Posts Tagged ‘Brass Jaw’

There are a lot of lists of ‘albums of the year’ around at the moment and, although I find them very interesting and useful reminders of albums I would like to catch up with, I always feel that in jazz we should be looking for ‘gigs of the year’ to reflect the fact that the music is very much about the live event.  So here goes with eleven of my favourite gigs of the year.  It’s eleven rather than ten as I made a list and I thought I should keep them all in it rather than reduce it to ten.  They are all Birmingham Jazz gigs as I rarely get the chance to go to other gigs!  They are listed in the order they took place in 2009 and are all equal.

1.  Cuong Vu Trio at The Rainbow and The Yardbird: Cuong Vu played two nights running, but I have put it down as one gig.  I have chosen it as I have long been a fan of Cuong’s and love his mixture of full on jazz and more ambient electronic passages.

2.  Lionel Loueke Trio at The Glee Studio: the mix of jazz and African music was impressive, especially as it was a genuine fusion of the two.  A packed crowd right on top of the band generated a great atmosphere which the band loved.

3.  Zappajazz at the Rainbow: wonderful versions of Zappa tunes with a great jazz feel that attracted a lot of Zappa fans who seemed to approve!

4.  Phronesis at The Polish Club: a piano trio led by bass player Jasper Hoiby from Denmark but who is now London based.  It featured a great drummer from Sweden, Anton Eger

5.  Outhouse Quartet with Hilmar Jensson at CBSO Centre: I have always enjoyed the projects that this quartet undertake, and could easily have chosen their Outhouse Ruhabi project with the 5 drummers from The Gambia, but the interaction with guitarist Hilmar Jensson was so good that I decided on this one.  The band considered it the best gig they have ever played!

6. Tord Gustavsen Ensemble at CBSO Centre: I consider Tord’s trio to be one of the most interesting piano trios in the world, but I particularly liked the effect that the addition of saxophonist Tore Brunborg brought.

7.  Portico Quartet and Sweet Billy Pilgrim at CBSO Centre this brought a very different crowd to the CBSO Centre and, while I accept that neither group are great jazz improvisers, I really enjoyed hearing two very distinctive groups doing something very fresh

8. Steve Tromans ‘The Last Words of Victor Jara’  at Glee Club Studio: this was a very impressive new project written by Steve Tromans that truly captured the spirit of Jara’s music and his revolutionary spirit

9. Brass Jaw at The Yardbird: Brass Jaw is  a quartet with trumpet and three saxophones, so a variation on the jazz saxophone quartet.  They played a full-on set that was absolutely right for the atmosphere in The Yardbird and brilliantly won over the audience

10. Profound Sound Trio at the CBSO Centre: the last date on a 7 date UK tour.  I had heard all but one of their gigs on the tour and the Birmingham one was very special.  Wonderful to hear Paul Dunmall in the company of and inspired by two greats of free jazz, Henry Grimes and Andrew Cyrille

11. Lee Konitz and Dan Tepfer at the CBSO Centre: if pushed I would say that this was my favourite.  Konitz is still playing as inventively as ever and certainly isn’t taking the easy path.  His way of playing around with standards is fascinating and absorbing, and the partnership with pianist Dan Tepfer worked extremely well.

Tony

Steve Tromans‘ latest project is inspired by Victor Jara, the Chilean singer songwriter and political activist.  Victor was very active in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the socialist movement led by Salvador Allende that won the Chilean election in 1970, but was overthrown in 1973 by General Pinochet with support from the CIA.  Victor Jara was arrested and eventually executed by that regime.  But this concert will not be a political event; Victor Jara wrote beautiful songs and the music that Steve Tromans has written for this project is inspired by that music.  I believe they will also be playing one or two of Jara’s own songs, and Steve will be using recorded extracts of Jara’s voice  . Steve Tromans is a great pianist and composer and his excellent project based on  Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl is still being  played.  The band is a strong group with Aaron Diaz on trumpet, Steve on keys, Chris Mapp on bass and Miles Levin on drums.  The concert is on Wednesday 11th November at 8.30 in the intimate space of the Glee Club Studio.  You can buy tickets online here and there will be some available on the door.

The day after, Thursday 12th November, Birmingham jazz joins forces with the Cobweb Collective to present Brass Jaw at the weekly Thursday night session at the Yardbird Jazz Club.  Brass Jaw is a kind of saxophone quartet, but with one trumpet and three saxophones and no rhythm section.  It’s a very enjoyable group that generates a great atmosphere.  They’re from Scotland so will they be wearing their kilts?  Support will be from the Rob Anstey Band, who will be play at 9 and Brass Jaw will come on at about 10pm

Tony

I am just back from a very enjoyable long weekend in Bremen in the north of Germany at the Jazzahead meeting.  This takes place every year at this time and is a focus for European jazz organised by the European Jazz Network.  I was there to check out some of the bands, but also to play a role in the first ever British Jazz showcase in Europe.  Britain was represented by four bands, one each from Wales and Scotland and two from England, each having a 20 min slot.  Brassjaw, a trumpet plus three saxophones quartet, played in their kilts and gave the showcase an excellent start.  There is a lot of variety in their playing and the tightness of it all is impressive. Huw Warren represented Wales with a strong trio featuring the excellent Tim Giles on drums and Dudley Phillips on bass.  The choice of the Arun Ghosh Sextet and The Portico Quartet to represent England was a bold move in that neither is a straightforwardly jazz group.  But it paid off in that it showed the range of music that comes into the broad category of British jazz.  Arun Ghosh played a storming set based on his Northern Namaste album with strong solos from Arun on clarinet and Shabaka Hutchings on sax (depping for Idris Rahman), and Portico Quartet generated a lot of interest with their gentle ambient set.  

There was a British stand which proved very popular, especially when malt whisky was on offer.  As a promoter I received an endless stream of agents and bands all wanting to play in Birmingham or Cheltenham and I had great difficulty in fitting all the Cds I had been given into my case on the return journey.  Hopefully there will be some bands of interest that we might book, but the process of talking about what Birmingham and Cheltenham promote and listening to their pitches was totally exhausting.   One that intrigued and amused me was a young German group who explained that they play a mixture of songs and free jazz based on the theme of England’s Queen Elizabeth 1, the Virgin Queen.  I haven’t listened to the CD yet.

Other countries or regions participating in the showcase were France, Luxembourg and Catalonia and there were some enjoyable bands from those three countries or regions.  But the highlights of the festival were Arve Henriksen playing with Jan Bang (on at Cheltenham this Sunday, 3rd May), Norma Winstone receiving  the Jazzahead Skoda award for her current ECM album and then performing with the trio that made the album with Klaus Gesing on clarinet and saxophones and Glauco Venier on piano.  It brought home to me how much more known and appreciated Norma is in continental Europe compared with UK.   Finally the absolute highlight was Farmers Market, the crazy jazz + Balkan music band from Norway led by Stian Carstensen, whose rapid mood changes and humour really made one laugh out loud.  I had tears rolling down my cheeks.

Tony