A tortuous journey on foot from the hotel – but I found Taylor John's eventually, tucked down by the canal. Coming in to a bar and the music space off from it just in time to catch the support band – Evan Parker and Ned Rothenberg. Only joking – the headliners, of course, but they had agreed to go on before Black Carrot – Evan Parker announced that this made sense as the other band would be louder and have more people on stage so could build up from them. Or he wanted to get home early! But whatever the reason – I wasn't complaining and the progression worked very well.
In this intimate atmosphere you were up close to the music – which was fascinating throughout. I've seen Evan Parker solo several times down the years and with various groups – but never in a duo. This was casual yet intense if that makes sense, the informal, friendly manner of the musicians contrasted with the range and complexity of the improvisations. 'Chamber music,' as Ned Rothenberg said at the beginning. They rang the changes on the available combinations of their horns – Parker on his usual tenor and soprano saxophones, Rothenberg on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. Both of these men work in a wide variety of bands and formats and one can see that stylistic breadth in evidence tonight. Also the divergence – Rothenberg is completely at home with Parker, with a detectable stylistic kinship/(influence?) – but he has obviously fine-honed his own conception and techniques. They started on tenor and alto – Rothenberg giving out long notes that Parker joined with and dabbed round – slowly building until longer lines came in, spreading out the sound now. This was the pattern – long notes as a marker perhaps and skeins of melody spinning round them, with short melodic fragments held up and examined from every angle, shot through with their separate strategies for granularity and timbral extensions. They both took solo spots – Parker's an absolute masterclass in tenor playing, building those impossibly long-breathed lines up from basic fragments that were repeated from different angles until they folded into something else, the game perpetually moving onwards. Dazzled and dizzy among the swirls of notes at one point I had an image of birds spinning gracefully into dense flocks that continually broke and reformed in an image of sheer beauty. Rothenberg came up on his solo from a different angle – rolling up his right trouser leg – which made me wonder if we were about to participate in some arcane Masonic ritual – he damped his clarinet against his bare flesh to create a separate but complementary timbral level – moving from simulated wah wah (not just electric guitar – but equally sounding like a muted jazz trumpet from way back) to popping whoops - as he took the instrument on a quirky ride that encompassed its range from woody chalameau to high squirls. So much out of such a small object. In modern jazz, clarinet was shoved into the background by the saxophone (with honourable exceptions, Buddy De Franco, Jimmy Guiffre, Perry Robinson and recently John Carter and whoever you fancy) - perhaps improvised music with its emphasis on sound mutations as much as linear movement gives it a new lease of life... Towards the end, high notes from both horns created a strange exultant buzzing in a few heads. Entranced indeed... A superb delineation of improvised horn playing... Parker – well, I've been a fan for a long time, Rothenberg is a relatively new name to me – how pleasant to hear him live. A fascinating partner to the elder player – who is still up for a challenge. Note: there are some interesting free downloads of Rothenberg on his web site here... They also have a couple of albums that you can track down here...
Black Carrot are one of my favourite bands so it was a pleasure to catch them as well tonight. They opened up with that two drum tribal bang thang that brings you straight in to the music - before they proceed to dance around and away from the basic thump into the improvisatory swirl. They are getting a very full sound now with the addition of the second drummer Euan, who also fires off shards of rumbling electronics to further thicken the sound. Martin Summers joined them on bass clarinet – his un-miked playing a little lost in the dense sound surrounding but what I heard was interesting - adding a level of improv/jazz timbre to the bounce plus a sudden lurking flash in my mind of Bennie Maupin's deep runnings with Miles in the Bitches Brew sessions. For that is the point about the Carrot – they have a core style based on accessible rhythms which is flexible enough to accommodate – well, whatever they put there. The two drummers Tom and Euan fire off each other in satisfyingly snappy fashion and Ollie's amplified woodwinds and electric keyboard add splashes of colour and depth, veering gloriously into an r and b tenor honk and bark at one point. (In one of those synchronicities, I am listening to Junior Walker and the Allstars as I write this). Bass player Stuart Brackley's idiosyncratic (and immediately recognisable) improvesperanto vocals were less of a feature tonight – however, going into a semi-ballad at the end with an underscore of tender sparse electric piano. Carrot: the luurrve album, anyone? Seriously, it worked very well and gave a nice change of pace. The Carrot's 'fractured aural excursions' charabanc moves ever onwards...
They also have a selection of free downloads as tasters for various albums on their web site... and a couple of upcoming gigs (2nd and 19th August) with Nigel Parkin in London at the Portobello Film Festival... search through here...
Congratulations to Taylor John's, then, for putting on some challenging musics in an unpretentious and friendly environment at reasonable prices in the gone provincial night, as Jack may have said... I mean: Evan Parker, Ned Rothenberg AND Black Carrot – all for a fiver? I shall return... Soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment