Category Archives: Gigs I’ve enjoyed

Gigs I’ve enjoyed

Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Gigs I've enjoyed

Gig review: John Law’s Boink! Stratford Jazz, 12 March 2014

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BoinkThis was a gig I savour more in my mind 24 hours after the event than when I was actually there.    I have had this feeling before:   the first time I saw Brad Mehldau’s Mehliana at The Village Underground.  I just didn’t get it. It was too loud,  I couldn’t see.  Then I saw him again at the London Jazz Festival and it clicked.  This new project of John Law has the same effect.    Boink! is the electronic brainchild of guitarist Rob Palmer and John Law.   The press release says  the idea is to explore “electronic sounds and effects over drum grooves. Spontaneous group interaction between keyboards, soprano/bass clarinet and guitar, coming out of pre-composed electronic music scores. Underpinned by propulsive drum grooves. Jazz, rock, ambient, electronic…”    So we knew what we were in for.  Or did we?

But seeing the project live, with a screen showing videos by  Patrick Dunn which became increasingly interesting, absorbing and distracting as the evening wore on, I felt I was being overloaded with sensory experiences – I just couldn’t absorb them fast enough.   Now as I unpick the experience I can see that the concept is extremely good, it just needs a bit more time to bed in as a live venture.   There were so many experiences crammed in – an obscure  piece of Samuel Beckett, our responses to 9/11,  the challenge of being a jazz musician performing to an indifferent chattering sophisticated audience, what it’s like to be a tortoise ( yes!).    I wondered what it was like on the stage – the musicians couldn’t see the visuals behind them or our expressions as we listened.   Maybe in future the setup could allow visuaIs to be seen by everyone so there was true interactivity? I missed the cool clarity of Jon Lloyd’s sax (he is on the album and Laurie Lowe is on drums).   But I admired the  delicate poise of Lloyd Haines on drums, the quick thinking of Rob Palmer  who could change mood swiftly (this was 90% improvisation after all) and as always the  mesmeric skills of John Law on keyboards.

I hear that John’s next project is an animated version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.   Please slow down John and let us grow into Boink!  The album really does grow on me, I just need to catch up.

John Law, keyboards, iPod
Rob Palmer, guitar
Lloyd Haines, drums
Patrick Dunn, visuals

Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Gigs I've enjoyed

Gig review: Maciek Pysz and Gianluca Corona, 14 Feb 2014, London

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It was Valentine’s Day in London, the perfect evening for some romantic music and a glass or two of good wine, and what better than two guitars to relax you. But wait!  If the audience had been expecting gentle background music that they could chat over, they got something unexpectedly deep. From the very first chord of Manha de Carnaval (L. Bonfa) the audience were perfectly attentive, rapt by the magic that unfolded. The guitarists in question were Maciek Pysz and Gianluca Corona, two masters of classical and acoustic guitars, and quite obviously two old friends. Unlike other gigs I go to, the people around me listened harder because the music, and perhaps the experience of live music in an intimate venue, was new to them.

We concentrated hard and were rewarded with a wide repertoire from the catchy familiar Manha  which was given a glorious rolling gait, to compositions by Maciek from his album Insight and new work from an upcoming duo album. Jokes such as “Guess what this composition is called?  Lost in London!” had particular resonance for many in the room, foreigners in a big city. I was particularly moved by Amici,  their joint composition, it ranged over many emotions and was about their friendship which goes back many years.   And we had a taster of an upcoming album of the duo – Fresh Look – which they record this summer and will be released on 33Jazz later this year.

These two masters of the guitar completely trashed the idea that guitar music is something you have as background music.  You have to see it to marvel at the delicate intricate sounds, the dazzle of flashing fingers, the glorious melodies, the effortlessness of it all. Afterwards you just smile. What better way to spend Valentine’s Day?

You can catch up with the Maciek Pysz Trio on their tour March – May 2014 – for details see http://www.maciekpysz.com/

and if you have 21 minutes there is an interesting podcast with Maciek Pysz here  with London Jazz News.

Mary James 19 February 2014

Gigs I've enjoyed

Great expectations: London Jazz Festival 2013

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Last night on Twitter I summed up my reactions to this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival in a few words:

The huge smile that is Troyk-estra / the power of Phronesis / the majesty of Brad Mehldau / the fun of Sons of Kemet

Many more images and sounds come flooding back:  the awkward stance of Brad Mehldau,  seated with his back to the entire audience, right hand on Steinway , left arm reaching up across his body to an ancient and very deep synth; or maybe he was Prospero conjuring magic from his battery of keyboards, so many fizzing, spacey layers of sound to keep track of yet he kept everything in order, each composition a perfect journey in one direction or another;  his lopsided expression as he took his bow (was he pleased?);  the smell of real smoke at the start of the Sons of Kemet set; the energy of Anton Eger on drums,  his head bucking like a prize stallion tugging at the reins;  bright lights raking the audience in Sons of Kemet, making us feel part of the act;  Kit Downes striking the keyboard so quickly he could just as easily have been receiving electric shocks from the keys;  Jasper Høiby embarrassing latecomers to the set, not once but twice, his ironic comment that the live recording was “No big deal” (when their mesmerising urgent sets indicated that they were playing for the highest stakes); the sparkling fingerwork by Alexi Tuomarila on a humble upright piano at Ray’s Jazz; catching the end of a set by a stellar quintet of Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Chris Lawrence, Stan Sulzmann and Jim Hart in the Clore Ballroom; hearing David Redfern tell us that jazz photographers are born not made; learning that just one picture can sum up an artist – not the obvious image but the one that is most honest because it was unposed (Oscar Peterson with his head in one hand, maybe anxiety before a performance or pain, or both?).

My thoughts shift like the particles in a kaleidoscope.  Sometimes I felt alienated by a performance that others were enjoying – Nik Bärtsch is a case where I felt manipulated by the lighting, the staginess of it, the performance felt controlled and controlling.  I respond to honesty in a performance and this one felt contrived.  Twist the kaleidoscope and in my mind’s eye and my heart I feel the wonder and wistfulness of Chaplin by Troyk-estra, the joy of  Chris Montague’s Dropsy where the brass filled the hall with palpable warmth, where people smiled at the sound, where we felt happy to be there.

While I enjoyed it, other people appeared to be disconnected from Brad Mehldau’s performance, I gather some people actually walked out. The video below is by Brad Mehldau and Mark Guiliana from an earlier Mehliana but I want to capture it here as it is typical of the evening.  He may even have played this composition.  But it is also indicative of how he divided his audience into those who had hoped for a little more Steinway and fewer loops.  Was his back to the audience an indicator of arrogance or a statement that we really did not need to see his hands or face to absorb the sound.  I would like to think it was the latter.  Overall, my festival was one of great expectations that were fulfilled by deep honest performances by artists of integrity.  That is why I love jazz.

Mary James

Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Gigs I've enjoyed, Quick reviews, Thoughts

Impressions: The Necks: 3 November 2013 – Birmingham Town Hall

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The series was called Risk.  Enticing.  So I took a risk and didn’t do my ‘homework’, I didn’t listen to anything by The Necks before their gig at Birmingham Town Hall.   The organisers had taken a risk and turned the almost overwhelmingly cavernous Town Hall into a cosy venue – we sat on all sides of the band, on the same level. No lofty stage. We sat so close I could almost gently nudge a sliding cymbal back into place.  They captivate by their stillness, slight figures in black, only the occasional gentle glance at the audience by the drummer indicated they knew we were there.  Everything about them is spare, taut and precise.  Painters with a blank canvas, surgeons ready for an operation but unsure what they might find after the first incision.  In profile the pianist Chris Abrahams reminded me of an intaglio, an engraved gem of precious stone, frozen in time.  Only his fingers moved, gently, so gently the keys seem to depress themselves by thought not action. Could a piano be played so quietly?

Did the drummer touch his drums at all?   Instead we heard tiny sounds and scrapes, a cymbal ticked and tapped delicately for what seemed like hours. The bass player toying with the idea of using his bow, putting it away thoughtfully and returning to his few insistent notes.  After just a few minutes I realised I was not hearing anything that reached back to the European tradition I was familiar with. This was Australian impressionism, its own tradition, unapologetic and unique.  In my mind’s eye I sensed huge empty spaces, felt scorched by heat, strained after trains clanging in the very far distance (leaving without me, oh, nightmare), was suffocated in a dust storm, dodged hissing rattle snakes, gasped for air as they built up the emotion so intensely I wanted to cover my ears, to block the waves that crowded my brain. How would they end, how could they end?    How did they take us from minimal notes to this vast canvas?

Then it slowed, some imperceptible sign, and just the drummer was left.  They became human, arms moved from instruments, they straightened up,  eyes refocused and the spell was broken. But we dared not applaud, not yet, not for a very long beat. It seemed almost wrong to break the silence.  And we went into the night bewitched, shaking our heads at the distance we had travelled.

The Necks
Chris Abrahams, piano
 Tony Buck, drums
Lloyd Swanton, bass

Mary James, 4 November 2013

Albums I really like, Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Gigs I've enjoyed

Album review: Oddarrang: In Cinema (released Oct 2013)

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Oddarrang_In Cinema

It never occurred to me that Oddarrang might not be a Finnish word! It turns out it stands for Odd Arrangement, or so band leader Olavi Louhivuori told me.   I was captivated by Cathedral last May and dazzled by Oddarrang’s performance at London Jazz Festival last year so I came to this album with a great deal of baggage, with high expectations. We have a similar line up (the ‘odd arrangement’) of stringed instruments, trombone, electronics and Olavi on drums, like a sprite conjuring magic in this strange landscape.  Perhaps in keeping with the more sombre environment in which we now find ourselves, this album doesn’t have much of the fairy tale to it on first listening.   Seeing the band at Kings Place in September, where the walls shook with the volume of The Sage and my blood ran cold with fear at one point, the unearthly vocals of Osmo Ikonen rising above the cacophony, it would be reasonable to think this was a very different band, that they have left haunting, spiritual, glacial delicacy behind.

And then suddenly Olavi sat at the piano for just a few bars, a xylophone tinkles and I am sitting in a sleigh on a midnight ride through a snowy moonlit forest, back in that mythical landscape.  How cleverly they play on our emotions.  The album is the score for four films. I have not seen them yet.   In my mind they are all achingly sad or full of terror.  It is always cold, the wind howls. On the ethereal Missing Tapes from a Highway Set the delicate guitar sounds Japanese, a lament from Turandot, there is a sad feel to this track, the trombone’s lovely melody speaks of loss.   Other tracks are anxiety laden, full of foreboding, there are shrieks, the trombone yowls in pain, it is quite nightmarish.

This album grows and glows, it is not glacial at all but fiery.  It is striking in its breadth of emotion and the beautiful physical landscapes it evokes, where subtlety and sheer explosive power are perfectly balanced (as in Self-portrait). And when tranquility morphs into a stadium-filling wall of sound, you feel a sense of shock and loss when it ends.  Masterly.

Oddarrang:   In Cinema

All music composed by Olavi Louhivuori except track 7 by Lasse Lindgren

Olavi Louhivuori, drums, piano, synths, harmonium
Ilmari Pohjola, trombone, guitar
Osmo Ikonen, cello, vocals
Lasse Sakara, guitar
Lasse Lindgren, bass, synths

Oddarrang is available from http://store.editionrecords.com/album/in-cinema

Mary James