Atomic ( Ken Vandermark plus Atomic, Saturday 18th September , CBSO Centre, 8pm )

As August draws to a close, it is time to be thinking about Birmingham Jazz’s autumn season.   The Brindley Place sessions on the 4 Fridays in August passed off well despite the wet  weather, and it was good that we had an uninterrupted session with Mike Hatton’s MJHQ last Friday.  Excellent band with a strong new lineup that really gelled on this their first gig.

We open the autumn season with a strong Rush Hour Blues session on Friday 10^th September as part of ArtsFest.  The session will be in the Main Hall rather than the usual foyer and will feature an excellent double bill with Ben Markland’s Quintet and the Percy Pursglove/Andrew Bain Organ Quartet. BBC Radio 3’s Jazz Lineup programme will be recording the session for later broadcast.   The session runs from 5.30 and on this occasion will go on to 7.30pm.  Entry is, as ever, free of charge.

Our first CBSO Centre gig is very special with a double bill featuring the Vandermark 5 and the Scandinavian group Atomic.  Ken Vandermark is, to my mind, one of the finest players in contemporary jazz and one who is constantly thinking about the music and coming up with new ways to express himself.  He has made Chicago his base resisting the temptation to move to New York, and has been a key figure in the development of a distinctive identity for contemporary jazz in that city.  Birmingham Jazz has played a major role in bringing Ken’s music to British audiences touring the first Vandermark 5,  the Free Fall Quartet and setting up an original group with Mark Sanders and Barry Guy.  This group did a 6 date UK date and recorded  the excellent Fire Fox album.  Ken has often been associated with a Fee Jazz approach, but in the Vandermark 5 the emphasis is much more on composition and on a more structured approach to the group’s music.  Still plenty of improvisation of course.

The other band on the double bill, Atomic, are one of the great Scandinavian bands with both Norwegian and Swedish members.  The front line is from Sweden: trumpeter Magnus Bro and saxophonist Fredrik Ljungvist and the rhythm section from Norway: pianist Havard Wiik, Ingrebrigt Haker Flaten on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums.  The two groups have often worked together so expect some cross group collaboration.

Lots of great other gigs coming:  drummer Tony Levin marks his 70^th Birthday with a Birmingham Jazz run tour with a Birmingham date at mac on 9^th October.  Flat Earth Society prove that the Belgian jazz scene is very far from boring with a great show featuring music to accompany the silent film, The Oyster (mac on 2^nd October). And in late November look out for the Christian Scott Quintet at the Hare & Hounds Pub, led by a great young trumpet player who is about to become very big in jazz.

More details in a return of our regular blogs.   

Just a quick note to say how much I enjoyed Jamie Cullum’s Prom, which I watched on BBC 4 last Friday. I imagine it will still be on the BBC Iplayer, and it is definitely worth watching. I have always enjoyed Jamie’s music and his love of collaboration with groups like Soil & Pimp Sessions, Fringe Magnetic and many others. The Proms show brings across what an great live performer Jamie is, but also what a strong band he leads with Rory Simmons on trumpet, Tom Richards on sax, Chris Hill on bass and Brad Webb on drums. The backing Heritage Orchestra had some nice arrangements of Jamie’s material, but sometimes seemed to me to be playing only a minor role. The feature with their version of a New Orleans marching band was, however, a particular highlight of the evening as was the duo between Jamie and guitarist Martin Taylor on Blame It On My Youth.

Hear a clip of the prom on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/about/clips.shtml?prom55_jcgone

There is a great review of the Soil & Pimp gig which we co-promoted with the Hare & Hounds Pub. The review really captures the atmosphere of the gig and this is the first part:

Wow. Now that’s how you put on a show. The hardest working man in show business (Mr James Brown esq) may be dead and buried but, ladies and gentleman, I think we have some contenders for the hardest working MEN in show business. Despite sounding like the sort of ‘services’ offered on those postcards you get on phone booths in London, Soil and Pimp Sessions are actually an ultra cool Japanese ‘Death Jazz’ outfit. Yep, ‘Death Jazz’. I know, a genre for every occasion these days right? Just as you’re scattering some dirt on your loved ones up pops this lot with a brain scrambling rendition of ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag’…

You can read the whole review here.

The gig we put on last night (28th July) in The Rainbow Cellar with Dan Nicholls’ Mirror with James Allsopp and  Dave Smith was equally enjoyable.  The contrast between these two events is marked: Soil & Pimp was a great event which was enjoyed in a very active way by a large and enthusiastic crowd while Mirror was very much a listening gig enjoyed by a smaller but positive crowd really into listening to the intracacies of the music.

I think the contrast shows the range of Birmingham Jazz’s activities.

Tony   

I am really looking forward to this gig (Wednesday 28th July at The Rainbow on Digbeth, music at 9pm).  It’s a new trio led by pianist composer Dan Nicholls featuring James Allsopp on saxophones and Dave Smith on drums.  Dan remains the best graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire jazz course and is both a truly original composer and a brilliant pianist.  After graduating Dan went off to Copenhagen to study at postgrad level and his music developed even further.  The Hyderabad trio he played with in Birmingham late last year was evidence of this with great compositions bringing out the best in two other players based in Copenhagen.

For the Mirror trio, Dan has brought together two of my absolute favourite UK players in James Allsopp and Dave Smith.  I am not exactly sure what the music will sound like. But I am sure it will be amazing!  Dan himself says:

Mirror is a new ensemble interpreting and reworking the compositions of keyboardist Dan Nicholls. Featuring the distinctive voices of James Allsopp (reeds) and Dave Smith (drums), the music aims for a fluidity between written and unwritten and explores the unexplicable connections between sound and image.

Tony

I was very sad to hear of the deaths last week of both Harry Beckett and Willem Breuker.  Harry Beckett was a fine trumpeter whose playing was a strong point of British jazz from right back in the 1960s.  He didn’t play that often in Birmingham, but always impressed when he did.  I was able to put his quintet on in Cheltenham as part of a club night built around Gilles Peterson’s interest in the 1960/70s period of British jazz and the group played a key part in a memorable evening.

Willem Breuker came to Birmingham on three occasions with the Kollektief he led, playing the Adrian Boult Hall on two occasions, and mac once as part of a weekend dedicated to Dutch contemporary jazz.  I loved the music of the Kollektief both for itself but also for the humour of it all.  Breuker was a delightful man with whom I managed to maintain a friendship, even though he didn’t tour UK after the various tours in the 1990s.  I would see him on visits to the Bimhuis club in Amsterdam and never tired of the humour of the band.

Tony

I am delighted that Kit Downes Trio has been shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Music Award for his album Golden on Basho Records.  Even though the shortlisted jazz album never wins the actual prize, and the judges are sometimes accused of tokenism in always including a jazz album in the list, I have a lot of time for the Mercurys.  Principally it is because the judgements of the best albums of the year are always made on the basis of the actual music and criteria such as sales and image are not considered.  But also the judges seem to have the knack of choosing just the right jazz album at the right time.  I very much doubt that the Golden will win, but the exposure for Kit Downes and the trio will greatly increase sales of the album and, more generally, increase Kit’s profile.  Kit is a fairly recent arrival on the UK jazz scene and the very different aspects of his music that appear on Golden with his trio ( Kit on piano, Calum Gourlay on bass and James Maddren on drums) and on the Troyka and the Golden Age of Steam albums show how talented he is.  Birmingham Jazz is proud that it has presented the trio at the Rush Hour Blues sessions and Troyka at the Jazz Club at the Rainbow sessions.  The Golden Age of Steam, led by saxophonist James Allsopp, will be at Jazz Club at the end of October.

Tony 

Birmingham Jazz presents two nicely contrasting gigs this week.  The Bryan Corbett Quartet (Jam House on Tuesday 20th at 9.30) is a group with four of the top Birmingham players: Bryan on trumpet and flugelhorn, Levi French on keys, Ben Markland on bass and Neil Bullock on drums.  As Bryan now tours in continental Europe a lot with both Us3 and various Czech or Polish bands, the opportunity to hear this great quartet is much rarer.  The last time they played together,  which was at a Rush Hour Blues session in January, it was the first time for 7 months and there was a real sense of occasion with the band immediately gelling and clearly loving playing together again.   Entry is free and the music begins at 9.30.

Soil & Pimp Sessions (Wednesday 21st Hare & Hounds, High St, Kings Heath, doors at 8pm) is a Japanese band which developed a kind of crazy bebop style in Japanese clubs and now tours the world.  It’s a band that will appeal to a clubbing audience without losing the older jazz fan who will recognise its bop style.  They generate a great atmosphere with the audience whipped up by the ‘agitator’ who acts as compere with a megaphone.  This will attract a big crowd and it will therefore be a largely standing audience.

At Rush Hour Blues this week (Friday at 5.30 at Symphony Hall foyer) is Tom Hill’s Outsville, a quartet that features two fine players we areley hear in Birmingham: Ian Ellis on saxophone and Jonathan Taylor on piano. I have always thought that Ian is one of the finest saxophonists in UK, but he has never received the coverage he deserves.

Coming up next week is Mirror, a new trio led by pianist Dan Nicholls featuring James Allsopp on saxophones and Dave Smith on drums.  This is at the regular Jazz Club session at The Rainbow Pub on Digbeth.  This is on Wednesday 28th July at 9pm.

Tony

Chris Mapp’s Gambol appears tonight in the final Sundown Jazz Session at the George IV pub in Bore Street Lichfield as part of the Lichfield Festival.  Gambol was formed for the Harmonic Festival that Chris and Percy Pursglove ran in March this year and features some some fine writing from Chris and a strong lineup with Lluis Mather on sax, Sam Wooster on trumpet, Dan Nicholls on keys, Chris on bass and Jim Bashford on drums.

The sessions take place in a small but attractive room at the George IV pub and have been an excellent showcase for the best young jazz put on in the West Midlands by the Cobweb Collective.  Music begins at 9.30 and goes on till 11-ish.

Tony

The Sundown Jazz Sessions take place in a very attractive small room at the back of the George IV pub in Lichfield and are a part of the Lichfield Festival – great that a prestigious festival like this is supporting the best young jazz in the region.

The room only holds about 30/40 people and was more or less full on Tuesday when I went along, so that plus the excellent acoustics made for a great session with wonderful uncomplicatedly swinging jazz in an informal setting where every note is heard clearly and every facial expression of the players in action is caught!  The music starts at 9.30 and there are usually two sets.

On Tuesday it was a band put together by drummer Andrew Bain featuring Jon Irabagon from the US on alto sax, Percy Pursglove on trumpet and Ross Stanley on keys with Hammond Organ sound.  This was a great band playing a good mix of standards and originals and in a style that was neither too far out nor too mainstream that suited the occasion perfectly.  Jon Irabagon is a very interesting young player now making a name for himself in New York.  He won the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Prize in 2008 and seems equally at home in a straightahead context or in an improvising format.  He is, for example, a key member of the band Mostly Other People Do The Killing, a crazy quintet that plays fast and furious bebop with a kind of rock attitude.    Percy Pursglove made an excellent frontline partner on trumpet complimenting Jon’s varied solos with long flowing lines on the trumpet.  Ross Stanley also added very interesting and inventive solos that avoided the cliches we sometimes get on the Hammond Organ.

Percy Pursglove is featured in an article in this month’s Jazzwise which you can read here.   It’s good that Birmingham players and the great Birmingham scene is beginning to get recognition.

At the Sundown session tonight (Thursday 15th) is the Rob Anstey Quartet featuring Ben Bryden; tomorrow (Friday 16th) it’s the Lluis Mather Band (the one that won the Dave Holland Ensemble Prize) and on Saturday it’s Chris Mapp and his new Gambol band.  All the bands are programmed by the Cobweb Collective.

Tony

In the school year starting from September 2009 Birmingham Jazz along with its partners in the Birmingham Music Hub, CBSO, Symphony and Town Hall, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Sound It Out, has been running a big education project called Banded About funded by the Ministry of Education in Holyhead Secondary School and three primary schools in the Handsworth area, Wattville, St. James and Wilkes Green.  The other four partners in the project have run similar projects in different parts of the city.

The project has been a great success and has exposed young school age musicians to ensemble work and many different styles of music.

The project culminates this Friday (9th July) at the Town Hall with two showcase concerts.  The first from 1.30 to 3 features the primary schools and tickets are free, the second runs from 6.30 to 8.30 and tickets are just £2.50.

Some of the music I have most enjoyed this year has come in the ’sharing’ sessions that are part of the project and I am really looking forward to hearing the various very talented ensembles that have come out of this project.

Tony