The next instalment...

... of the festival review will be tomorrow.  Notes deciphered (more or less) and written up but overwhelmed with exhaustion.  In the morning hopefully...

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...