Review: Colour out of Space Festival, Brighton, Saturday 31st October, 2009...

Saturday – a straightener in old Hector's House then over the road for tonight's fandango. Starting with Chora – very much an acoustic improvising band with minimal electronics, violin, little instruments, clarinets – driven by supple and strong drumming to give them a steely yet flexible framework. A keyboard of some description (I assume – he was at the back of the stage slightly offsighted from where I was sitting) set up a drone some way in, coming in and easing back, providing a bottom line of structure. This was a well-paced set, using the time allotment efficiently to build to a crescendo of a clarinet duosquawling around each other before finally ebbing away. Superb – they should maybe have been further up the bill... There is a hand-hewn freshness to their work that pulls drones, free jazz rhythmic gestures and a folky dance into a unique space. I was thinking about when I first saw the Incredible String Band back in the back of the day at the Cousins club, how they exploded acoustic folk with so many different instruments and rhythms, the road that perhaps they did not travel, of further explorations into the free jazz explorations that were also such a feature of London and beyond in the late sixties, is one that fancifully leads to... Chora, who are doing it now...

Struggled into the gallery which was jammed for a related band via the Sheffield connection, The Hunter Gracchus' anarcho-collectivist counter hegemonic succour.' Blimey.  A trio, upended drums on the floor, a sax player, some kind of exotic stringed instrument. They seemed to be aiming for a ritualistic performance, as if trying to reinvent music from the ground up via rhythms, scrapes and breaths – the sax mouthpiece was utilised as a sound source more than the complete instrument was played, like a psychedelic hunting horn. I don't know if they were consciously named after the eery Franz Kafka short story but there was some attempt at calling up another world, something primal, going way back like archeologists of morning, maybe, to slightly bend that phrase from Charles Olson. At one point one of those Indian drone thangs that Allen Ginsburg used to intone over got a severe pounding - Omni Mani Padre...SQUAWK!  Ending up all crouched over the drum head blowing into several odd looking metal objects. The folk influence, veering away from electronics to produce raw 'natural' sounds? Good stuff – but again, I would like to see them in a more friendly space. Don't dig the gallery...

Back to the main venue for an epic performance by Simon Whetham, sat at the mixing desk to use the darkened hall as a canvas – a mix of electronic sounds and processed field recordings that used all the available acoustic area in a powerful set that truly evoked the name of the festival – colour out of space...

Always ready for a divertissement but Justice Yeldham was somewhat unlucky when his power supply kept cutting in and out – I couldn't hear a lot of what he was shouting to the nearby audience as he was off-mike, a lot of swearing it seemed, but he gamely tried to persevere with his bizarre act – using a contact-miked jagged piece of glass pressed to his face and blown on/manipulated with his fingers to produce, when it worked – some extraordinary sounds. It looked as if it might be somewhat dangerous – children, don't try this at home – and I think he smashed the glass in the end as the set was totally buggered. Shame – he almost pulled through by sheer personality – well, if you're going to blow through broken glass it implies a certain wry take on things. Cue for mucho H and S activites as several people earnestly swept the stage to remove all the fragments. One shouldn't laugh...

Some free jazz... Steve Noble/Alan Wilkinson unfortunately playing without the mighty John Edwards who was indisposed. But a stunning set nevertheless, coherent free improvised jazz with the pair coming straight at ya – high-powered blowing on baritone sax and splattering drums, interspersed throughout by Wilkerson's vocal outbursts of wordless wahoo – giving me the fanciful thought that he was like an avant garde version of the late Lennie Hastings ( a reference that will only make sense to older Brit jazz buffs – 'Ooyah Ooyah!'). The vocalising sound poetry gave a broader line of attack which linked up to many other acts over the weekend – an intelligent move – and also fitted seamlessly with the movement of the music, jazz sax playing being particularly close to the human voice, if you think about it. Noble parried, prodded and accompanied as the sax player switched to alto and back – demonstrating a sure technique on some rapid yet accurate high-register blowing. Hi-energy stuff played with fire and some wit, yet more than just scattered squalling – some fascinating development and interplay here. Went down a storm to a packed house...

Then über-weird jumped in... Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer, rigged out in cod-tropical knaki and pith helmets, gave a shattering deconstruction of the old pop song, 'The Lion Sleep Tonight.' Deconstructed? They smashed it to pieces, in the old phrase, 'from arsehole to breakfast time,' and scattered the bloody fragments far and wide – and long... long... long... Jesus, the Kommissar hurled himself about on stage re-iterating 'Wimoweh,' over and over for what seemed like eternity to the point where I wanted to kill him... His partner similarly writhed about the stage singing(?) mangled bits of the song, howling, shrieking... against a hilarious yet somewhat poingnant film projection of a bloke in a scruffy lion suit walking on and on through some black and white shoreline and scrubland. On and on and on. Very funny and very clever and it pushed the joke to the utmost – and then some. The relief was palpable when bloody 'Wimoweh' finally stopped...

A lot of anticipation for the final act, guitar and drums duo Bill Orcutt/Paul Hession. Master percussionist and six string hero – Orcutt, ex Harry Pussy, given a big write up/review in the current Wire on his return to the scene with a highly rated solo album. I wondered how this would work out – interestingly, there are many links with free jazz and the punk/noise underground, which were played out here. There was a nagging thought that Orcutt might not have quite the chops needed for this level although Hession's open polyrhythms gave multidirections to move about in with plenty of space to float or dig in. A certain amount of repetition developed – maybe intentional as rock works more from repetition than free jazz. Yet overall an interesting experiment. Orcutt is certainly a fluent guitarist and it proved that the barriers are more artificial perhaps than real – free jazz, which does not spin through cycles of harmonic changes that force certain directions and techniques, by its openness should be well capable of mixing with the rawer, more avant rock/noise without either side compromising (a spectre of 'jazz-rock' looming from the old days – 'let the shipwrecks of others be your seamarks,' what?). A thought I had – another guitar would have been interesting and someone like James 'Blood' Ulmer who does the new voodoo folk blues and can also rip it up on side orders of bebop-inspired chromaticism that takes his playing into provocative areas.

But leave us not carp – another act I'd like to hear again to see how they develop. And they went down mightily...

Back the hotel through the madness of Halloween on the Brighton streets. Ah-woo, Werewolves of Sussex... Soundtrack in the bar tonight – Funk – James Brown to Chic. Up on the one, y'all...

Review: Colour out of Space Festival, Brighton, Friday 30th October, 2009

The kick-off – I missed the beginning of the first show  – a selection of Fabio Roberti's dryly hilarious spoof movies - because I was over the road in Hector's House, but caught the one with the goateed dark glasses beat poet accompanied by sax and bongoes which was a hoot – the film stock deliberately stressed to make it look as if it had been shot in 1958, complete with out of synch moments and copious cigarette smoke. Good fun...

Next up Duncan Harrison and Ian Murphy. More serious fare here – starting with a high tone drone against crunchy electronics, adding voice sounds through a mike to mingle with what resembled scampering scratching march-like robotic insects. A whistle added, looped and processed – good mixture of noise and human processed sound.

Into the gallery part for HereHareHere – whom I could not see as the room was always full throughout, with the tall people at the front! A spartan sounding duo – just two voices moving with and against each other using extended vocalising techniques – ullulations/throat granularities etc. Came out sounding like a mix of Jewish liturgy and East European folk music in places. Interesting stuff – would like to hear them again in a more sympathetic setting. Re this: the success of the festival in part relies upon the alternating of the main hall and another performance space – last year in a large marquee outside at the back, which was slightly scuppered by the rain and mud underfoot but at least gave plenty of room to wander into – so that each act can change over/sound check efficiently and the schedule runs more or less on time. Unfortunately I missed much of what went on in the smaller room because it got too crowded... but that's always a problem at festivals, when so much is on display –plus: ya gotta eat – and drink... Hector's House over the road has a wider selection...

Morphogenesis next in the hall. The jumble sale ethic, ho ho... Four guys sat at tables piled up with their various electronic/music producing equipment. Adam Bohman stood out visually stage left, a jovial presence as he manipulated his plunderings of the curio shops – glasses, bowls, various unidentified objects – which he scraped, bowed and struck. They eased into their long set, slowly building a powerful momentum – added to by a bearded figure lugging some kind of portable amplifier and mike to just below the front of the stage among the audience where he variously squalled, hooted and howled in and out of the progressing sound stream. A bass throb coming in to almost ground them in a set rhythm. Maybe they went on a tad too long as some of the sounds produced started to be a wee bit repetive. A small criticism – I enjoyed this very much,  the fragile sonic world created, a good balance between the participants holding it together well.

Damien Romero, moved over from sunday night, for some reason. Power acoustics, tough stuff, the way I like it... Long drone that slowly built in force, crossed with syncopations/twists of rhythm and sudden jagged shards. Wild stuff but intelligently paced/structured... the night was building well...

To be really lifted up by Kodama, who were awesome. A two piece, another mix of flutes/recorders/home made instruments fed into various processing units. They were set up at the back of the hall, with the sound coming from sources in front of them and from the pa on stage to produce a strong immersive experience. Some way into their set Michael Northam produced an instrument that looked as if it had fallen off the back of the late Harry Partch's pickup truck, a zither from the ninth dimension perhaps which produced sounds to match. Hitoshi Kojo countered with a length of what resembled plastic piping which he blew into mightily.  Come to think of it, plumbing would be a lucrative day job for a struggling experimentl musician - and provide material for instruments... They produced – I don't know, a kind of folk music for the 21^st century, in that it was organic, made on simple/self-constructed/appropriated instruments and hot-wired into digital tech processing – I spotted my friend the Boss Loopstation in among the effects. Intelligence and emotion combined. They were fucking brilliant and I just did not want them to stop...

Ending on: Trevor Wishart. Who came on stage and did a solo voice thang, which demonstrated his years in the avant game well – tongue/throat twisting streams of words and sounds that resembled a selection of languages – I made out German, Dutch and Japanese – led by his bodily and facial gestures to hint at meanings – sad, happy, quizzical etc. Clever stuff as a demonstration of how meaning can travel across linguistic barriers – or be manipulated by visual cues which may or may not be accurate in their leading to order. Then he disappeared – leaving the stage to retreat to the mixing desk at the back and fill the darkened hall with a dizzying barrage of sounds: 'Globalalia' – 'universal dance of human speech as revealed in twenty tales from everywhere, spoken in tongues. 26 different languages' apparently. We were surrounded and dunked in a massive conjuration of choirs and populations, stretched, bent, teased, the LOGOS invoked in the infinite variations that the human voice is capable of. A great end to the first night.

Which continued bizarrely at the hotel where I sat overlooking the pier and the late night crowds over Guinness and Jameson while the sound system pumped out a retro selection of Doors/Monkees and some vintage ska... not a bad way to finish the evening.

Colour out of Space Festival 2009...

Down to Brighton for the Colour out of Space festival.  First night (friday) was a great start - packed hall - and, for my money, Kodama shaded it.   A stunning set... Review of evening to follow when time permits, hangover ebbs farther and the will to decipher illegible gonzo notes returns... Off soon for today's section...

Review: Len Graham at the Tiger, Sunday 25th October, 2009...

Down to the Tiger in Long Eaton to see Len Graham... what struck me overall on this excellent gig was the infinite flexibility of the human voice. Tonight I encountered a battery of solo singers, one story teller and one duo, stripped of accompaniment, delivering an eclectic variety of material from the traditions of the British Isles/Ireland and beyond. Which might, to a casual observer, seem somewhat arid – but believe me it was not. The diversity of songs was matched by the wide tonal ranges of the voices, tonight predominantly male but leavened by the compere, Corinne Male (ha!) and Jackie Perry who sang in tandem with Nick Burdett – demonstrating my point: Corinne, lyrical yet with a raw emotional edge, Jackie a harder, harsher granularity, well suited to the rugged rawness of the hunting song 'Swartfell Rocks' and balanced by the deep baritone warmth of her partner. So: a fascinating, wide ranging swing through sonic field and narrative content. Humour, tragedy, weirdness, especially – the ghosts that loom out of those bizarre old ballads to cross the centuries alongside the familial abuse, violence and murder – merrie olde England this ain't and wasn't. Performed with sensitivity, buttressed by deprecating wit and good humour that floats easily on a collective reservoir of deep knowledge. A special club, then, to be able to front any gig with such firepower from their ranks. As I didn't catch a couple of the names I won't give a list of the singers because they were all that good...

If the locals provided a feast, what of Len Graham? A guy who has been around, from when he grabbed a rucksack and guide to the Youth Hostels of Ireland North and South in the sixties and hit the road 'in the quest for song and fun.' Ireland, of course, lived nearer to its traditions with such a small population (due to the linked devastations of famine and exile), unlike the cultural dislocations caused by the Industrial Revolution in the U.K. and the movements from the land to town and city. The lines of dispute are of course there – only the most deluded paddyphile (bejasus) would refuse to acknowledge their existence. Yet by stepping back into the tradition, or diagonally, even, Graham avoids getting snared in these thorny issues. Even his overt reference to wider conflicts in the song ' I wish that the wars were over,' that memorialises the sacrifices that North and South made during both the World Wars of the twentieth century, by coming from a different angle makes a wider point that transcends mere sectarianism. Interestingly, the last time I was in Dublin, my old buddy Jon to me the War Memorial Gardens that commemorate the 49,000 or so Irish soldiers who fell in the Great War. We were chatting to the attendant who took us inside to view the books with the names of the war dead. The first one I saw gave an English address in East Leake – a spit from where I am sitting writing this. It gave me an odd frisson... The attendant said that not many people ever came out there, which was hardly surprising I suppose – the 'terrible beauty' of the Easter Rising still maybe overshadows the tragedies of the Somme for obvious reasons in the founding of a new state. Perhaps Len Graham, as an Ulsterman, can stand slightly to one side of these controversies. By celebrating the cultures of both North and South, arguably he makes a subtler point...

Thinking about polarities again – if the late Luke Kelly, say, whose wounded, vulnerable raw power splashed his emotional delivery right in your face – and this not a criticism, rather an approximate attempt at delineation, because I loved his singing mightily – can stand on one point of the continuum, Len Graham, perhaps, would be somewhere opposite. Graham is a subtle artist with a high pure lyricism and easy delivery, that hints at hidden power to spare, maybe something to do with the Ulster culture and accent, a certain closure, a slight throttling back. The emotion is there, sure - as Yeats said: 'Great poetry is not possible without passion' - but holds the songs together on a different level under the surface of the narratives, woven into the folds of the words in a cunning blend. His introductions are just as important to the overall performance, simultaneously amusing and erudite, the sharpness of his intellect covered by the warmth of his demeanour. Finely honed skills that add value to the individual songs by placing them in the wider context(s) of the traditions they come from. For a brief period of time the audience is taken into another world, a coherent topos where older voices co-exist with the contemporary, or rather step out to bear witness to times and people and places long gone – but still familar. Songs of sport: 'The Galway Races,' of exile, lost love and regret – 'The Bourlough Shore,' celebrations of simple joys in spinning lines of bantering nonsense: 'The Crocodile' and the sly double-entendres in 'The Taglioni.'

To say that a performer takes you on a journey is a cliché, certainly – but Len Graham offers this to his audience, an opportunity to travel on an elliptical trajectory where the subtle relations between story and songs conjure up a landscape and its various peoples grounded in the realities of history and life lived but laced with, perhaps, a utopian yearning... Fanciful – yep... but that was the feeling I came away with. The encore gave the flavour of the man... 'The Parting Glass,' that perfect but admittedly overdone song of farewell over the last drink - here sung in a totally different version (to me) - Graham providing a subtle spin on the familiar which serves as a paradigm for his artistry...

It was that good...

With regard to my reference to Owld Luke:

Contrast and compare...Len
and Luke with Paddy Kavanagh (and the young Al O' Donnell).

Slight return...

It's been a while - moving to new apartment has taken the wind out of my sails somewhat plus the other couple of projects I'm involved in have taken up a lot of time and energy... yet hoping to get this blog back on track (yeah, I know, I know)... some good music this week already with two great folk gigs - the lyrical subtleties of Len Graham at the Tiger, the kick out the jams vocal powerhouse that is the Wilsons at the Soar Bridge Inn... with maybe a review to follow of the first one... then I'm off on friday to the Colour out of Space bash in Brighton - my current favourite festival after last year... 'three days of unstructured, experimental music and art' - yowzer! My reviews of the last one here...scroll down...

New Label... Woe Betide Records...

David Grundy of Eartrip fame and Wire mag contributor (he has a fascinating article in the current issue on German psychedelic/space rock) has launched a new label for improvised musics - Woe Betide Records. Worth checking out...

Beats...

A cool vid of my old prof, Clive Meachen, late of Aberystwyth American Studies Department, UCW, Aberystwyth, talking the talk - and walking the walk... I say 'old' - we're the same age... but he's better looking... ho ho...

Folk Music...

Just got back from the Soar Bridge Inn - a fascinating night with various strands of the English Folk Tradition on display with the Keelers and a cut down version of Dolphin Morris- plus a lot of fun and some pathos... blimey... Maybe a small review tomorrow if things are not too hectic...

Spammed...

Grrr - just been mightily spammed by some imbecile advertising watches or something - so have to put comment mod back on, unfortunately...

Back again... fleetingly...

It's been a while, yes... blogging has been on hold for a few weeks as buried in editing and shaping a book, co-editing a web lit mag and also embarking on another house move... these restless aged beatniks, hey? But soon... lots of gigs to write about... the looming autumn and winter are shaping up well and the Mighty Marmion will be launching his new enterprise after retiring from the running of the old Pack Horse Club last December 'trailing clouds of glory' - Tapped But Settling, under which moniker he will be presenting a series of concert-type acoustic/folk gigs. Starting at Xmas with old friends GU4 for a mighty blast of acappella festive fourpart harmony wahoo. Deck the walls with sprigs of holly... Working backwards from the festive season (it's that kind of a morning) at the end of October I'm off to either the Colour out of Space festival in Brighton - or the Unsafe bash in Poole - a drag as they overlap so haven't figured out which one to choose yet. Last years Brighton festival was superb - as documented here, here and here...

Eartrip 4... now available...

The latest issue of David Grundy's very good web mag Eartrip 4 is out... well worth a look...

Soul Exorcism Redux etc... returns and re-ups... John Coltrane... Richard 'Groove' Holmes/Gene Ammons... James Chance...

Back from the wet west! A damp summer so far... Anyhow – the more perceptive will have noticed that I haven't been posting any mp3s for ummm – some time. Got caught up in other activities, I'm afraid and have been only blogging reviews. But I have had several requests for re-ups so here is the first batch – who knows, it might kick-start the old mp3 fandango...

I had a few problems finding a couple of tracks because I still have stuff buried in boxes from the last house move, but here we go. (All quotes taken from the original posts). First, up, John Coltrane:

'John Coltrane was starting to come into his own by 1958... listen to his long, questing solo on 'The Believer' to hear the tectonic plates of jazz moving. Modern jazz was already separating (some would say shattering) into different performative spaces by then. More so than had happened with the advent of bop. Maybe the trick is to realise how they were and are all related. Donald Byrd on fine form here, by the way... '

Then on to Gene Ammons:

'Let's spin back... to the solid raw heart of the tradition... here's some Jug – I bought this album when I was about 14-15 and the version of 'Willow weep for me,' recorded at the Black Orchid Lounge, Chicago in 1961, still stands out in my memory. (The name of the venue gives off a wonderful smoky jazz/nightclub ambiance...). Ammons gave a blues edge to everything (the son of Albert Ammons, the two fisted boogie piano stomper from the thirties, it must have been embedded in his DNA): he turns 'Willow' into an impassioned and testifyingly vulnerable lament. Holmes comes in like an icy stream trickling past the bending trees – whatever organ stops he is using rhyme perfectly with the theme and mood. Gene Edwards' guitar is bluesy and boppily fluent. Ammons restates the theme and plays an unaccompanied coda that teases out the tune to audience laughter. This live recording gives a timeless reminder of what jazz can be, beyond genre and idiomatic borders, when it cuts through straight to the heart... '

James Chance:

'... playing the wild Michael Jackson cover: 'Don't stop till you get enough.' Frenetic punk nihilism, fed by the energies of the rock scene sourced in the heady days of CBGB's etc colliding with Siegried/Chance/Black's freejazz aspirations.' Yowser.




John Coltrane
Donald Byrd (tp) John Coltrane (ts) Red Garland (p) Paul Chambers (b) Louis Hayes (d)
The Believer
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Richard 'Groove' Holmes/Gene Ammons
Gene Ammons (ts) Richard Holmes (org) Gene Edwards (g) Leroy Henderson (d)
Willow weep for me
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James Chance and the Contortions
Don't stop till you get enough
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Away...

I am away on a mission in Devon for a few days so have not been able to deal with the intended requests and reposts - will sort out next week asap when I get back...

Johnny Collins on YouTube...

Off to the Grand Union Club tonight for their Big Sing - which I suspect will be heavily shadowed by the recent sad news about Johnny Collins (see previous post). Many tributes will be delivered and sung, no doubt... Here's a couple of clips I found on Youtube of the man himself and a couple of his musical partners...










Credit to the original uploaders for preserving these memories...

And I haven't forgotten about the Gene Ammons tracks - things have just been insane this last week...

Johnny Collins Folksinger 1938-2009...

I had a mail yesterday from Bill Wilkes which said that Johnny Collins had collapsed and died while on tour with Jim Mcgeean in Gdansk - sad news... condolences to Julie, family and friends. A fine singer and character supreme, one of the legends of the Brit folk scene...

We get requests...

Apologies to the requestee who wanted the Gene Ammons re-up - I will get round to it tomorrow hopefully - if I can find the trax! Lot of my stuff still buried in boxes... but I'll see what I can do...

Review: Ornette Coleman/The Master Musicians of Jajouka at the Meltdown Festival, Royal Festival Hall, Sunday June 21st, 2009...

Support band out of the ordinary for the South Bank – in that they actually complemented the show rather than made up the numbers. The Master Musicians of Jajouka, whom I saw outside on the terrace a few days before, were inside tonight and delivered a fascinating and well-received show. Minimal skirling melodies that overlapped and shifted, surrounded by wild drumming. Out in the desert this must be an overwhelming experience – pretty good here, as well. The MMOJ are a visually striking crew – the green robes, white turbans (black for the leader), yellow shoes. Showmen as well, they know how to get the crowd moving. One of the drummers broke from the line at one point, did a weird dance out front and got the audience raggedly clapping along... great fun. The only annoyance – the usual crap, people wandering in late throughout, which is mightily distracting. Easy enough to stop: let no one in during a number. What is it with the South Bank? But onwards...

To the main event, on this last night of his curatorial duties for Meltdown... Ornette gets physically older, but still retains his radical edge with his sharp intelligence and his ever-youthful spirit. A gentle presence, softly spoken – although his announcements was barely audible anyway due to the rubbish sound (again – Mapsadaisical made the same point in his review of an earlier gig). The drum balance seemed odd, as well... Ornette played a lot throughout, never coasting, as his seniority would have allowed, looping through some of his favorite tunes and I couple I didn't recognise, which recurred in places, like refracting mirrors that offered new visions of old material. Backed initially by Tony Falanga on acoustic bass and Al McDowell on electric bass, who both wove a stunning and intricate tapestry of lines throughout. Falanga roaming deep while McDowell in the main played high up, giving a guitar line almost. Denardo, always a heavy hitter, held it all together (despite the eccentric and muddy sound). They gave up sudden explosions of those twisty reconstructed boppy themes – including a couple of good-natured false starts - and some slowed down, haunting, lyrical moments – especially coming from Falanga's arco bass. Positioned at the leader's right shoulder, he seemed to be the conduit to the rest of the band. Ornette, switching between his alto, violin and trumpet, paced himself as you would expect but played more than I remember the last time I saw him, using favourite licks sure, then occasionally spinning a sudden twist out of nowhere, his sound still as powerful and intense as ever. He leads from the front while allowing his musicians the freedom to exercise their imaginations – to produce a unique sound world. Which is as drenched in the blues as it always was, the main bloodline of his contributions to the 'free jazz' revolution, yet has a generous inclusiveness which is an intrinsic part of his musical philosophy - for example, Malanga bringing Bach into the gig when he reprised the Prelude that Ornette had ragged on circa the 'Tone Dialling album where the classical line was played on electric guitar. (Actually, I think it worked better here).

The inclusion continued with guest appearances as befitting the last night: Flea,from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, sent out some fleet bass, and Baaba Maal (I think) who briefly popped up for some wordless vocal colour. Then the Master Musicians of Jajouka returned to jam at the end – a wild and joyous noise that rocked the place. Another masterclass in harmolodics? - it was fascinating to see how a space slowly spread outwards from the Arabian band to encompass contributions from the others with Ornette joining in and his musicians picking their own (somewhat hesitant) way into the chaotic democracy being created. The packed house had given a tumultuous reception throughout, but this blew the doors off, the audience up on their feet for a long bout of applause, some girl calling out 'We love you, Ornette,' - to which he made a nice reply – what I caught of it. The crap sound again... To the encore – 'Lonely Woman,' as usual, now joined by one of his long-standing cohorts, the mighty Charlie Haden, playing in a trio with Denardo and his father to end the evening and the festival. Somehow fitting, taking the music back to near its beginnings, while giving a frail and wistful update, spirit balancing out and overriding the encroaching years.

A ragged but overwelmingly emotional and brilliant night, then... Harmolodics triumphant – and love...

Sunday in the City...

A great day on Sunday – got to town, checked in to hotel and then off to the Tate Modern – saw the Futurism show and the Per Kirkeby – too much to absorb in one go, really, so another visit asap. The Futurism exhibition is amazing, the Kirkeby... mmm, not sure, his early stuff looks a bit scrappy but some of the later enormous canvases have a certain power. Reserved judgement – too quick a shunt round to make up my mind. Then off to the Festival Hall down the river walk – where I came across the guys in the photo. Another great band of buskers, the East Europeans showing the locals how to do it. The trumpet gave the music a flavour of Mexican, oddly – great surging stuff, perfect for a sunny afternoon.
Got to the Queen Elisabeth Hall and tried to break in! Forcing the door, I didnt realise at first that it was locked. Then noticed a CLOSED sign. Though: WTF – where's the gig? Then checked my ticket and discovered Ornette was playing the main joint. Hmmm... wake up, Warner... wandered in to discoverLeafcutter John and his combo setting up in the Clore Ballroom so grabbed a foul over-priced lager and found a seat. Leafcutter (was he a gardener in another existence? Must go google...) was doing his balloon routine at first but the set progressed into some interesting areas and was nicely abrasive, given the odd circumstances of its positioning, people wandering about etc. But quite a good crowd sat listening. A good - and uncompromising - no pub bands - warm up for the main show... review to follow...

Noted in passing – Mapsadaisical has a review of the earlier Coleman show on the 19th June... check out the other write-ups for Meltdown on the same site...

Review: James 'Blood' Ulmer at the Queen Elisabeth Hall, London, Tuesday June 16th, 2009...

James 'Blood' Ulmer was a blast... but my predictions about the poor quality and mismatching of the South Bank's support groups were verified again – as overall curator, Ornette holds the blame, although I guess this disparate bunch were put through on the local nod. I spent the set drifting off mostly when I wasn't inventing insults for this review. Put to one side in the end – what is the point? In the interests of recording the event, someone called Shlomo bounded on, with the demeanour of an early morning children's show host and announced a quartet of 'improvising' vocalists would improvise a set inspired by listening to some of Ornette Coleman's records and by his harmolodic theories. Two of them were ok-ish – apart from some boobedoo scatting which should have been left in some low rent supper club way back. Apparently Shlomo was 'Artist in Residence' and had been rowed in to create a 'Harmolodic' vocal event. Bits of it were not too bad – when the two singers who had some idea of what jazz is – albeit in its mainstream incarnation – seemed to be grasping towards something interesting. But it bogged down in the human beat box lockstep of the other two – look, I can sound like a hi-hat. Tish tish... Far out, as we used to say... Ba-boom...

Ulmer played a long set, as if in some karmic compensation for the earlier froth. He passed through various bands when he arrived in New York in the early 1970s, including Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, but ended up studying and playing with Ornette for several years during which he was deeply imbedded in the saxophonist/composers harmolodic theories while playing electric guitar in his band – hence the festival link. A big man, he came on stage and sat in front of a low riding music stand, a couple of monitors, a vocal mike, a couple of pedals, his guitar and amp. That was it. He proceeded to demonstrate not just how vital the blues still can be, but arguably, how central their freedoms were historically to 'free jazz' – well, that part of the African-American stream, exemplified by his mentor's influence – to whom he offered fulsome praise throughout. Whatever 'harmolodics' may or may not be – and that's an on-going debate without end – I certainly got the feel of it here. His guitar was anchored firmly on a monotonic bass underpinning an open guitar tuning which goes back to the country blues and various folk music modalities but the spurts of single note lines display his jazzier side. Few have put these elements together into such an organic whole. At times the lack of key changes veered to a certain monotony – but Ulmer would pull you back with a flashing and unpredictable run, a sudden change of rhythm. The music ebbed and flowed across a variety of levels – back porch picking meets the concert hall via many cultural and musical points in between, shotgunned into an area where, for the duration of the set, the barriers were erased. The blues disrupted, chopped up and taken to areas beyond the museum/heritage space they often too easily reside in. Ulmer has brought his singing skills to the fore over the years, tonight delivering a set of free-rolling compositions inspired by Hurricane Katrina, his family, relationships: 'Harmolodic Kisses' – wouldn't I just love to see a title like that in the top-twenty – the old tensions between the Devil and the Lord, barrelhouse and church, tangling his vocals in the guitar line that delivers unpredictable sideways leaps and skitters. Echoes of John Lee Hooker and Lightning Hopkins in both the freedoms of the playing and the timbres of the singing – and, to my ears, an odder cultural cross reference, something about the dry way he hit on certain words reminded me of the splendidly named folk singer Bascom Lamar Lunceford – who came North Carolina. (Ulmer was originally from from South Carolina). Indeed, there were a few almost country riffs poking through in places...

His in-between patter was easy-going yet informative – in an albeit gnomic way – his speaking voice very soft and deep which made him a little hard to understand at times – could have been the sound system, perhaps. I didn't make out a lot of his lyrics either because the guitar lines, dancing, echoing, predicting and chasing the vocal stream, blended in maybe too well. Again a bit more separation in the mix would have helped. Overall, it didn't matter – in the sense that if you were listening to any intense performance in a language far from your own the intrinsic feeling/soul will hit you. This is music of passion laced with a wider anger at social and political injustices, leavened with humour and humanity. He broke up the rhythms, slowed down, sped up – all of it done with his thumb, which gives a certain texture to the string impact – not the sharp click of a plectrum or the pull and snap of finger-stylings but a flexible digit to strum, bass thump and unleash the single string melodies. Wes Montgomery fed back into the history and whirled round to emerge in a new century. If Mississippi blues was the music that retained more obvious fragments of the African heritage, and that bloodline was on particular display here, the modal tuning gave occasional hints of other related musics – North African/Arabic. Plus that occasional country tinge... What also fascinated me was the variation he got from what can be a limiting strategy, this use of an open tuning. The chromaticism of the single note runs pushed a level of tension across the static pull of the repeated bass note and tuning overtones, where the vertical architecture of folk/blues meets jazz linearities and is stretched into new areas. A moving, living breathing music with scope to evolve further. Struggling to define Mr Ulmer's muse beyond its constituent parts, I wrestled with – the usual categorical wahoo – and even 'postmodern' cropped up at one point... then realised that Ornette had, of course, been there already. Harmolodics, is what it is...

Ornette's concepts have a lot of life left in them. As James 'Blood' Ulmer proves. Great show, I look forward to seeing Mr Coleman and company on Sunday night...

Back from London - review to follow...

Back from the James Blood Ulmer gig - on the terrace before the show, these guys were playing - some nifty footwear. Pity they weren't doing the support - the Curse of the South Bank is getting predictable - Shlomo's Harmolodic Bollox this time out. Still, Blood Ulmer was impressive - a great show... review to follow asap...

Breaking the silence... off to London (again)...

I have been deeply embedded in an ongoing project which is moving nicely forwards... so time for a break! Off to London later on to have a mosey round the Futurism Exhibition at the Tate Modern. A walk down by the river, then grab a beer and off to James 'Blood' Ulmer's gig at my unfavourite venue... hope the support is better than they usually are... report tomorrow...
Part of Ornette's Meltdown Festival - going to catch him on sunday night...

Review (belated!)... Tom McConville/David Newey at Traditions at the Tiger, Sunday 17th May, 2009

I wrote this the day after the gig - and promptly forgot to post it - it's been one of those weeks... But here are a few thoughts on a great evening...

I have been meaning to get over to 'Traditions at the Tiger' in Long Eaton for a long time – but for a variety of obscure reasons, have never made it. My loss... Finally dragging myself from God's Little Acre over the county line with the automotive help of Mr and Mrs B – who help to run this club. A reasonable sized room in the traditional way – over the pub. With an incongruous pool table in the middle – which was useful for putting cds and tapes on... (I had wondered if there would be a game in the interval, as a couple of lines from an old Jackie Crowley song went through my mind: 'And every man jack was up for the crack, with his arse in the air playing pool.') High ceiling, which resembles the club room above the Swan in the Rushes back home. Good for resonance...

Tonight: violin master Tom McConville in a duo with guitarist David Newey. But beforehand, in both halves, a demonstration of the depth of talent this club has – with their residents apparently a little depleted, still, some fascinating songs delivered in a variety of styles and voices – from Dave Sutherland, John Bentham, Al Atkinson, Corrine Male, Jack Crawford - plus Sheila Bentham's storytelling skills – and another nice surprise, the redoubtable Bill Wilkes and Lynne Cooper from the Barrow club (where I would be the next night) who had also crossed the county line. Great singing from the tradition, backed with a depth of knowledge and erudition, delivered with skill - and humour...

Tom McConville has been around, as they say... Supported by supple guitar, flatpicked and fingerstyle as applicable, he delivered tunes and songs, a lyrical voice with plenty held back in reserve, nothing forced, soaring violin, underpinned with the rhythm section of John Lee Hooker – a firm stomping brogue. David Newey accompanied sympathetically, switching from up on the one – for the traditional stuff – to the more syncopated 2 and 4 for more American influenced syncopation. A class act - and to my mind, ample room for crossover – this is music that is well capable of reaching a wider audience – without compromising integrity. I know McConville has played around Europe and beyond to the USA and that widespread experience is easily detected in the broad spread appeal of his material where different traditions can blend easily, held together by a sharply focused vision, exemplary skill – and abundant good humour... He's a droll cove...

Roll on the next one - Tom Kitching and Gren Bartley (no strangers!) on June 7th...

Review: Joel Holmes/'African Skies'...

Pigeon holes have become more confusing these last years, especially with regard to the music(s) we call 'jazz.' Born on the cusp of the electronic age and accelerated by the developing technologies, its development has been rapid compared to the longer, more sedate span of western art/classical music. Measure from plainsong to Schoenberg and beyond, for example and compare the years travelled against work song/ragtime/marching band/blues to... 'modern post bop,' which is how Blue Canoe, the digital jazz label based in Georgia, defines this new release by the young pianist Joel Holmes. A separate journey of course – jazz as a majestic African-American achievement (in the main, but not exclusively) went down many different roads compared to its Western art music relation, while recapitulating and folding much of that music's advances into itself – wheels within wheels indeed. So: there is a lot to unpack in the tight compression of a hundred years of jazz history leading up to the term 'post-bop.' Leaving aside 'free jazz' – Holmes is broadly in the mainstream lineage – what lies under the large panorama of his album 'African Skies?' Joel Holmes shows his influences – as a young musician should – but also demonstrates how far he has travelled from them (while retaining his links with those earlier styles) and some of the areas he wants to explore further. Which indicates, perhaps, the breadth of possibilities that the mainstream of jazz still has to explore. Here you will find adaptions of Chinese folk song, homages to Coltrane and Herbie Hancock, original compositions and a nod to the American standard songbook, played by: solo piano, straight ahead piano trios, burning quartets with Gary Thomas's tenor saxophone added, further extensions with added strings and flute, spiced with African/Latin percussion. All these different angles held together by the leader's keyboard skills and highly developed sense of structure – and strong spirituality – the whole kicked along by the booting drums of Eric Kennedy, rhythm being at the heart of the mainstream/modern postbop whatever, the solid link with the tradition. It all swings...

A brief overview:

'African Skies' starts on a slow rumble to suddenly bounce into a lithe line, fast piano echoed by tenor and punctuated by the added percussion whose rolling rhythms evoke both African and Latin styles. Solo honours from tenor and strong but melodic piano.

'Impressions,' and 'Impressions – Take Two.' Two fast runs through the Coltrane number. Holmes shows his two-handed skills and fleet sense of melody, shadowed by nimble bass and the powering drums. Gary Thomas proves himself deserving of wider recognition...

'Chinese Fishing Song' signals a change of gear and direction – heading East, rhapsodic piano evoking the rippling of waves and then slow stately violin takes the folk song theme. Moving into a steady tempo as the violin (Chia Yin Holmes) slowly builds an elegant yet intense solo, increasingly prodded by drum interjections, followed by muscular, jaunty piano.

Another Coltrane tune, 'Mr P.C.' Straight up quartet again. Tenor solos first then piano comes running fast out of the blocks. Then: a trading section across the band - swapping choruses rather than fours or eights, in a round robin, which demonstrates again the intelligent arranging/structuring, to get as much out of the various smallband lineups as possible.

'Fatima' - another sonic area opens here – piano trio with added percussion, strings and flute. The strings are used sparingly, the airy pastorality of the flute balanced by strong bass ostinatos and – again – the powerful drums that are never far away.

'Summer night.' A piano trio: surefooted spin through a light waltz. A standard, from Harry Warren and Al Dubin, taken skilfully round the floor. Perhaps a nod at another Holmes's hero – the late Oscar Peterson.

Another pick from the jazz songbook – the patter of bongoes gives a Latin feel to Herbie Hancock's 'Maiden Voyage.' Contrasts aplenty – reflective passages giving way to storming drums. Another well-structured track with much dynamic variety.

'Soliloquy of trouble.' Solo piano – evoking one of his favourite pianist influences, Art Tatum with sudden swirling jaunts away from the slow tempo. Exposed, Holmes passes the test...

'Moment's Notice.' Back to the trio... chorded theme with fast-skittering drums – then quick fire, sparkling lines from the leader. Eric Kennedy really boots this along, taking the track, and fittingly, the session, out with a thumping solo.

An impressive album... Holmes is not afraid of showing his strong links back, not just to the immediate past – Coltrane, Herbie Hancock etc but further, Oscar Peterson, back to the great Art Tatum (and beyond – interestingly he says that ragtime was his first influence), but avoiding pastiche or retro/tribute band lockdown in his incorporation of wider musical streams – 'folk/world music,' etc. Again, these terms have often implied a watering down blandout – avoided here by the tough, supple drumming of Eric Kennedy which provides a flexible platform throughout – and the leader's overall maturity of vision. The relatively short tracks offer concise episodes where Holmes sense of structure and dynamics is displayed effectively– the individual pieces refracting each other to offer a kaleidoscopic panorama of the possibilities still open 'within the tradition.'

Final thoughts: Holmes is well-supported on the album: Gary Thomas and the other musicians bend their individual skills to the wider endeavour – the tenor saxophonist, especially, I would like to hear more of...



Collective Personnel:

Joel Holmes - piano
Gary Thomas, Tim Green - sax/flute
Eric Kennedy - drums
Jeff Reed, Eric Wheeler - bass
Melena - percussion
Themba Mikhatshwa - conga, djembe
Chun-Wen Chuan - cello
Chia Yin Holmes - violin

Tiger, Tiger...

Sunday - a great night at the Tiger... My first visit - and I see why it is considered one of the best local clubs. Tom McConville and David Newey on fine form, the violinist especially offering a masterclass on his instrument. Small review to follow, when I have finished the album review due last week... Time runs away...

The music returns... Cecil Taylor... Anthony Braxton... Ornette Coleman...

A slow and easy squeeze back into the mp3 game - I had a request for these three tracks from an old post so have re-upped them. The original post is here... 'Womb waters scent of the burning armadillo shell' has to be one of my all-time favourite titles...



Cecil Taylor
(Rashied Bakr, drums, voice · Karen Borca, bassoon, voice · Günther Hämpel, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, vibraphone, voice · Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone, voice · Andre Martinez, drums, percussion, voice · William Parker, bass, voice · Enrico Rava, trumpet, voice · Tomasz Stanko, trumpet, voice · Cecil Taylor, piano, voice · John Tchicai, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, voice . Frank Wright, tenor saxophone, voice)

Womb Waters Scent Of The Burning Armadillo Shell
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Anthony Braxton
(Anthony Braxton, clarinet, alto, soprano, sopranino and C-melody saxophones, flute (collective instrumentation for the album) Adelhard Roidinger (b) Tony Oxley (d))

Compositions 40J & 110A (+108B + 69J)
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Ornette Coleman
(Ornette Coleman (as) Gregory Cohen, Tony Falanga (b) Denardo Coleman (d))

SleepTalking
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Iain Sinclair in Coventry... Saturday May 9, 2009...

Down to Coventry to attend a reading by Iain Sinclair (unofficial web site)... Touch and go I would make it as the old exhaustion has sidelined me since I got back from London – but managed to drag myself off to the station – missed the Waterstones book signing at 12 pm and had some time to kill so I went off in search of refreshment. I've been going to Coventry (no pun intended) quite a lot these last couple of years for gigs (Tin Angel/Taylor John's etc) but that was at night and we usually managed to get lost so the daytime city I know hardly at all. I found the Library fairly easily and went off to the marvellously named Medieval Spon Street as I vaguely remembered a pub in that direction. Duly found The Old Windmill, a hurried pint of Belgian wheat beer, some Indian guy tried to sell me a bed – and I consequently got lost coming back to the reading. I think they call it psychogeography... Only briefly however – course rectified, I made it back to the Library in plenty of time.

A reasonable crowd for a reading – I've seen less... High up on a level that overlooked the main library with people coming and going all around. It struck me as odd at first, but actually it worked very well and resonated with much of Iain Sinclair was subsequently to speak and read about. Engaging with the local... Probably better than being stuck in one of those doctor's waiting room cubby holes where they usually hold these events, it was oddly intimate AND open...

Sinclair is a tall man, balding, dressed in black, an amiable presence which disguises a sharp intellect. He did a stand up gig really, conversational, fluent, his patter seamlessly interspersed with readings of earlier work and sections from his latest extravaganza 'Hackney, that Rose Red Empire.' An old pro – a class act. But more than just an entertainer – there is a serious message here in his obsessive diggings deep into the substrata of London and beyond. The current preoccupation that haunts his new book - the looming shadow of the Olympics, that fiscal crack-up coming to a capital city near you soon, the manner in which London communities are being moved on to make room for the latest Millenium Dome debacle(farce repeated as... farce), the new 'Enclosures' – if John Clare was the signature poet of the old ones, driven mad eventually by the destruction of his ground and his encounters with London and fickle celebrity surely Sinclair is the bard of the new. (Although saner!).

Loops...

'Polis is
eyes'

(The Maximus Poems, Letter 6, l 1-2 by Charles Olson)

– reading this in Maximus, it struck me how this acted as a good rule for what writers should do – SEE through the murk, the bullshit. Then, during the reading, when he mentioned the Orwellian preponderance of CCTV cameras in this country, it suddenly struck me as a prescient joke – police have eyes, the Glaswegian spin in the word mutating it into a description of our present over-observed society with its increasingly overt possibilities for a police state – rather than the local anarcho-democratic politics hinted at in Olson's 'polis.' Connections...

I would have liked to hear some more of his poetry but given the time strictures we were still treated to a rich verbal feast - and there was the new book to plug, after all. It struck me that as Charles Olson had eventually surpassed his earlier master, Ezra Pound, with his Maximus poems, over the years Sinclair had transcended his early influences – Beats/Black Mountain/WCW – to forge a unique style that was rooted in his native culture(s) (in the broadest sense: prophets of the wilder possibilities rather than those 'canonised' by an academe that has grown ever-more stifling – who would have thought that possible?) while having the flexibility and energy that those American precursors brought to their own language. Moreover – a style that has evolved to describe as accurately as possible and further, to engage and criticise the contemporary world in a unique manner, the form evolving as the field spreads outwards. Olson again (from Creeley): Form is never more than an expression of content. A million miles away from the Brit lit scene – you know who I mean. The heritage farmers... In Sinclair's work, voices from the past mingle with the contemporary demotics in all their clashing multi-culti sprawl of contradictions and uneasy alliances. Gangsters, poets, artists, hustlers, the older cultures rub against the new on the London street, counterposed against the shadows of Post Thatcher New Labour Babylons... 'Moloch, Moloch, Nightmare of Moloch,' as Ginsberg had it...

Yet - the whole done with a light touch and liberal dashes of humour. However scholarly the underpinnings - and his research alone covers a massive range - Sinclair will usually break it up with a gag here and there. Polemic leavened with humanity...

Heady stuff for a cold afternoon in a Middle England library – and the provincial may yet be our collective salvation. Energies grounded in the local. Maximus to Medieval Spon Street...

Unfortunately I had to dash off back to God's Little Acre – but managed to grab a quick word with Kevin Ring, the editor of the fine mag 'Beat Scene' – and bought a copy of Mr Sinclair's Kodak Mantra Diaries from him which you can also get from his web site – scroll right down...

Update: Just found this which gives a flavour of his work: Sinclair on the Olympic Scam...

Review: Freedom of the City Festival, Conway Hall, London, Monday 4th May, 2009...

A long day and a glorious marathon of music...

Kick off at 2 pm – a duo with Seymour Wright and Sebastian Lexer – alto saxophone and piano/electronics. I've seen Wright before a few years ago and didn't take to his assembling/dismantling of his instrument routine. That said – today I felt that I got what he was on about. Wright's a deadpan/zen character in a smart suit, sitting with his cohort Lexer in meditative silence before starting – crackles of sound from Lexer, Wright opening up on alto mouthpiece and various additions. Small, imperceptible breaths, spurts of air – it all sounds a bit precious until you go with it. This is musical exploration deep below the surface of the melodic/harmonic line, delving into the properties of discrete units of sound. Once the alto was assembled, Wright continued his forensic investigations of its physical properties, using a small radio inside the bell, a tambourine balanced on the same as Lexer produced complementary sounds from the piano and further processed through his rig. A riveting performance – visual as well as aural. I detect – though I could be wrong – a wry humour behind the mask. After all, he is one of us provincials, from Derby way. We do wry... Great start to the afternoon...

A trio next – Ross Lambert/Paul Abbott/Jerry Wigens. Guitar/electronics/clarinet. I enjoyed it but thought it a little disconnected and a trifle dry at times. One thought I had about the festival as a whole was how the electronics side never really seemed fully integrated with the conventional instruments, apart from a couple of exceptions. Here, Lambert and Wigens intereacted fluently throughout, but Abbott seemed more colour than equal contribution - however, this could have been due to my position off to the side of the hall...


John White and John Lely – the old guard and the new. Sat at a couple of tables with their electronic produce in front of them, it struck me rather facetiously (as ever) that there is a thesis somewhere for an earnest young academic to write – on the influence of church jumble/bring and buy sales on laptop/electronic music. (Might get them a job on The Wire...). Two parallel streams of sounds, some short wave radio interference which provided a couple of laughs. Something about this seemed – well, it was interesting, as was everything on the festival, but a bit flimsy... academics having fun... nothing visceral...

After a short break – fire music of the first order. A stunning duo of John Edwards and John Butcher, gonzo bass player supreme and saxophones - tenor and soprano. Edwards is a virtuoso, taking his instrument way beyond its conventional range (caveat: whatever that might be these days), slapping it, stroking, pummelling, jamming his bow into the strings, producing a massive array of sound that always hard drives any combo he is part of. Butcher I had taken for a more cerebral player, used to his multi-tracked albums rather than his live work. On storming form here – they jacked up the energy levels and went down accordingly well with the enthused audience.

A duo – Ute Wasserman and Aleks Kolkowski. Now this really was something different. When I clocked the musical saw I thought about heading for the bar as I hate glissando-ey wobbley instruments (never could dig the theremin for the same reason). Luckily I let curiosity get the better of prejudice and witnessed one of the highlights (for me) of the festival. Kolkowski, bowing on the saw and on a phono-fiddle (an instrument I have not seen since I was a street musician way back and encountered regularly an old guy who played one down Marble Arch subway) completely transcended his instruments' vaudeville connotations. Wasserman, a tall woman, stood straight and sang/produced vocal sounds starting from pure, almost operatic tones (she has that sort of range and technique) that were bent and roughed up into more granular areas, subtly punctuated with additional small bird callers. Without any electronic aid – apart from the microphones - they brought forth amazing music of condensed purity. Bottleneck phonofiddle as well, I kid you not...

More fire: Marc Saunders/Pat Thomas/John Coxon. Starting on smashed piano chord/clusters whacked out of the Bosendorfer by Thomas as Saunders rattled up fast-wristed salvos across his kit, spiced with Coxon's high-octane electric guitar noise. The guitarist used his instrument for colouration, coming from a different genre he grasped how to interact with the speed of the other two musicians, wrenching amplified shrieks and splashes into appropriate shapes to match their lines. Maybe not always successfully, but a brave stab...

The evening session. First up: John Russell's latest incarnation of QuaQua – a seven piece tonight, including Phil Minton... I almost left for the bar again – there are not many vocal improvisers who do it for me anyway and Minton definitely is not one of them. Luckily in a group this size - piano and added electronics (again), violin, percussion, bass, alto, and Russell's guitar, there was plenty to hold the attention away from yelping by numbers. Stirring stuff – at times when they got stoked up they seemed to hit a spiky fragmented almost-groove – not in a jazz/freejazz even sense, but something intrinsic perhaps to Brit/European improvisers who have played together so much down the years, a collective energy field of spiky movement hard-driven by Turner's percussion. Russell a bit low in the overall mix – his sound concept of dry, dusty scrapes, sharply strummed notes and skittering runs performed on an old archtop guitar is obviously deliberate but with little carry can get tonally swamped. Pity, because he is a fascinating guitarist. (Somewhere I have some old radio shots of him in a trio with John Butcher and Phil Durrant where the guitar cuts through much more – must dig those cassettes out of the garage). A small beef, however – great set...

Lol Coxhill solo... I first heard Lol back in the old days when he was busking round the West End – as I was. I would often go down the road and listen – one of our national treasures. Tonight, in relaxed form playing to the home crowd, as it were... Lol manages to go in and out seamlessly, his improvisations following a logic that bends occasional timbral effects into the melodic flow without seeming contrived. He finished on a standard – shock horror! 'Lover Man,' a beautiful rendition but with one eye on the clock – he suddenly stopped in mid chorus. Courtesy for the following musicians – and good stagecraft. Still a marvellous freshness to his playing after all these years...

A trio: Alan Wilkinson/John Bissett/James Dunn – baritone and alto saxophones/guitar/electronics. Blistering stuff – Wilkinson I have never seen live and he gave of his all – fast and furious and shading it on the alto horn, I thought. Bissett was a new name to provincial me – I would like to hear more, he struck me as having an interesting take on post-Bailey guitar. A powerhouse set – but again, it struck me that the electronics of James Dunn were interesting but just adding colour rather than being more deeply integrated into the whole. I kept thinking of someone with the visceral live intensity of Aaron Dilloway, wondered how he would fit into these ensembles... but a good segment closer, all the same.

The end of a perfect day... A superb duo to kick off the last section, Tony Marsh and Alexander Hawkins, veteran drummer alongside up and coming young pianist. Hawkins started in lyrical mood, upping his game into wilder crashing smashes and scampering lines – a little repetitive in places, perhaps, with the top of keyboard flurries, but overall exciting stuff. Marsh was superb, visibly enjoying himself throughout. Went down a storm...

To the last set – left to right, John Edwards, Evan Parker, John Russell and Peter Evans – bass, tenor/soprano saxophone, guitar and trumpet. A heavyweight band, although I noticed how Parker pulls back in these situations, playing for the ensemble rather than allowing his formidable technique to dominate. I would like to have heard a bit more of him, as one of my favourite musicians, but the band came first... Similar point as above concerning Russell's guitar, although it was fractionally more audible than with Quaqua, I still wanted to hear it more clearly. But the overall timbral balance was pretty good, considering Edwards edged into Russell's sonic field occasionally. Evans was a revelation, another name I don't know, his supple trumpet, open and muted, flying alongside Parker in places with a dizzying tightrope brilliance. You really didn't want them to stop, even after hours of music.

But they obviously had to...


Last thoughts. So much good and varied music... Congratulations to all who managed to put this event on, musicians playing for love rather than financial reward and all the backstage organisers, comperes, soundcrew etc. In hard times – and made harder no doubt with the bloated and bungled Olympic budget snaffling lots of lottery cash from putative Arts funding – they deserve a big round of cyber applause...

Evan Parker at the end mentioned that perhaps next year, there will be a three day event rather than two. I hope so...

Freedom of the City Festival 2009...

I will post the review of Monday's events later today (hopefully). Still high from the music...

Review: The Freedom of the City Festival... London Improvisers' Orchestra... Christian Wolff... The Post Quartet...

I skated in to the four o clock show of the Freedom of the City Festival direct from my hotel – then found that the earlier show had overran – so time for refreshment. Some odd organic lager... Then into the Conway Hall, the venue for this year's bash.
The London Improvisers Orchestra was assembling in all its anarchic (in the best sense) glory – over thirty musicians (too lazy to count them all) on the stage and in ranks in front of the stage – reeds, brass, strings, percussion, laptops, electric guitars and more – I think I spotted a sarod in the front row. They performed a selection of 'conductions' - 'a type of structured free improvisation where... an improvising ensemble [is directed] with a series of hand and baton gestures' (quoted from here ) – five separate pieces, the last being a kind of 21st 'Concerto for Cootie' featuring the redoubtable Brit jazz trumpeter, Henry Lowther, ending on an all-in free improvised piece.
A fascinating set – improvised music especially benefits, in my opinion, from being experienced live where you can witness the interactions between musicians. Especially so with a band this size – I've heard them on recordings and enjoyed their work but invariably missed some of the nuances -
the vast blocks of sound they can produce sometimes becoming a bit muddy unless recorded scrupulously – and even then... No such problems today – apart from the sheer weight of sonic information coming at me when they hit full throttle, but this offers an exhilarating live encounter for the sympathetic listener. Each of the conductors employed their own style and interaction with the orchestra, which gave a variety of interpretive moves to compare and enjoy. Subtle washes of moody swooning strings, a poignant brass chorale, some violent eruptions of electric guitar, trombone tailgate rips and snorts, sudden breaks into a swinging jazz four,and much much more. Henry Lowther, employing mutes and open trumpet on his feature, lyrical yet quietly girdered with passion. The 'Concerto for Cootie' gag was only meant half-facetiously – the muted work referenced deep back into the jazz heritage to earlier collective improvising traditions. The overall concept would seem unwieldy, but they manage the contradictions and juxtaposed genres remarkably well – sections that could have come out of contemporary 'serious' art music shoved next to electronically treated and looped vocals, almost conventional big band sectional blasts, plenty of free jazz moments, plenty of more 'traditional' jazz moments especially of timbral movement, percussive effects that would amuse Steve Reich no doubt, when various members were summoned to thump on the backs of their instruments, or clap along – to produce a building wave of overlapping rhythmic ripples. I didn't quite get the Terry Day piece, where he did his crazy poet/diamond geezer routine – but his manic conduction was amusing and energetic. Throughout, in fact, there was a great sense of the pure joy of playing music together – a lot of smiles and laughs.
To go out: I wondered how they would end the collective free improvisation without a frontperson. Answer: Sun Ra style, when various members of the ensemble started to walk into the audience. Finally circling the hall with a couple upstairs who made it to the balcony, enveloping the audience in a total surround of music which was a brilliant coup de théâtre.

I was weary after a late night and early start up to town but stuck around for the Christian Wolff segment. String trio (one of the Post quartet apparently being ill/indisposed), Wolff on piano and small electronic keyboard linked to a tube he blew into (hey, I don't miss these technical details!), plus a table of small instruments played by Michael Parsons and John Lely. Performing selections from Wolff's 'Exercises.' Mainly a music of small melodic fragments, occasionally punctuated/interrupted by sharp high-pitched small-drum raps, cymbals and tambourine, plus the string players using tiny (finger?) cymbals and a bunch of keys attached to their music stands - which were also occasionally rattled by their bowsattling - for additional amendments. I found it interesting but a little dry, nearer to the post-Cageian art house than the barrelhouse of my preference. A snidey comment maybe – but, to be fair, I did get more pulled in as it progressed – a cumulative experience perhaps, where the small details slowly build. Later on there were sections where the cello gave longer deep supporting notes that opened it out more, and some intriguing duos swapped between the cello, viola and violin that balanced the dominant pointillism. Overall - despite exhaustion, I was glad I stayed for it - the contrast with the rowdy wildness of the London Impovisors made for a fascinating day/evening.
Pity to miss Wolff with AMM - but I headed for food, hard liquor and much-needed sleep...

Written on the run... just off for today's extravaganza starting at 2 pm...

Freedom of the City... Beat Scene... Iain Sinclair...

I am off back to London tomorrow for the Freedom of the City festival – but just received the latest edition of Beat Scene which reminded me that the editor, Kevin Ring, kindly tipped me off that my favourite (living) British author Iain Sinclair is up in the provinces next weekend (Saturday 9th May) at the Coventry Literary Festival(scroll down for details) – doing a book signing at 12 pm(Waterstones)and reading at 2.30 pm (Central Library). I'm currently 100 odd pages into his latest 'Hackney, that Rose Red Empire.' Which is magnificient... this review here gives a flavour of its sprawling reach. I'll be there...

Review: Spaceshipp/Hauschka at the Ether Festival, Queen Elisabeth Hall, London, Monday 20th April, 2009...

An intriguing evening at the Ether Festival – Hauschka took the first half, playing acoustic piano with various preparations/interferences and a string quartet, Spaceshipp – Matthew Shipp and Jason Pierce (of Spiritualized fame)playing as Spaceshipp - keyboards and electric guitar plus visuals, the second. I enjoyed the show, the contrast between pastoral/bucolic folky dreamscape and the deep iron cone of drone erected by Spaceshipp. But there was a scrappy, bitty feel to the night – maybe the audience, many entering late in dribs and drabs in the first half, leaving in dribs and the drabs in the second, contributed to that rather listless feeling. You got the impression not many people were that bothered either way... Little sense of engagement, which was a shame...

Hauschka came on with his all female quartet, sat at the piano and introduced his music in a pleasant, amiable manner – mentioning the fact he had spent most of the day stuck in windowless rooms rehearsing while we all enjoyed a fabulous spring day outside. (I certainly had – went Tate to Tate up and down river with a muttered curse as the boat passed the Parliament of Rogues and Fools and caught the Van Dyck show at Millbank. Realised I had not been to the older Tate for a long time. Sun shining, sweet Thames rolling softly, etc...). The music was pitched right for the weather, I thought: airy, folky, minimalist in rhythm and tonality, the main areas of exploration being in granularity via prepared piano and occasional extended techniques on the strings. A lot of short pieces, starting off with solo piano and ending on same. Touches of Steve Reich perhaps, here and there, in the repetitions of the string figures. (No bad thing...). And played with humour and warmth. My only criticism would be that the prepared piano did not explore the sonorities as much as perhaps it could have – but maybe I am used to the darker and deeper sonic areas of Cecil Taylor, Keith Tippett et al and it is not fair to load that onto someone else's vision. In a way, the short pieces worked better due to the continual wandering in of latecomers right through the set – anything more extended would have been disrupted by these graceless fuckers.

The second set offered offered a complete contrast – a long drone piece essayed by Spaceshipp that flummoxed the attention spans of many – there was a continual trickle of absconders throughout. Certainly, if you only know Matthew Shipp for his jazz piano prowess this would have probably been confusing. Sat at two keyboards in an L, he spent most of the set at what I assume was some kind of electronic organ, thickening the fast-strummed electric guitar of Jason Pierce to create a slowly widening cylinder of sound with more than an echo of Glenn Branca's strategies. The friendly intimacy of the first set was also exchanged for a more serious 'distancing,' via the two musicians being overlooked by three large screens that flickered a set of images throughout seemingly based on spermatazoa forms and operated by a shadowy third participant on the side of the stage. At first I thought they were mushrooms – then figured it out about ten minutes later. Quite a daunting performance for many, then - at a festival dedicated to te experimental... Umm – I suppose I am used to these long drone forms so was happy to go with it – because once you engaged with the piece, you could hear the subtle variations at work, overtones ringing and colliding like atoms, slight rhythmic shifts, an occasional fragment of melody. Intriguing stuff – and good to see someone of Shipp's stature getting out of the box, although he has a track record of explorations parallel to and outside of free jazz. In fact his keyboard skills only surfaced right at the end as the screens went dead apart from a central blue circle (moon?) and he switched to the clavichord and struck off into a section of ghostly bell-like sonorities as the guitarist played some ratchety scraping stuff. This coda was meant to bring the voyage to an end, I suppose, with the blue circle slowly shrinking to nothing signifying 'The End' – I use the metaphor of journey deliberately because that was what was being offered by the imagery and use of the amalgamated names in the band title: 'Spaceshipp.' Interior voyaging – the images of pre-birth and slow growth/expansion/mutation – as well as the more obvious analogy of space travel provoked perhaps by the relentless onward metallic throbbing drive of the music. Not sure if this ending worked – a sudden stop would have been more dramatic - but I wonder if this piece would have been better in a smaller venue which might have pulled people into it more strongly. People did not just amble out – some came back in again with drinks, which struck me as odd. I would have thought that if you were not completely concentrating this would have been boring – hence the escapees. But this continual movement in the audience was distracting... The applause at the end almost seemed half-hearted, as well... Pity. I enjoyed it, for what it's worth, but would like to have experienced it at a more sympathetic venue...

Moderation...

A drag, but I have set comment moderation for an indefinite period as I am being spammed - some of it amusing but getting out of hand...

Return to God's Little Acre...

Back from my hols last night and ensconced in Warner Towers... I am intending after some thought to keep on with some mp3 blogging for a while longer - had been considering knocking it on the head but I rather enjoy it... Next week off to the Ether Festival,then Freedom of the City a couple of weeks later. So reviews will be forthcoming...

holidays with the tribe...

I am on holiday still with no internet connection except my mobile phone...back soon with more music etc...