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Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Coming up

Preview: Festival of the guitar: Stratford Jazz March-June 2014

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guitaristI am calling it a Festival of the Guitar: It was a masterly stroke of scheduling – Stratford Jazz features some of the most exciting guitarists on the UK scene in the next few months so here’s my preview of six gigs worth turning out for.  What’s thrilling for me is that we get to hear very different styles of music, guitars, guitar playing and influences.

First up we host John Law’s Boink! on 12 March. The guitarist in question is Rob Palmer  who I last saw at Sherborne Jazz with Jon Lloyd and John Law. Boink!  is the latest project from John Law  which takes him away from acoustic pianos and into the world of electronica and interactive visuals. Intrigued?   In a recent interview in Jazz UK (issue 115) Rob said that the electronic backing tracks are composed leaving the musicians free to improvise 90% of the time.  It will be a combination of total freedom and totally composed music, he says.

No sign of electronics with our next guitarist, the acoustic and classical guitarist Maciek Pysz who makes his debut appearance at Stratford Jazz with his stellar trio of Yuri Goloubev on double bass and Asaf Sirkis on percussion on 26 March. Maciek is on an extensive UK tour promoting his album Insight  which received rave reviews across the globe last year. He appears at Stratford the day after an important gig at Pizza Express Jazz Club, Dean Street, London with a guest appearance by Tim Garland who recently signed to Edition Records.  Insight was my album of 2013 so I can’t really add more other than to say that the last time I saw this trio they blew the roof off Kings Place, gathering a larger crowd in the foyer than in some of the concert halls.  They filled the huge space, just as they filled the windy park at Ealing Jazz Festival last year. We can expect a more intimate, conversational evening of Maciek’s beautiful lyrical compositions, exquisite arco bowing from Yuri and sensitive percussion from Asaf.  As Maciek said in an interview in 2011,  ‘I do not want to be perceived only as a jazz guitarist, I’m an acoustic guitarist who mixes genres’ and therein lies his attraction. His influences are John McLaughlin, Ralph Towner and Al Di Meola yet he sounds like none of these, he has his own voice.

 On 9 April we host Phil Robson with his new organ trio featuring Gene Calderazzo on drums and Ross Stanley on Hammond organ.  Phil Robson’s discography contains a jazz who’s who of musicians from both sides of the Atlantic – Mark Turner, Michael Janisch, Christine Tobin (the celebrated Sailing to Byzantium), John Taylor, Liam Noble – and he brings a breath of New York to Stratford with his drummer, whose drumming John Fordham described as scalding!  Listening to their demo clip on Soundcloud I was minded of Steely Dan  – that was just the organ I imagine, but we can expect what Roy Stevens is already predicting will be the gig of the year at Stratford!

On 14 May we are joined by a newly formed band called The Orient Quartet. This features Dan Messore on guitar. Dan’s own quartet called Indigo Kid features none other than Iain Ballamy. Kevin le Gendre said of Dan ‘It’s fair to quote names like Pat Metheny and Frissell as references but the seam of jazz Messore is mining goes back further to such as Charlie Byrd and Jim Hall’.  Combine this with Steve Waterman‘s trumpet (as heard on Carla Bley’s albums on ECM) and you can see we have a very heavyweight new band.

On 11 June we feature Nic Meier who brings his glissentar with its eleven fretless strings which provides more than a touch of the orient to the sound, a heady mix of Turkey, central Europe, Iberia and the Americas.  His quartet features the artists who appear on his recent album Kismet. Look out for his flamenco treatment of Coltrane’s Giant Steps!

Our final guitarist is Jon Dalton on 25 June. Jon has been playing guitar since he was seven and cites Wes Montgomery as an influence. He brings a trio with a Hammond organ virtuoso so we can expect a vibrant set. If you like Gibson guitars then come along!

So join us for these wonderful gigs, and keep jazz alive outside London.

All gigs start at 8pm and tickets on the door are £10/£12 for Phil Robson, half price for students. We look forward to welcoming you to our jazz club and our Festival of the Guitar.

https://www.facebook.com/stratfordjazz.org.uk  

http://www.stratfordjazz.org.uk/ and https://twitter.com/StratfordJazz

Image by Joep Olthuis
Mary James 22 February 2014
Jazz venues, Thoughts

In praise of regional jazz clubs… revisited October 2013

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It is three months since I first sang the praises of regional jazz clubs and their vital place on the jazz scene as platforms for all levels of talent.  I have been thinking, and I admit, worrying, about their future.  Neil Yates announced the end of Jazz at the Cayley in Rhos on Sea in October.   Personal phone calls and texts to regulars could not save it, numbers declined and so it closed.   I have often asserted that jazz holds itself far too cheaply, that some people wince at paying £12 for a ticket yet will spend nearly that on two glasses of wine whilst there. I am coming to the conclusion that if we are going to save our small jazz clubs then we all need to band together to help each other and be more vocal about the good things we offer.

So I was heartened to read about the recent creation of the Jazz Promoters Network (in the UK). I will join and will state on our application that we can offer the network decades of experience (between us anyway), boundless enthusiasm, genuine love for the music and its musicians, and the desire to learn – learn how to grow our audiences, learn how to offer opportunities for new work to be commissioned, learn how to support other jazz clubs and not compete with them, find sources of funding.

And then I look at our schedule at Stratford Jazz for early 2014:

  • Alan Barnes on 8 January to blow away the cobwebs;
  • TG Collective on 22 January, guitar-led ensemble;
  • Bryan Corbett Quartet on 12 February, a local trumpeter with a haunting sound;
  • Duncan Eagles/Mark Perry Quintet on 26 February, exciting young saxophonist and trumpeter, making waves in London;
  • John Law’s BOINK!  on 12 March. This is John’s move in electronica, subtle and clever as ever; and
  • Maciek Pysz Trio on 26 March, my favourite guitarist with his life-enhancing, stunningly good trio of Asaf Sirkis and Yuri Goloubev, playing compositions from his very well -received album Insight.

I would travel, and have travelled, to London to see these bands and here they are, gracing our small jazz club! Our evenings have two sets – great value for the audience and an opportunity for bands to experiment with new material, safe in the knowledge they have two hours of performance time.  We have an attractive venue with a bar, nice subtle lighting, decent sound, a big screen on which artists can project their own films or images, so adding another visual stimulus.  Sadly we have no piano. But we are a place where you can hear exciting new work in a very intimate environment.  We listen, we are appreciative.

Take the example below by John Law – his Boink!  project  – we are so lucky to be able to present John Law’s latest project next year. This is a sound that will project as well in our small room as in a larger venue and I for one am already wishing the time away til his gig.

If you have listened to the clip and enjoyed it as much as I do, then maybe you will see regional jazz clubs in a new light – as places where you can see boundaries pushed, which don’t just rely on a diet of standards. We are as hungry for new music as fans in cities. Where world class artists seek us out. Time to stop bemoaning our lot and time to shout very loudly ‘We are a great night out, come and join us, hear fabulous music close up, pay a little bit more  – because we are worth it!’.  Do you agree?

http://stratfordjazz.org.uk/

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https://twitter.com/StratfordJazz

http://www.shakespearestreet.co.uk/

Mary James

Jazz venues, Thoughts

In praise of … regional jazz clubs

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I want to sing the praises of regional jazz clubs in general and one in particular that is now close to my heart – Stratford Jazz. That’s Stratford-upon-Avon, not East London or Ontario. Many times I have sat in the cosy upstairs room at The Chapel No 1 Shakespeare Street, enjoyed the gigs, discovered new sounds, loved old ones, made new friends and never once thought about how it all comes together, the hard (but enjoyable) unpaid work that goes into making a gig happen. Well, now I have an idea. Stratford Jazz has been in existence since 1986, its gigs since 2003 set out here. The most cursory glance at this list reveals people who are now established, such as Andrew McCormack and Michael Janisch, the latter now running a record label. Which brings me to the point of this post. Regional jazz plays a crucial role in an artist’s development. By all means live in London, record in London, play most of your gigs in London, but small jazz venues exist to provide you with an appreciative audience and we don’t forget you.

Stratford Jazz is at a crossroads. Our mainstay, Roy, is planning to hand over the running of the club. An open meeting conjured up volunteers to set out chairs, man the door, take money, produce flyers, man the sound deck, run the raffle, help with the website and social media. I have the latter role. We still need help with booking bands and paying them, running a membership system, drafting press releases etc etc.

So if you would like to help us please follow us on Twitter @StratfordJazz, please “Like” us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/stratfordjazz.org.uk and best of all, please come to our gigs. In the next few months we host Chris Bowden, Marco Marconi, Casey Greene, Tom Hill, Greg Abate, Ben Markland, Ed Jones and Alan Barnes. We are a small club but each event is special. People travel from miles. You won’t forget it.

And anyone with ideas of how we can attract young people, please let us know via our Facebook page or tweet to us. We want to survive for at least another 27 years.

Stratford Jazz