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July/October/November 2018 – upcoming jazz gigs – Eddie Parker’s Debussy Mirrored Ensemble make their live debut in Cheltenham (13th July) and play York, Bristol and London in the autumn (24th & 26th October, 20th November); Algerian-influenced world shapes from the Seddik Zebiri Trio in London (13th July); Tori Handsley’s ‘Afro-Harping with Dorothy Ashby & Alice Coltrane’ in London (28th July)

5 Jul

Quick news on three upcoming jazz gigs… well, three gigs and a tour. An impressionist jazz ensemble takes its first assured steps around the country, an Algerian/Parisian veteran brings his trio to the deep East End, and there’s a jazz tribute gig that’s unusual enough for me to drop my usual reluctance to cover such things.

* * * * * * * *

“Former Loose Tubes flautist and composer Eddie Parker and his Debussy Mirrored Ensemble take cues from the important French composer Claude Debussy in a new show.

“2018 is the centenary of the death of Debussy. Eddie Parker’s Debussy Mirrored Ensemble is both a celebration of and a creative response to the composer. Famously, Debussy never wanted followers or imitators, and yet his music is enormously influential and has gone deep into our sensibilities.

“Eddie Parker has spent his life immersed in music – absorbing, creating , teaching, inspiring, and building trust and respect in a wide range of musical genres as a musician and composer. He also has a life-long passion for Debussy’s music. Building on previous Debussy transformations(2013’s ‘Windgames’ for solo piano and 2015’s ‘Snowsteps’, written for the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, Eddie has now handpicked a unique new twelve-piece ensemble to turn his creative vision into reality.

“These musicians, from classical, jazz and improvisation disciplines, collaborate to transform a dozen of Debussy’s pieces into something incredibly unique, powerful and contemporary whilst capturing the composer’s revolutionary spirit – leading our ears on a fascinating journey while showing how important this influence is, not only for composers but for improvisers too.

“The high-order ensemble features Rowland Sutherland, Gareth Lockrane and Eddie himself on flutes, Jan Hendrickse on vocals and Turkish ney flute, James Allsopp on clarinet and bass clarinet, Alcyona Mick on piano
Imogen Ridge on harp, percussionist/vibraphonist Simon Limbrick and Loose Tubes drum-and-bass team Steve Watts and Martin France, with vocals by classical tenor James Gilchrist and jazz singer Brigitte Beraha.”


 
When presenting ‘Windgames’ four years ago, Eddie reflected as follows:

“My dad, Frank Parker, concert pianist manqué – whose professional career consisted of performing music for variety theatre, musicals and ice skating shows – used to play Debussy on the piano to me when I was a child… then as a teenager my school music teacher Len Sartin would hold one spellbound not only with his prodigious pianistic abilities (he performed ‘Feux D’Artifice’, the notoriously difficult final Prelude of Book 2, in a school speech night, to the utter bewilderment of assembled parents), but his comprehensive knowledge of the art, poetry and literature that each Prelude was alluding to: Baudelaire, Mallarme, chinoiserie, Arthur Rackham, etc. This in a comprehensive school for boys in Liverpool.

“Debussy’s music for piano, especially from the two books of Preludes, went in deep for me and stayed there. The feeling of a kind of kinetic sculpture in sound, involving a synthesis of harmony and sonority, a precise choreography of pianistic gesture, all bound together by an amniotic envelope created by the subtle use of the pedals – “like a kind of breathing”, as Debussy himself described it – these are the alchemical elements that have been infusing in my mind over the decades… One could foresee a series of Debussy transformations (or ‘Busygames’!): ‘Snowgames’, based on ‘The Snow Is Dancing’ from ‘Children’s Corner’; ‘Raingames’, based on ‘Jardins Sous La Pluie’; ‘Soundgames’, based on ‘Les Sons Et Les Parfumes…’ from ‘Preludes Book 1’; ‘Chordgames’, based on ‘Pour Les Chordes’ from ‘Pour Le Piano’… It may take me a while.”

Sounds as if he’s got there.

The Debussy Mirrored Ensemble project debuts at the Cheltenham Festival next week, with further dates in York, Bristol and London in the autumn. Details below:

* * * * * * * *

This in from Poplar Union in the east of London…

“You’re in for a treat this month! We have the brilliant Seddik Zebiri Trio with us for Live in the Library – Seddik Zebiri on vocals and Algerian mandole, Oli Arlotto on saxophone and Paolo Forcellati on percussion.

“Seddik Zebiri defines himself as a “music activist.” He’s a seasoned and experienced musician – a pioneer and a trailblazer. Since beginning his musical journey in the Parisian scene of the ‘60s, the cultural scenario has deeply changed. But, as he likes to affirm, he is “always the same: for me music is always the same thing, there is no difference between the one which I played during the ‘70s, the ‘80s or the one I’m playing today”.


 
“His sound is closely related to his Algerian roots, fused with modern influences. Seddik continues, “When you listen to my music you can initially define it as traditional, Algerian or Berber, but is has also some classic Middle Eastern elements. Then, when you listen further you can also identify other ingredients coming from rock, reggae, Latin or funk.” The trio will offer a distinctive take on jazz, drawing on Arabic and Afro-blues influences, and creating an absorbing, compulsively danceable sound: a fusion of traditional North African combined with funk, reggae and beyond.”…”

Poplar Union presents:
Live In The Library: Seddik Zebiri Trio
Poplar Union, 2 Cotall Street, Poplar, London, E14 6TL, England
Friday 13 July 2018, 7.30pm
– information here and here

* * * * * * * *

“The sound of the harp has always held a special place in the world of jazz, and that’s down to the work of two artists alone; Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Despite both using the same instrument, their music could have hardly been more different. Ashby’s sound ranged from the trad to the plaintive, with standout albums ‘Hip Harp’, ‘Afro Harping’ (celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year) and ‘Django/Misty’ across her oeuvre showcasing the harp’s versatility. By contrast, the harp for Coltrane worked as an extension of her profound spirituality whilst also indulging her avant-garde tendencies (as heard on her magnum opus, ‘Journey In Satchidananda’).



 
“Putting together the bespoke show will be London based harpist Tori Handsley, who has played with everyone from Nigel Kennedy and Orphy Robinson to Shabaka Hutchings and Moses Boyd and who’s been called “an essential music force that needs to be experienced by as many thinking musicians and audiences as possible” by Orphy Robinson, who’s also noted that she is “without doubt steadily becoming one of the most exciting and original musicians on the UK scene.”

Tori Handsley: Afro-Harping with Dorothy Ashby & Alice Coltrane
The Jazz Cafe, 5 Parkway, Camden, NW1 7PG London, United Kingdom
Saturday 28th July 2018, 7.00pm
– information here, here and here


 

October 2017 – upcoming gigs – world fusion guitar with Pierre Bensusan’s English tour (12th-18th October); various jazziness/spoken word/flaneûrism at MAP Cafe in London with Abstract Word (12th October), Alexander Dubovoy/Eli Brown (14th October), Jazz In Cinema (21st October) and Grain Of Sand (26th October)

8 Oct

There’s an imminent brief English tour for acoustic fusion guitar ace Pierre Bensusan this month. Here’s what I said about him last time:

“World music’s an often-abused term, especially when you can see crude joins within it. Yesterday’s exotic-record discovery shopped and slopped onto whichever beats selling; or the sound of one particular city’s overbearing acquisitiveness, engulfing and pickling the music of its immigrants rather than fostering it. Pierre’s music is an example of how you can revitalise and justify the term.

“I’ve spoken before about the French-Algerian-Sephardic background which gave him a head start as regards polycultural vision, but perhaps what he actually embodies is the mixed grain of musical acceptance: the travelling tunes and the more intangible freight of cultures soaking and blending into his playing without strain. Neither jazz nor folk nor Spanish classical, neither rai nor chaabi, nor flamenco (old or new), it nonetheless contains all of these – a translucent, fully-realised and seamless chamber-acoustic melange, played softly and without affectation.”


 

As before, among the venues Pierre is playing are some out-of-the-way ones which it’s a pleasure to find out about. Full tour dates below:

  • Chapel Arts Centre, St. James’s Memorial Hall, Lower Borough Walls, Bath, Somerset, BA1 1QR, England, Thursday 12th October 2017, 7.30pminformation
  • The Ale House, Mill Lane, Colwall (near Great Malvern), Hertfordshire, WR13 6HJ, Friday 13th October 2017, 7.30pminformation
  • St Mary’s Church, Alveley Village (near Kidderminster), Shropshire, WV15 6ND, England, Saturday 14th October 2017, 7.30pminformation
  • The Half Moon, 93 Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London, SW15 1EU England, Tuesday 17th October 2017, 7.30pminformation
  • The Greystones, Greystones Road, Sheffield, Yorkshire, S11 7BS, England, Wednesday 18th October 2017, 8.00pminformation


 
* * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, back in London, there are a number of jazz or jazz-inspired dates this month at another undersung out-of-the-way venue – Kentish Town’s MAP Cafe. I’ll just run through them below…

Abstract Word, September-December 2017Abstract Word
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England
Thursday 12th October 2017, 8.00pm
 – information

“A chance to see a unique blend of music & spoken word fused with vocal and poetic verse… A night of music & rhythmic words featuring performers from the Abstract Word collective, as well as a range of performance poets and spoken word artists crafting their words to a rhythmic backdrop provided by longtime Jazz Jam collaborator Oliver Staines on eight-string guitar plus trombone and saxophones provided by Richmond “Journeyman” Trew and other horn players. Also a songwriter and performer, Richmond is the spearhead of Abstract Word and has been providing his unique “abstract rhythmic” style since 1995.”

 

Alexander Dubovoy/Eli Brown, 14th October 2017

Alexander Dubovoy/Eli Bown
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England
Friday 14th October 2017, 8.00pm
information

“While attending Yale University, Alexander Dubovoy and Eli Brown played in the quartet Newspeak. They are featured on its debut album Machinery of Night, recorded by 11-time Grammy-winner Jack Renner. After touring domestically and internationally, Newspeak put its work on hold after its older members graduated.

“Now, Dubovoy and Brown have moved to London – having played at top New York venues and toured internationally, Alexander’s first piano-and-songs solo album ‘Portraits Drawn Without You‘ was released in summer 2017, while Eli is currently a student in the conducting department at Royal Academy of Music (while remaining active as a trumpet player focusing primarily on new and Early music). The two will be performing their first gig together in the UK at MAP, playing improvised duo music (including old and new repertoire) as part of this reunion.”


 

Jazz In Cinema, 21st October 2017

Jazz In Cinema
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England
Saturday 21st October 2017, 7.30pm
 – information

Germana La Sorsa and Joe Boyle come together as Jazz In Cinema. In this harmonious Italian/English duo they bring you the finest jazz music as written for, or used in, movies over the course of the last century.

“The interesting arrangement of just voice (Germana) and double bass (Joe) creates some interesting textures, from wistfully open to tense and sinister, with bountiful experimentation and freedom. Neither, however, strays too far from the roots of the music or the mood they create.”
 

 

Grain Of Sand, 26th October 2017
Grain Of Sand
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England
Thursday 26th October 2017, 8.00pm
information

“The fruits of excessive people-watching, eradicating anonymity one tale at a time. From the flaneûr’s eye, humorous characters, drenched in poetic language, retell their adventures. Accompanied by the finely tuned fingers of pianist Alexi Bromsky, maestro prose performer Alex Glendinning graces these sketches with his musical mystique.

“Investigating the fantastic potential of the city, the stories give reign to the bizarre and hopeful conjectures of everyday observation – the passing glance at the bus stop, the sombre couple in the coffee shop – and delight in its quotidian beauty, discarded daily amongst the infernal throng. With piano and bass, an hour of snapshot stories awaits. Drop in and out as you like and enjoy the stories with a crowd’s fluidity. Imagine the face, as you brace the morning commute, which recalls a lost lover, beloved brother, or terrifying sister. The glimmer of bewilderment, terror, or joy in those fleeting seconds, swept away in the tube’s slipstream, now becomes a seed for reflection.

“These stories are also a sentimental conversation with the whims that we deem trivial. Lively, satirical, laced with romance and introspective nostalgia, they are performed through the eye of a brash, sharp romantic, lavished with mortal pathos.”
 

October/November 2016 – upcoming gigs – Pierre Bensusan’s autumn tour of Britain and Ireland (30th October to 20th November)

26 Oct

Pretty much a year to the day since his last appearance in London, French-Algerian acoustic guitar master Pierre Bensusan is returning to town this Sunday for the start of a British and Irish tour. The tour will be taking in a delightfully broad sweep of venues both grand and humble, rowdy and formal, from pubs and multi-utility community rooms to concert halls. Most of them will have little in common at the start of the show. By the end, they’ll all be sharing the particular warmth which Pierre brings to his expansively intimate music and performances.

World music’s an often-abused term, especially when you can see crude joins within it. Yesterday’s exotic-record discovery shopped and slopped onto whichever beats selling; or the sound of one particular city’s overbearing acquisitiveness, engulfing and pickling the music of its immigrants rather than fostering it. Pierre’s music is an example of how you can revitalise and justify the term. I’ve spoken before about the French-Algerian-Sephardic background which gave him a head start as regards polycultural vision, but perhaps what he actually embodies is the mixed grain of musical acceptance: the travelling tunes and the more intangible freight of cultures soaking and blending into his playing without strain. Neither jazz nor folk nor Spanish classical, neither rai nor chaabi, nor flamenco (old or new), it nonetheless contains all of these – a translucent, fully-realised and seamless chamber-acoustic melange, played softly and without affectation.


 

Full tour dates below:


 

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