED Ensemble presents a stellar line-up featuring some of London’s most up-and-coming young jazz musicians and has been making waves in the contemporary British jazz scene. The quintet lineup is Cassie on alto saxophone, Sheila Maurice Grey on trumpet, Shirley Tetteh on guitar, Rio Kai on bass and Patrick Boyle on drums.”

All concerts are at Poplar Union, 2 Cotall Street, Poplar, London, E14 6TL, England. Dates as follows:

Shirley Smart – Sunday 22nd July 2018, 4.30pm – information here and here
Francesca Ter-Berg – Thursday 16th August 2018, 7.00pm – information here and here
SEED Ensemble 5tet, Thursday 20th September 2018, 7.30pm – information here and here

Tags: Ashley Paul, Demi Garcia Sabat, Fran & Flora, Francesca Ter-Berg, Jazz Herstory (event/promoter), John Crawford, Kokoroko, listening to women, London (England), Nérija, Patrick Boyle, Poppy Edwards (CROM-LUS), Rio Kai, Sheila Maurice-Grey, Shirley Smart, Shirley Tetteh, Simon Roth, women of heart and mind

April-June 2018 – upcoming London jazz gigs – Patchwork Jazz Orchestra and Pillow & Kase (7th April); part two of the Jazz Herstory season at Poplar Union with Ruth Goller (19th April), Cath Roberts (17th May) and the Alison Rayner Quintet (28th June)

4 Apr

Briefly boosting the signal for some of the season’s jazz shows…

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Balabam & Woodburner presents:
Patchwork Jazz Orchestra + Pillow & Kase + DJ Hot Bread
Balabam, 58-60 High Road, South Tottenham, London, N15 6JU, England
Saturday 7th April 2018, 7.30pm – information here and here

“Patchwork Jazz Orchestra are a London-based millennial big band that has no leader but a variety of composers using the ensemble as a platform for fresh sounds and ideas. A factory of sound, materialising the musical fantasies of a new generation of jazz musicians. With such a melting pot of influences and characters, the music ranges from luscious and sweet melodies to broad walls of sound, from drum and bass to funeral marches, from fairytale ballads to calypso. The musical glue binding it together are the seventeen musicians that power the vibrations and their universal passion for improvisation. Drawing on the wealth of history of the big band format, PJO have revamped it into a well-oiled machine that embraces a modern day philosophy of music making.

“Having already met through other smaller ensembles and subgroups, many members of the band had a desire not only to play more large ensemble music, but to have the opportunity and environment to write for it. Ideas for the band began forming in early 2014, and in November that year the seventeen-piece group made its debut to a sell out audience at the London Jazz Festival. After winning the Peter Whittingham Award in 2015, the band have hosted their own “Patchwork” nights, engaging new audiences at unusual spaces in London and turning heads with the sound of fresh original compositions written exclusively by its members. They have just finished recording their first album at AIR Studios, scheduled for release in early 2019.

“Pillow & Kase are a London based duo born out of the not-so-usual yet distinctive combination of a singer and an electric bass player. Creating a variety of textures using the delicate paring of these instruments with electronic effects, loops and percussion, this duo (featuring Clara Serra Lopez on vocals, electronics and hand percussion and Matt Gedrych on electric bass and electronics) plays original music and improvisations based on the sounds, rhythms and expressive nature of jazz, hip-hop, neo-soul, Latin and African music.”

Despite the early start, the live music itself kicks off at nine o’clock with DJ Hot Bread filling all of the gaps before, in between and after.

* * * * * * * *

Just north of Docklands, the impeccable feminist jazz initiative Jazz Herstory continues its rolling series of gigs at Poplar Union featuring top female jazz talents. For information on the previous set of shows, click here; for news on who’s going to see us through spring and into summer, read on…

“In a sudden change of plan, Ruth Goller will be fronting the fourth episode of Jazz Herstory Presents (replacing the originally scheduled Emma-Jean Thackray). Grooving through so many of the greatest bands in London (including this one and Vula Viel), Ruth Goller is one of London’s best bass players.

“Agile Experiments is a project curated by Dave De Rose (Jazz Herstory’s favourite drummer), based around – but not limited by – eight combinations of fourteen musicians based in London, which come together in a genre-defying free improv setting. Initially formed from one-hour concerts in Brixton Village courtesy of The Agile Rabbit Pizzeria (from where the project got its name), the group have just released Volume One of their collective efforts on 12″ vinyl.

“For this concert Agile Experiments presents Ruth Goller (bass guitar), George Crowley (Can Of Worms, Corrie Dick’s Band of Joy, Vula Viel) on saxophone and Dave De Rose himself on drums.

“Cath Roberts is a saxophonist, jazz promoter, record label manager, producer and composer. She has toured across the UK and Europe, contributing a huge amount to the production of music in and around London. Her music is very spontaneous, drawing on repeated phrases, pulled in all directions by various members of the band at different times, shared and passed around and developed. The music seems to grow out of nowhere and submerges you in a musical journey.

“Her bands (as leader or contributor) include Sloth Racket, Ripsaw Catfish, Favourite Animals and Madwort Sax Quartet; and she’s half of the LUME project (with Dee Byrne) championing fresh improv in a series of gutsy dates and all-dayers. For her Jazz Herstory concert, Cath will be leading a drumless trio completed by double bass player Otto Willberg and trombonist Tullis Rennie (one of Cath’s Favourite Animals collaborators).

“Double bass player and composer Alison Rayner has been on the British jazz scene for many years and is well known for being a proactive member of the jazz community, running gigs and touring internationally with the band Guest Stars, as well as being known for Blow The Fuse. As a leader, Alison ties together many of the strands of her numerous musical influences: a long-time Charlie Haden admirer (as well as being a Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke fan), Alison is supported by some of the most accomplished musicians in the UK today.

“Alison’s Quintet (her Blow The Fuse partner Deirdre Cartwright on guitar, The Casimir Connection/Giant Steppes’ saxophonist Diane McLoughlin, Steve Lodder on piano and Buster Birch on drums and percussion) is “purposeful, full-toned and melodic, a beautifully integrated band”. The influences are diverse, with traits of funk, folk and Afro-Cuban dance music. Expect terrific grooves, poignant melodies and fluid improvisation.”

All concerts are at Poplar Union, 2 Cotall Street, Poplar, London, E14 6TL, England. Dates as follows:

Ruth Goller/Agile Experiments – Thursday 19th April 2018, 7.30pm – information here and here
Cath Roberts – Thursday 17th May 2018, 7.30pm – information here and here
Alison Rayner Quintet – Thursday 28th June 2018, 7.30pm – information here and here

As I did last time around, I’d recommend the burgeoning Jazz Herstory Facebook page as a great place for finding out more – much more – about undersung and/or unfairly neglected female jazz artists in history.

Tags: Adam Chatterton, Agile Experiments, Alex Hitchcock, Alison Rayner, big bands, Buster Birch, Cath Roberts, Clara Serra Lopez, Dave De Rose, Deirdre Cartwright, Diane McLoughlin, DJ Hot Bread, Emma-Jean Thackray, George Crowley, James Copus, James Davison, Jamie Pimenta, Jazz Herstory (promoter/event), Kieran McLeod, Liam Dunachie, listening to women, London (England), Matt Gedrych, Matthew Herd, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Otto Willberg, Patchwork Jazz Orchestra, Pillow & Kase, Rob Luft, Ruth Goller, Sam Glaser, Sam Miles, Sam Rapley, Scott Chapman, Steve Lodder, Tom Dennis, Tom Green, Tullis Rennie, Vula Viel, women of heart and mind, Yusuf Narçin

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Categories 2018, Afro-funk, big-band jazz, Cuban jazz, festivals, folk-jazz, free jazz, funk, hip hop, improvisation, instrumental music, jazz, jazz-funk, Latin dance, loop music, neo-soul, post-bop, previews, sound collage, soundscapes

February 2018 – upcoming London jazz gigs – Christine Tobin’s PELT (3rd February); Jason Yarde’s TRiO !Wah! plus JAE (11th February); Adam Ben Ezra plus the Dan Casimir Quintet (16th February)

28 Jan

A quick whistle-stop, cut’n’paste rush through some of early February’s interesting jazz gigs… not much from me this time, so you’ll just have to trust the press releases…

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Christine Tobin, 2014

Christine Tobin: ‘PELT’
Hall Two @ Kings Place, 90 York Way, Kings Cross, London, N1 9AG, England
Saturday 3rd February 2018, 7.30pm – information here and here

“Having been an integral part of the UK music scene for many years, Christine Tobin is now based between NYC and London. The Irish-born vocalist and composer is renowned for her unique rich voice and original compositional style. With eleven highly acclaimed albums under her own name and four major awards under her belt, Christine is treasured in the UK and far beyond as one of the leading lights on the contemporary scene. MOJO described her as an artist who “really transcends glib genre-fication. Her expressive range acknowledges finely acquired folk, jazz and 20th-century classical influences, which already sets her apart. And everything is shot through with an unmistakable refinement, free-spirited earthiness and giddy romanticism… this singer-songwriter is in a field of one.”

“Christine’s most recent album – 2016’s ‘PELT’ – is her settings of poems and lyrics by contemporary Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon. Although a continuation of her alchemy with fine words and music and her exploration of the chemistry between the two, ‘PELT’ marks a new direction and a new musical soundscape… both daring and dreamlike, passionate and playful. Tobin leads her musicians across a kaleidoscopic panorama, sometimes as junkyard blues philosopher, or snappy beat seductress, sometimes as a conduit for exquisite zen-like harmonies, or reflective Americana.

“The seed of the idea for setting Paul Muldoon’s poems came when the pair were invited to collaborate and perform a piece at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2011. Christine had long admired Muldoon’s work and he was greatly impressed by her British Composer Award-winning settings of W.B. Yeats. When they discussed setting his poems, Paul gave Christine a copy of his collection ‘Paul Muldoon Poems 1968 – 1998’ and gave her carte blanche to choose the poems she wished to work with. He also sent her new lyrics and as the project unfolded, the texts chosen ended up a being mix of poems and lyrics. The result is a rich and engaging collection with Tobin’s trademark originality.”

(Meanwhile, I’ve been slack enough to miss the fact that this is just part of an ongoing British tour which, by the time it hits London, will already have been through Bridport, Calstock, Torrington, Exeter, Southampton and Derby and is going on to Gateshead, Cardiff, Bristol and Nottingham before winding up at Birmingham on 10th February. For the full dates and details, check here: more on the personnel below.

“For this tour, Tobin has assembled a stellar band which includes seminal figures on the jazz scene Gareth Lockrane (flutes), Phil Robson (guitar/electronics), Steve Hamilton (piano/keyboard/laptop), Kate Shortt (cello/vocals/deaf signing), Richard Jones (violin), Dave Whitford (upright/electric bass) and Simon Lea (drums). In ‘Jazzwise’ magazine, Peter Quinn described them as “a cast of players who are all perfectly attuned to Tobin’s vision and artistry.” The London concert will feature a guest reading by the acclaimed multi-award winning Brooklyn poet Eva Salzman, who has also collaborated with Christine on past projects.”

* * * * * * * *

Tom Skinner presents
Jason Yarde’s TRiO !Wah! + JAE
The Pickle Factory, 13-14 The Oval, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9DU, England
Sunday 11th February 2018, 6.00pm – information here, here and here

“On 11th February, revered jazz drummer Tom Skinner returns for a Sunday evening residency at The Pickle Factory, curating a forward-thinking evening of jazz music every other month. Over the past year Tom has hosted some true jazz greats – Ezra Collective, Shabaka Hutchings – and has some special evenings planned for 2018.

“This time, Tom Skinner invites monster ex-Jazz Warrior multi-reedist Jason Yarde – famed for his work as an arranger with the sadly departed Hugh Masekela – who presents his lauded jazz ensemble TRiO !WAH!, featuring Yarde on saxes, bassist Larry Bartley and drummer Mike Pickering. In contrast to playing in the big bands of Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner, Sam Rivers, Hermeto Pascoal, Roy Ayers, Manu Dibango and his own Acoutastic Bombastic, Trio WAH! is a chance to hear Yarde’s playing and compositions in an intimate and stripped-down setting. Jason and Larry (Courtney Pine, Byron Wallen, etc) forged their musical relationship through playing in the original Jazz Warriors; and Mike (Billy Jenkins, Christine Tobin, etc) and Jason through the London based twelve-piece Rare Mix. Over the fifteen-plus years since, they have developed a fluid trio connection covering greatly varied musical terrain.

“From tight and constantly shifting rhythmic patterns to free flowing rhapsodic episodes, Trio !WAH! can cover the calm and the storm within a few bars, never losing the important elements of rhythm, melody and even harmony in this exposed format. ‘Jazzwise’ noted that the group “modulates easily from spacious post-bop to dirty grooves via Ornette-ish noise, showing a creative approach to form”, while ‘The Guardian’ said “it’s fascinating to witness how seamlessly Yarde’s writing and improvising intertwine… Swing, hip-hop, improv, you name it, he can make it all sound as if it was meant to live together, and he’s getting better at it all the time…”

“They’re joined by JAE, a mysterious keyboard and drums duo playing music influenced by King Tubby, Madlib and Larry Levan…”

(I found a little more on JAE, to render them less annoyingly anonymous. It turns out that it’s a team-up of longterm south London jazz buddies Joe Armon Jones (keyboard player with Ezra Collective, Sumo Chief, Nubya Garcia band and others) and drummer Jake Long (drummer with Maisha, SE Dub Collective and Where Pathways Meet).

Also, here’s eighty easygoing seconds of JAE doodle…

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Adam Ben Ezra + Dan Casimir Quintet
The Jazz Café, 5 Parkway, Camden Town, London, NW1 7PG, England
Friday 16th February 2018, 7.00pm – information here and here

“Double bass phenomenon, multi-instrumentalist and online sensation Adam Ben Ezra; a man seemingly on a mission to bring his instrument from its status as a background note to the dominant front-presence it deserves. For the past few years Adam has been pushing his craft in new, exciting directions and carving out a unique spot for himself in today’s international musical landscape, with both his virtuosity and musicianship earning him great success along the way.

“With more than ten million hits on YouTube and a strong following on all social media platforms, it is clear Adam is a bonafide star in the internet world. However, his success is certainly not limited to the web, having performed around the globe in major international music festivals and shared stages with some of the world’s fusion giants – including Pat Metheny, Victor Wooten and Richard Bona – over the last few years.

“Support comes from award winning bassist and composer Dan Casimir. Having made a name for himself with his EP ‘Escapee’, released on Jazz re:freshed in 2016, Dan has also lent his bass skills to the likes of Julian Joseph, Jason Rebello, Lonnie Liston Smith, Ashley Henry, Camilla George and Nubya Garcia to name a few.”

(As far as I know, the Dan Casimir Quintet is Dan plus pianist Sarah Tandy, guitarist Shirley Tetteh, singer Tess Hirst and drummer Olly Sarkar…)

Tags: Adam Ben Ezra, Christine Tobin, Dan Casimir, Dave Whitford, Gareth Lockrane, JAE, Jake Long, Jason Yarde, Jazz Warriors, Joe Armon-Jones, Kate Shortt, Kings Place (venue) - Kings Cross - London, Larry Bartley, listening to women, London (England), Mike Pickering, Olly Sarkar, Paul Muldoon, Phil Robson, Rare Mix, Richard Jones (violinist), Sarah Tandy, Shirley Tetteh, Simon Lea, Steve Hamilton, Tess Hirst, The Jazz Café (venue) - Camden Town - London - England, Tom Skinner, TRiO !Wah!, women of heart and mind

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Categories 2018, acoustic music, big-band jazz, chamber jazz, electro-acoustic music, folk-jazz, free jazz, funk, improvisation, instrumental music, jazz, jazz fusion, jazz-funk, jazz-pop, poetry, post-bop, previews, singer-songwriter, space-jazz, spoken word

January/February 2018 – The Ecstatic Music Festival in New York (part 1) with Kronos Quartet, Xenia Rubinos, Face The Music, Adam Schatz’s Civil Engineering and Bang On A Can (27th January, 5th February, 15th February)

15 Jan

Looking over to America, the Saturday after next sees the first date in New York City’s snappy, broad-based Ecstatic Music Festival.

“Starting on 27th January and running through 26th April 2018, the festival, hailed as “the alt-classical world’s main showcase” (‘The New York Times’), will feature collaborations from more than seventy-five composers and performers from different musical genres across the sonic spectrum, including Kronos Quartet, the Bang On A Can All-Stars, Margaret Leng Tan, Glasser, Xenia Rubinos, Mantra Percussion, Mahogany L. Browne, Carla Kihlstedt, Patrick Zimmerli, Ethan Iverson, Buke & Gase’s Arone Dyer, and many more. A collaboration between New Amsterdam Presents and Kaufman Music Center, the festival has nine collaborative one-night-only performances featuring world premieres, new arrangements and the exclusive opportunity to hear artists discuss their work.”

Here are some details for the first three shows (taken from the programme and tweaked/expanded where necessary), spread out from the end of January to the middle of February:

“Xenia Rubinos can make social consciousness sensual,” says the ‘New York Times’. Her catchy yet exuberantly visceral songs meld weighty social issues with intimately personal ones and draw from a broad palette of influences ranging from Caribbean and jazz to indie rock, hip-hop and punk.

“Xenia will team up with Adam Schatz’s Civil Engineering, a high-energy, ten-member multi-dimensional big band led by the protean multi-instrumentalist Adam Schatz, “New York’s indie-rock Zelig” (‘New York Observer’) and Landlady frontman, to perform new arrangements of her songs, his songs, and composers they love, and to premiere new works written for the Ecstatic Music Festival.

“Regarding the project, Adam claims to be “chasing the spirits of Duke Ellington and Gene Wilder. I am trying to operate at a large scale that hits at the heart and can go anywhere at any time. Songs, improvisations, and adventures with a big band of impossibly talented people. This is Civil Engineering.” The band has included Alec Spiegelman, Ross Edwards, Brandon Seabrook (Seabrook Power Plant, Needle Driver), Ross Gallagher, Noah Garabedian (Big Butter And The Egg Men, Ravi Coltrane), Stephanie Richards, Curtis Hasselbring (The New Mellow Edwards, Decoupage, The Curha-chestra) and Patrick Breiner.

“The adventurous, Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet – one of the most celebrated and influential ensembles of our time – joins NYC’s acclaimed youth new music ensemble (and Kaufman in-house orchestra) Face the Music to perform new works written for Kronos’ “Fifty for the Future”, a commissioning, education and legacy project showcasing contemporary approaches to the string quartet that features new works by some of today’s foremost composers.

The two ensembles will perform separately and together: there’s no details on the Kronos setlist yet, or on the combined programme, but Face the Music will be performing Yotam Haber‘s ‘From The Book’ and Kala Ramnath‘s ‘Amrit’.

“Co-founded in 1987 by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, Bang On A Can has grown from a one-off concert band to a ceaselessly active, multi-bodied and internationally famous New Music ensemble, building a world in which powerful new musical ideas flow freely across all genres and borders. Set up in 1997, long before crowd-funding became the norm through Kickstarter and the like, Bang On A Can’s People’s Commissioning Fund has pooled contributions of all sizes from hundreds of friends and fans. Since its inception as a radical partnership between artists and audiences to commission works from adventurous composers, it has commissioned over fifty works of music for New York’s electric Bang on a Can All-Stars.

“This concert, compiling new commissions for 2018 and a few old favourites, is a New Sounds Live co-presentation: it will be hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer and streamed live. There will be world premieres of pieces by George Lewis and Angélica Negrón, plus a new look at “historic” PCF-commissioned pieces by Pamela Z, Annea Lockwood, Lukas Ligeti and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.”

All concerts are performed at Merkin Concert Hall @ Kaufman Music Center, 129 W 67th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York, NY 10023, USA. Dates and times below:

Xenia Rubinos & Adam Schatz’s Civil Engineering – Saturday 27th January 2018, 7:30pm – information here and here
Kronos Quartet & Face The Music – Monday 5th February 2018, 7:30pm – information here and here
Bang on a Can People’s Commissioning Fund Concert – Thursday 15th February 2018, 7:30pm – here and here

For those who might not have already followed up on the remaining six dates between March and April, I’ll stick up reminders closer to the time…

Tags: Adam Schatz’s Civil Engineering, Angélica Negrón, Annea Lockwood, Bang On A Can, Face The Music, George Lewis, Kala Ramnath, Kronos Quartet, Landlady, Lukas Ligeti, New York City (USA), Pamela Z, The Ecstatic Music Festival (event), Thurston Moore, Xenia Rubinos, Yotam Haber

June 2017 – some of London’s more theatrical upcoming gigs – cartoon critters run amok with ‘Cat & Mouse’ (8th & 9th June); plague, trauma and rhythm with Grand Union Orchestra’s ‘Song of Contagion’ (13th-17th June); Debbie Wiseman and The Locrian Ensemble play music from ‘Wolf Hall’ (June 18th)

26 May

Three theatrical/televisual fusion gigs in London for the coming month…

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1927 Theatre Company and Village Underground present:
‘Cat and Mouse’
Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3PQ, England
Thursday 8th + Friday 9th June 2017, 7.00pm – information here and here

“The world premiere of ‘Cat And Mouse’! A theatrical animation experience involving an animated cat and mouse and a band of dogs. Featuring the animations of Paul Bill Barritt (1927) with live music by Officer Pup (composer Laurence Owen and band), introducing Miss Lesley Ewen as The Law.

“You could say we’ve seen it all at VU, but in actual fact there are still plenty of firsts. This’ll be one of them: our debut in-house theatrical production. We’ve been waiting for just the right project to come along for some time, so when Paul said he wanted to do a theatrical animation experience with anthropomorphic animals, we knew we’d waited long enough.

“The cultural history of anthropomorphised animals is long and deep, as long and deep as the river of imagination itself. We see ourselves reflected back at ourselves within those furry beings. ‘Cat and Mouse’ is one such development. Taking its germ from the great peddler of anthropomorphised cat and mouse chaos Mr. George Herriman (creator of the ‘Krazy Kat’ stories which in turn inspired ‘Tom & Jerry’), it proceeds in a zigzag line through the gamut of human idiocy from art to war, from technology to industry, from civilisation to love all via the shenanigans of various humanimals mostly of the rodent/feline variety with some notably canine overseers holding court over the proceedings. Sticking within the traditions of artistic purveyance there will be visuals in the form of animations, sets and costume, there will be live music and there will be storytelling. A theatrical animation experience unlike anything seen before, alike to everything seen once upon a time, long ago . . .

“‘Cat and Mouse’ sets up the familiar dichotomy of good and evil, navigating the extremes of human idiocy from art to war, from technology to industry, from civilisation to love all rendered through the shenanigans of a rodent, a feline and the dogs of law. With a band performing the original score live, don’t expect to sit through this – witnessing Cat and Mouse will be like finding yourself inside a television set. “Made of old ‘toons and new tunes, it’s like an arthouse ‘Itchy and Scratchy’ where the action spills out into the audience,” says Paul. “Expect high-octane action, fun and frolics, extreme (cartoon) violence, moments of edification, sadomasochism, a face machine, skeletons, dogs, dancing, and more.”

“As we veer further towards duplicitous times of fake news and alternate facts, the idea that we can define what is purely good or evil becomes a tempting focus. Yet with cartoonish reality TV characters as world leaders, the notion that we’re all made up of these shades of good and evil becomes increasingly obscured. Predator and prey, good and evil, and our instincts to protect those that are vulnerable – ‘Cat and Mouse’ couldn’t be more timely.”

Here’s a more in-depth interview with Paul Barritt about the project, from ‘Run Riot‘…

* * * * * * * *

Grand Union Orchestra and Wilton’s Music Hall present:
Grand Union Orchestra: ‘Song Of Contagion’
Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley, Whitechapel, London, E1 8JB, England
Tuesday 13th June to Saturday 17th June 2017, 7:30pm (2:30pm – schools matinee on 15th June, family show on 17th June including “meet the musicians” event) – information here, here, here and here

“Ever wondered what would happen if you teamed up a distinguished scientist with internationally-acclaimed jazz and world musicians? The answer is ‘Song Of Contagion‘, the brainchild of composer Tony Haynes and epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani and featuring Grand Union Orchestra, which explores the mismatch between areas where diseases are suffered and those where the money is spent, bringing cold statistics vividly to life on stage.

“It begins in the East End, round the corner from Wilton’s, where cholera raged in Victorian times; eradicated in London by building the sewers, it continues rampant in Kolkata today. A moving series of songs tells the stories of combatants and civilians affected by shell-shock, for which treatment is still scarce. Exuberant dance rhythms describe how dengue and Zika spread unnoticed across Africa and the Caribbean until Zika hit the headlines, threatening to spoil the Rio Olympics. A big-band piece celebrates the activism that brought HIV/AIDS to public attention and an old music hall song dramatises the danger of heart disease posed by the junk food industry.

“‘Song Of Contagion’ features thirty of Grand Union’s finest musicians and singers from musical traditions worldwide, who add immense impact and authenticity to the performance – Indian musicians evoking Kolkata past and present; brilliant jazz soloists giving voice to the trauma of soldiers and refugees; highlife, merengue, soca and samba beats dramatising the spread of Zika.”

Thursday 15th June features a schools matinee and a free pre-evening show at 6.00pm in which Sam Johnson and students from Community Music describe their contribution to the project with audio illustrations. There’s also a free post-show discussion at 9.30pm on Friday 16th June in which Elizabeth Pisani talks about ‘Turning health statistics into music and song’. On Saturday 17th June (at 4:15pm) the extra event is ‘King Cholera and the Great Metropolis Walk‘ a two-hour tour with guide Sophie Campbell exploring cholera in London’s East End.

* * * * * * * *

Live at Zédel presents:
‘Wolf Hall live’
Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, Soho, London W1F 7ED, England
Sunday 18th June 2017, 7.00pm – information

“Hilary Mantel’s award-winning novel ‘Wolf Hall’ was transformed into a riveting six-part drama by the BBC to huge acclaim in 2015. Accompanying Thomas Cromwell’s machinations and hushed conversations in shadowy palace corners was original music by Debbie Wiseman, performed by members of The Locrian Ensemble of London; the soundtrack CD reached no.1 in the classical charts.

“Debbie has over two hundred film and television soundtracks to her name including ‘Wilde’, ‘Wolf Hall’ and, more recently, ‘Dickensian’. Consisting of some of the country’s finest musicians, the Locrian Ensemble is at the very top of its game, delivering stunning performances which range from the blisteringly dramatic to the heart-rendingly mournful.

“Tonight, Debbie and the Ensemble perform selections from her acclaimed score, alongside extracts from ‘Wolf Hall’ and its first sequel ‘Bring Up The Bodies’ read by Anton Lesser (who played Thomas More in the BBC series). The concert roughly follows the narrative of the television series with Lesser’s intense readings setting the scene for a musical commentary. The most intense part of the concert must surely be the depiction of Anne Boleyn’s execution, as the impassioned readings leave the audience hanging on every word, with music that is gripping and moving in equal parts.”

Tags: 1927 Theatre Company, Anton Lesser, Debbie Wiseman, Elizabeth Pisani (scientist), George Herriman (cartoonist), Grand Union Orchestra, Hilary Mantel (writer), Krazy Kat (cartoon), Lesley Ewen, London (England), The Locrian Ensemble of London, Tony Haynes, Wolf Hall (television series)

April 2017 – upcoming London jazz gigs – Ella Hohnen-Ford Quartet (8th), The Delegation (22nd), TEXTURE (28th)

3 Apr

Three upcoming jazz gigs this month – shimmering vibes-and-voice-led songwork; large-scale and purposeful big-band abstractions like a collapsing city; cartoon-coloured Weather Report-ish synth and drum grooves…

* * * * * * * *

MAP Studio Café presents:
Ella Hohnen-Ford Quartet
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England
Saturday 8th April 2017, 7.30pm – information

“The unusual line up of bass, drums, voice and vibraphone adds to the unique sound created by the Ella Hohnen-Ford Quartet, a vibrant jazz/cross-genre quartet of passionate young players, currently studying at the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall. With influences ranging from the jazz greats (such as Ella Fitzgerald and Shirley Horn), to modern composers (including Kenny Wheeler and Marius Neset) and singer-songwriters such as Nora Jones and James Taylor, the group have a truly individual and confident sound. A debut performance not to missed, featuring arrangements of songs we love and compositions written by and for this specific line up.

“The band features Ella Hohnen-Ford (currently the only singer studying at the Royal Academy of Music’s jazz course), vibraphonist/composer Jonny Mansfield, drummer Boz Martin-Jones and bassist Will Sach (who currently holds the world record for playing the highest altitude bass line, at 40,000 feet). Ella and Boz also play in Johnny’s hotly-tipped Elftet band.”

I couldn’t find anything by the whole band, let alone any sneak previews of their original tunes, but here’s what sounds like Jonny and Ella at work on an old standard:

* * * * * * * *

MAP Studio Café presents:
The Delegation
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England
Saturday 22nd April 2017, 7.30pm – information

“Gabriel Zucker’s indie jazz orchestra The Delegation was founded in 2013, and has already broken new ground in New York’s dynamic music scene. Combining an array of disparate influences into a unique and emotionally immediate sound, The Delegation has performed throughout the Northeast and Canada, and Zucker’s compositions for the group have received awards from ASCAP and the American Composers Forum JFund grant. The group’s singular musical philosophy has been profiled at length by the Ottawa Citizen, Jazz Gallery, and the American Composers Forum.

“Last autumn, The Delegation brought its unique concept to life with the release of ‘Evergreen (Canceled World)’, Zucker’s maximalist 12-movement composition that serves as the band’s sprawlingly ambitious debut record. In ‘World Music Report’, Raul da Gama wrote “in Zucker’s almost confrontational writing I find the vision of one who is hugely expressive. Here is a young man with a profound sense of tone and colour and how it can be wrought from diverse instrumentation to be affectingly “cantorial”, expressive and hugely symphonic too.”

“‘Evergreen’ also received 4.5 stars in ‘Downbeat’ and 4 stars in ‘All About Jazz’. With protean production by Zucker and pop producer Chris Connors, the nearly-two-hour record features everything from angular rhythmic grooves to Radiohead-inspired soundscapes to jarring electronics-infused chamber music to enigmatic lullabies, and is one of the year’s only contemporary releases on the prestigious ESP-Disk label.

“Support comes from Introspection, a new seven-piece contemporary modal jazz and jazz-rock ensemble, soon to release their eponymous debut EP. The group plays the original compositions and arrangements of its bandleader and guitarist Julian Woods, which explore colourful modal harmony, open improvisation, dense textures, contemporary through-composition, and rock-like timbres.”

* * * * * * * *

IKLECTIK Art Lab presents:
TEXTURE
IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Friday 28th April 2017, 8:00 pm – information

“TEXTURE is an original drums/keyboards duo project of drummer, percussionist and composer Adam Teixeira, featuring Chris Pruden on analogue keyboards and synthesizers. Based in South London and Berlin, the two musicians began playing together in Toronto, Canada in 2012 and have since performed across North America and Europe collaborating with a variety of international musicians.

“Adam has recently released this music on his debut album (also called ‘TEXTURE’), which features hypnotic and infectious drumset grooves, kalimba melodies, atmospheric synth landscapes; exploring a unique blend of folkloric rhythmic traditions stemming from African, Caribbean and Indian classical roots with modern jazz and electronic influences, and providing the perfect setting for the musicians to launch into energetic improvisations.”

Tags: Adam Teixeira, Boz Martin-Jones, Chris Pruden, Ella Hohnen-Ford, Gabriel Zucker, Introspection, Jonny Mansfield, Julian Woods, MAP Studio Cafe (promoters), music for jazz orchestra, TEXTURE, The Delegation, Will Sach

April 2017 – upcoming gigs – performance of Tim Smith/Cardiacs pieces in Amsterdam by jazz ensemble, for free (6th)

31 Mar

Just heard this heartening news from INKT/Theater M-Lab/Palmen & Reijmerink bassist Rita Kárpáti, in Amsterdam:

“Tim Smith‘s previously-unheard composition ‘Pod, my my look my Pod’ (1983) is going to be performed in the Amsterdam Conservatory during the Jazz Ensemble Festival in the Blue Note hall – alongside with two other classic songs by Cardiacs… The ensemble is going to be rather extended, I don’t even remember the exact number of members – around ten or eleven people on stage, so it’s going to be loud! So if you are around in the Netherlands and want to hear ‘Pod…’ for the first time, performed by the wonkiest of students and alumni of the CvA, conducted by prog-rock professor Jos Zwaanenburg – for free – you know where to find us.”

This is taking part as part of the Conservatorium Jazz Ensemble festival, which runs between 3rd and 6th April this year and features performances from many of the Conservatorium’s budding jazz and cross-disciplinary musicians, mostly for free. If you’re interested in the whole festival programme you can get it here, but if you’re specifically hoping to catch the set of Smith pieces then you need to look out for Alex Brajkovic‘s electric/acoustic ensemble performing on the evening of 6th April…

3rd Jazz Ensemble Festival @ Conservatorium von Amsterdam presents:
Alex Brajkovic (MA)’s Student Ensemble play Tim Smith
Blue Note Zaal @ Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Oosterdokseiland, 1011 DL Amsterdam, Netherlands
Thursday 6th April 2017, 6:30pm – free event

More from Rita regarding the background to this:

“I got Timfected by my teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory about two years ago. His name is Jos Zwaanenburg, a prog rock flautist who dedicates a whole class to teaching the music of Frank Zappa and related artists. The year I joined that class he decided to throw in a Cardiacs piece for us to learn (we can say he is a big Patient Zero). It was Jibber And Twitch. I still remember the childish joy of playing something so punky in a respected music institution and how impossible those fast quintuplets seemed to play. (I play the bass and I deeply adore Jim (Smith, Cardiacs bassist) for his elaborate basslines and his ability to endure fierce domestic brutality).

“A few years of vigorous Cardiacs listening passed and I graduated. Fast forward to this November, 2016. Jos writes us an e-mail that he finally got the chance to make his trip to England. A trip he had been organizing for years with the help of a mutual friend. He was about to visit Tim Smith and ask him geeky musical questions! He said that during their e-mailing he had been requested to show what he had been doing with his students, but since all the exam recordings sounded crappy we had to make a new, proper home recording of Jibber And Twitch. I couldn’t have been happier to play it again! We rehearsed and made the new version. (It still sounded very lo-fi, but our heart was in it I’d like to think.)

“So Jos went to England, and yes, he actually met Tim. (He is going to cover the details of that absolutely touching encounter in an article soon, so I’m not going into details about how they communicated or what else happened there. I don’t want to take Jos’ credits.) Only my side of the story. After some friendly drinking and whatnot Jos played our silly little recording to Tim. And the anecdote says he looked impressed and he gave it a thumbs up when the song arrived to a part with overdubbed vocals. Even though I wasn’t there (only in a form of an under-mixed bassline) I’m always going to remember this as the most epic ‘Like’ in my life.

“We also got permission to study and record any of his music, including the ones that have never been recorded. We got all the sheet music we need. That’s what kind of a guy Tim Smith is.”

I’m not sure about which three Cardiacs pieces will be played alongside ‘Pod…’ but from hints dropped in various discussions I wouldn’t be surprised if they included Jibber And Twitch and The Duck And Roger The Horse. Below are Cardiacs performances of each of these, plus the English Rose Orchestrations variant on ‘The Duck…’ showing how the original hectic art/prog/punk piece has yielded a set of contemporary classical variations.

Tags: Alex Brajkovic, Amsterdam (Netherlands), Cardiacs, Conservatorium von Amsterdam Jazz Ensemble Festival (event), English Rose Orchestrations, INKT, Jos Zwaanenburg, Justin Rose, Palmen & Reijmerink, Rita Kárpáti, the buds and spawn of Cardiacs and Tim Smith, Theater M-Lab, Tim Smith

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Categories 2017, acoustic music, art punk, big-band jazz, chamber music, cover versions, cross-cultural music, crossover, experimental music, festivals, improvisation, instrumental music, jazz, jazz fusion, previews, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, rock

April 1998 – album reviews – Django Bates’ ‘Like Life’ (“placing his inquisitive, loopy and flamboyantly complex music in the hands of relative strangers”)

22 Apr

Django Bates: ‘Like Life’

When the most wilful, please-yourselves mavericks start winning awards, it ensures that – whether they like it or not – they can never again be quite the young turks they started out as. Whether you dismiss them or embrace them, awards ceremony transmute. They can chuck a bucket of seriousness over the winners, which can either damp them down or inflame them further. Smooth or savage, they’re plucked out of their milieu and put in a position where the loose and buoyant expectations which can hang on an artist will suddenly crystallise and weigh hard.

Django Bates won the Jazzpar Prize – jazz’s Nobel – in 1997. In some ways, dealing with that has been one of his biggest challenges. Bates’ career so far has been notable for his avoidance – mostly – of the company of international names. Instead he’s worked unhindered with his own London-based gang of congenial lunatics.

‘Like Life’ (documenting his Jazzpar performances) is different, placing his inquisitive, loopy and flamboyantly complex music in the hands of relative strangers. Though Bates’ usual quartet Human Chain travelled over with him (forming the core of the Jazzpar version of his Delightful Precipice big band) the remaining personnel were committed Danish jazzers. Fine players, but not in on the joke, if you know what I mean. At the height of Bates’ triumph he could’ve been sunk, had his music proved not to be the sort that can travel outside its own circle.

Happily, it works fairly well. This is most evidently when Bates is working with the fatter, more cohesive sound of the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, who’ve toured Gil Evans’ repertoire and lead with a muscular frontline of brash trumpets and an armoury of trombones. The DRJO get to debut most of the new material, displaying a flourishing cabaret flair on the big-Bates favourite Nights At the Circus. They also generally ensure that the album has a more jolly and easygoing tinge to it than was heard on previous Bates bouts.

The aggressive drive that stalks behind the affable cartoonish facade of Bates’ mutant jazz seems to have been mellowed by the experience. By the time he’s leading the big band in convivial pubby chants about tea (on The Importance of Boiling Water), he sounds as if he’s befriended the lot of them personally. This is at its most valuable when he allows his more meditative side to emerge on the reflective, restrained theme of Misplaced Swans. Slow and gawky brass figures emerge in a delightfully vulnerable indigo mood, as a quiet panic attack on guitar sets Bates’ own lyrical, chipped piano solo into sharper focus.

However, that quirky inclusive mischief continues to rule the roost. Once a Penguin, Always a Penguin is a rollicking big-band march, full of the blurp of tubas and invigorating yells of high brass egging them on, laced together by Bates’ gurgling fairground organ. It sounds like Charles Mingus laughing his head off on a helium overdose. The joyous, waltzing Like Life itself is equally enjoyable. It’s a cheerful Ellingtonian argument at the peak of a party, which also draws in Bates’ perennial affection for the pride, pomp and community humour of English pit-brass bands.

Topping the lot is The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, a twelve-minute Bates epic that pulses along and doubles back like Weather Report fighting over a squid. The real-life Crowhurst faked a round-the-world yacht journey, radio broadcasts and all. Bates was obviously tickled enough by the story to put his own fantastical spin on it. It’s busy and anxious music with a beautifully illustrated edge of self-importance and suppressed hysterical guilt, capturing the grabby energy and sheer panicky hard work that goes into forging. In some respects, it’s an ironic salute from one artist to another; and one which seems appropriate coming from the oddly rootless Bates. Morse-code synths fight the surf; seagulls fly past in chorus; and samples of excited press cameras chop up the earspace.

The Danish version of Delightful Precipice have the tougher job on ‘Like Life’. Shriller, emphasising reeds, flute and more of Bates’ subversive synth attack than their British counterpart, they’re dealing with established Bates repertoire and memories, warts-and-all. Although the pragmatic poise of the band is a novelty in Batesworld, their assured race through Tightrope’s tenterhook cascades (swoops, crowds, stops and quivering tensions) suggests they’re up to the job, but they do have a lot to keep under control.

At one extreme there’s the manic, beaming Irish jig of Peculiar Terms of Intimacy (recovered from the surrealist theatre score for ‘The Third Policeman’). At the other, there’s The Loneliness of Being Right; one of Bates’ most maddening tunes and dedicated to politicians with closed minds. In the latter, a rising, recurrent, hysterical phrase (buried in a thicket of strident and contradictory pointers) runs around like a rat trying to escape from an ever-shrinking maze of mirrors; and it never resolves except if it’s into yet another trap. Mid-way through, Iain Ballamy‘s soprano sax grapples with the unforgiving music, there’s a noise like a chicken being slaughtered, and you start to question the artistic value of irritation.

A warm journey through Armchair March (that catchy riffing tune that makes a virtue out of never getting properly started, but goes to any number of places around the starting blocks) settles things down after the indigestible. But there’s also a run through Bates’ infamously abrasive take on New York, New York. Memories of Sinatra are mugged and buried under an onslaught of cut-up expressionist jazz, hopscotching between melody and cacophony; laden with screaming twisted brass, cartoon sonics, jokes and Bates’ own musing bloke-in-the-shower vocal.

And it’s here that there’s a sudden flash of “what am I doing here?” in Bates’ invention: in the midst of the furious playing and the hard-handed humour, he suddenly sounds sheepish, as if he’s realised it’s time to leave this sort of thing behind. Rampant iconoclast and wag he may be, but winning the the Jazzpar sounds as if it has both changed and proved things for him. Perhaps it’s just the impact of the award, or perhaps the passage of time, but ‘Like Life’ sounds like some kind of turning-point for this brilliant jazz hooligan.

Django Bates: ‘Like Life’
Storyville Records, STCD 4221 (7 17101 42212 8)
CD-only album
Released: 20th April 1998
Get it from: (2020 update) get CD from Storyville Records; download from Apple Music and Google Play; stream from Deezer and Spotify.
Django Bates online:
Homepage , Facebook , Twitter , MySpace , Bandcamp , Last.fm , Apple Music , YouTube , Vimeo , Deezer , Spotify, Tidal , Amazon Music

Tags: big bands, Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, Delightful Precipice, Django Bates, Human Chain, Iain Ballamy, Martin France, Michael Mondesir

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Categories 1998, album reviews, big-band jazz, instrumental music, jazz, jazz fusion, post-bop, reviews, theatre music

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Misfit City

April/May 2019 – upcoming jazz gigs – a massive Barbican celebration of London jazz from the Total Refreshment Centre (13th April); the Steam Down collective hit Shoreditch (24th April); Warmer Than Blood in London and Cardiff (22nd April, 21st May)

February 2019 – upcoming London jazz gigs – Gemini Trio (12th, 21st, 23rd, 28th February); Adam Ben Ezra with Joseph Tawadros plus Uniting Of Opposites (22nd February); Nick Walters & The Paradox Ensemble (22nd February)

January 2019 – upcoming London jazz gigs – memories of black resistance and striving in Elaine Mitchener’s ‘Vocal Classics Of The Black Avant Garde’ (7th January) and Rufus Reid’s ‘Quiet Pride’ (29th January)

July-September 2018 – upcoming London jazz gigs – part three of the Jazz Herstory series at Poplar Union with Shirley Smart (22nd July), Francesca Ter-Berg (16th August, with Poppy Edwards, Ashley Paul and Simon Roth) and Cassie Kinoshi’s SEED Ensemble 5tet (20th September)

April-June 2018 – upcoming London jazz gigs – Patchwork Jazz Orchestra and Pillow & Kase (7th April); part two of the Jazz Herstory season at Poplar Union with Ruth Goller (19th April), Cath Roberts (17th May) and the Alison Rayner Quintet (28th June)

February 2018 – upcoming London jazz gigs – Christine Tobin’s PELT (3rd February); Jason Yarde’s TRiO !Wah! plus JAE (11th February); Adam Ben Ezra plus the Dan Casimir Quintet (16th February)

January/February 2018 – The Ecstatic Music Festival in New York (part 1) with Kronos Quartet, Xenia Rubinos, Face The Music, Adam Schatz’s Civil Engineering and Bang On A Can (27th January, 5th February, 15th February)

April 2017 – upcoming gigs – performance of Tim Smith/Cardiacs pieces in Amsterdam by jazz ensemble, for free (6th)

April 1998 – album reviews – Django Bates’ ‘Like Life’ (“placing his inquisitive, loopy and flamboyantly complex music in the hands of relative strangers”)

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