I have just spent the weekend up in Glasgow as guest of the Jazz Festival for their Homewgrown Showcase of Scottish jazz musicians.  I have been up a few times before, and worried about the attendances.  But this time audiences were well up and I got the impression that this year’s stronger Scottish jazz focus somehow chimed in with the increasingly strong Scottish identity arising from devolution and all that, and drew the crowds.  Part of the reason must also be the great venues they were using this year, all in the very attractive Merchant City part of Glasgow.  The main large venue, apart from the Concert Hall, is the Old Fruitmarket which still has all the old signs up and a bit of a feel of a market, but makes a great venue.

I’m told that Scottish traditional music really developed in the late 90s at the time of devolution and many Scottish players seem to divide their time between jazz and traditional music.  This often results in a very interesting and successful blend of the two styles.  Trumpeter Colin Steele does this very effectively in a quintet that also features Dave Milligan on piano and Phil Bancroft on saxophones.  But, for me, the most enjoyable gig of the weekend came from a sextet led by drummer Stu Brown who recreate the music of Raymond Scott.   Raymond Scott led a sextet in New York in the 1930s that gained a certain popularity for very clever themes that weren’t reallly jazz, but drew on its harmonies and rhythms.  These themes then became the music for cartoon films with the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and even, more recently, the Simpsons.  Anyway the music is great fun and extremely well played by Stu Brown’s Raymond Scott Sextet.  I hope we can get the group down to this part of the world sometime.

Tommy Smith was very much to the fore leading both the Scottish Youth Jazz Orchestra with lots of Birmingham Conservatoire students and graduates and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra playing Tommy’s rearrangement for jazz big band of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Brian Kellock as soloist on piano.

Other bands to look out for are the Paul Towndrow Quartet and the Ryan Quigley Big Band.

Tony

Satisfy your curiosity over what jazz is in 2009 and have a read of the results of prolific jazz blogger Peter Bacon’s recent poll on what this music is called “jazz”.

http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/jazz-is-still-the-word-oh-yes/

Have your say and comment below.

From thejazzbreakfast

The voting on this site is over, and the 11% who feel jazz is no longer the right word to describe the wide diversity of the music you sometimes find in that section in the record shop (OK, online!) have been soundly trounced by the 66% who feel there is nothing wrong with the word jazz. And I reckon the Paul Simon fans (”I can call you Betty and you can call me Al”) who came in second at 23% would probably lean in the jazz direction had there been second place voting rules.

Kevin Le Gendre summed it up perfectly in the liner notes to his new compilation Now’s The Time II – and you can read them in my review here.

I quite understand the point Stuart Nicholson was making in a recent Observer review of new discs by Acoustic Ladyland and Troyka. He alluded to Ladyland main man Pete Wareham’s wariness of the label because it ends up keeping his music away from a rock crowd, which is the one Wareham feels is its natural audience (I am making assumptions here and am happy to be put right if this is not the case).

And I understand that survival and one’s own career need to come first. But, taking the bigger view, both Nicholson and Wareham would be better served, I reckon, showing some allegiance to the history and faith in the concept of jazz, surely? That is what has inspired them to get to where they have got to today. And if they feel that is not where their natural audience now resides, surely it’s time to bring their audience into the house of jazz, not leave it.

It was the same story with Soweto Kinch and his frustration at not having his CDs in the hip-hop racks. But, a vague awareness of the coverage Kinch has received over the years (no accurate research or survey here) would suggest that most of the coverage he gets is in the jazz media. It’s difficult enough being a musician. There’s no need to add to the anguish by rejecting the followers you do have in order to go after ones you might not get, or certainly not in great enough numbers. Babies and bathwater seem to apply.

I don’t think Ornette Coleman is particularly embarrassed about being referred to as a jazz musician, is he? I’m not sure that John Zorn is, and I don’t think Derek Bailey was either. And that jazz can encompass Peter Brotzmann and Frank Sinatra is, to my mind, cause for celebration, not alarm. Surely to make whatever music is in your heart and mind and then add jazz to it as a label of convenience is to say all the right things about it? About its freedom, about its honesty, about its sincerity, about its dedication to tackling the most important and difficult challenges in music – that of spontaneous composition.

Jazz has always been a broad church – let’s just keep throwing its doors wide open and inviting everyone in.

BBC Midlands Today have reported on the huge public support for the Save The Rainbow Campaign following the Noise Abatement Order issued  to the home of Jazz Club. Click on the link below to see the full report broadcast on BBC Midlands Today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8119566.stm

We return to our podcast series with a track from The Convergence Quartet recorded at Jazz Club this April. For the full gig head over to our Jazz Club page:

http://www.birminghamjazz.co.uk/jazzclub.htm

You’ll find all of the gigs in our series there. For those of you who don’t know The Rainbow (where we hold Jazz Club) is under serious threat of closure so please do all you can to support it. Next up: Twelves Trio, and we promise you won’t have to wait so long for the next one!

As part of this year’s New Generation Arts Festival at Birmingham Conservatoire, three international groups were formed with students from the jazz courses at Paris Conservatoire, the Carl Nielsen Academy in Odense, Denmark and Birmingham Conservatoire.  There were three students from Paris, three from Denmark, one of whom is actually Polish, but studying in Odense, and nine from Birmingham.  They were formed into three quintets and arrived last Friday, rehearsed intensively over the weekend and performed last night in the Conservatoire’s Adrian Boult Hall.  All of this was put together by the Conservatoire with support from Birmingham Jazz.

The concert last night was a very successful event; each group seemed to have worked well and indeed had a ball of a time working intensively over two days with some input from two tutors and a run through during the day on Monday in a Performance Platform type situation with tutors before the evening concert.  Group B with Kieron Macintosh (UK) trumpet, Geoffroy Gesser (France) sax, Toby Boalch (UK) piano and Fender Rhodes, Emil Brun (Denmark) bass and Chris Draper (UK) drums were the first to play.  The band had a good feel with strong interaction between Emil on bass and Chris on drums, and good rapport between Kieron on trumpet and Geoffroy on sax.  The group played a number of excellent if rather cerebral tunes by Geoffroy.

Second up was Group C with Rachel Cohen (UK) alto sax, Tomasz Licak (Poland and Denmark) tenor sax, Vladimir Medail (France) guitar, Nick Jurd and Jonathan Silk (both UK) on bass and drums respectively. This was the most straightahead group with a good swing and excellent solos from all members, especially Vladimir on guitar.

The evening was rounded off by Group A with Luis Mather and Nick Dunham (both UK) on tenor sax and trumpet respectively, Romain Clerc-Renaud (France) on piano, Tim Thornton (UK) bass and Rasmus Schmidt (Denmark) on drums.  This group had a good mixture of free material with a definite steamer to finish off with.  Each soloist was very impressive; I know and always enjoy Luis’ playing, it was good to hear Nick stretch out a bit on the free passages and I was very impressed with Romain on piano.

This was a very successful experiment, both in bringing together players from three settings and in showing that if you put together musicians for an intensive playing/rehearsal session, they will have a great time and come up with some excellent music.

Tony

The final night of Ornette’s Meltdown was a very moving experience.  What struck me most, especially about the final night, but also about the previous evenings I had been down to, was the very strong feeling of warmth towards ornette and his music.  Of course, much of that comes from respect for a man in his 79th year, but it is so much more than that.  The Royal Festival Hall has been more or less full throughout Meltdown and the bars and Clore Ballroom running afternoon and pre-concert events, have been buzzing too, and the heaving RFH had a wonderful atmosphere on Sunday’s night’s final concert; at the end people were crying out ‘We love you, Ornette’ and people rushed up to the stage to shake his hand at the end.  Yes there is respect for age, but, in fact, it seems mostly to be coming from an acceptance that Ornette is a humble man who has had a massive influence, not just on jazz where the influence is clear, tangible, even if still somewhat controversial, but on other musics too, at least in terms of approach and philosophy.

All this was very much in evidence in the varied programme of Sunday night.  The core of the evening was the quartet with Tony Falanga on double bass, Al McDowall on electric bass and Ornett’e son and manager Denardo Coleman on drums; they played a number of Ornette’s tunes and other material including Bach’s Cello Suite no 1. Each tune was played very accurately and the very fast jazz tunes with great precision so much so they occasionally they stopped and congratulated each other before continuing into the solos. The solos were mostly from Ornette, sharp and to the point.  They were joined after a while by Flea, bass guitarist with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who seemed deeply into the music, knew all the tunes extremely well and made an excellent contribution.  All of this would have made for a great gig, but there was so much more.  Baaba Maal came on and sang a beautiful and haunting song, the Master Musicians of Jojouka from Morocco played the opening set and then returned to jam with the quartet.  This had happened on the Friday too, but this time Ornente’s playing intermeshed with their wailing sounds and rhythms really well and this was undoubtedly a highlight of the show.  But the real highlight was the appearance for the encore of Charlie Haden, who, as reported in a previous blog, was so frustrated at not playing with Ornette on the Saturday.  He and Ornette duetted on Lonely Woman, with a little bit of accompaniment from Denardo on drums.  They probably played for about 15 mins and it was just amazing.        

British jazz super group Partisans are coming to Birmingham as part of their UK tour to promote the new album By Proxy. Featuring Julian Siegel , Phil Robson, Thad Kelly and Gene Calderazzo the band are a long standing favourite of Birmingham audiences and critics alike and a new album released on Babel this month has already been raved about across the jazz community.
They will play at The Yardbird as part of the Cobweb Collective Thursday night jazz session on 2nd July at 8.30pm. Entry is free!
www.partisans.org.uk
www.cobwebcollective.com
www.myspace.com/theyardbirdbirmingham

It was another amazing weekend.  I couldn’t go down for the Ornette Coleman Quartet show on Friday, but was there for the Saturday and Sunday shows.  Saturday night’s concert started with a short and very concise set given by The Bad Plus entering into the spirit of Ornette’s Meltdown by playing a mix of material including material by Stravinsky and Ligeti.  They were on top form and Dave King’s drumming is as impressive as ever.  Then came the Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, with a version of the band that included various British players notably Jason Yarde on alto sax, Shabaka Hutchings on tenor, John Parricelli on guitar, Fayyaz Virji on trombone and Andy Grappy on tuba as well as Americans Carla Bley as pianist and arranger, Tony Malaby on tenor sax, Michael Rodriguez on trumpet and Matt Wilson on drums.  There was aslo a young British lead trumpeter whose name I have not retained.  Charlie Haden seemed in very good spirits, saying how happy he was to be in Ornette’s Meltdown and telling the story of the LIberation Music band’s four recordings.  The first was recorded in the time of Nixon, the second in the time of Reagan, the third in the time of Bush Senior and the fourth in the time of Bush Junior.  The music was selected from all of these and was performed with great style and drive with Tony Malaby playing some great solos and with the Brits also excelling.  All great stuff until Charlie announced that a surprise was going to happen which was clearly that Ornette was going to join the band, but that he was still on his way from the hotel.  Somehow the the concert lost momentum after that; there was much shuffling around and re-arranging of the order of material, much anxious looking towards the stage entrance, people rushing from the wings with messages.  Ornette did eventually arrive, but, much to Haden’s disappointment, it became clear that he was not going to play on the planned feature for Ornette Skies of America. Ornette did come on stage, but just for a long hug with Charlie.

The final night featured Ornette’s quartet with Tony Falanga on double bass, Al McDowall on bass guitar and Ornette’s son and manager Denardo on drums, playing the music of theThis Is Our Music album. There were guest appearances from the Master Musicians of Jojouka, Baaba Maal, Flea and then finally Charlie Haden and Ornette did get to play together on a beautiful version of Lonely Woman.  More on this concert in my final blog.

Tony

Bobby McFerrin was brilliant on Wednesday night; I have never heard him live before and I realised that he is a performer that absolutely needs to be heard live.  A radio broadcast or a CD just would not capture anything of the excitement of the live show, which is a strange but excellent mix of solo performance and a kind of community workshop + show.  He started with about 30 minutes of his solo singing and I find it difficult to capture in words how good that singing is.  It is all largely improvised with a mix of rhythm and melody, but that description fails to convery how much fun there is in the singing.  There was also a certain amount of very effective audience participation in certain songs.  We had a great duet with tuba player Oren Marshall and then we moved into what I have called the more community focussed show, all completely spontaneous as there had been no workshop earlier in the day.  He began by asking dancers to come and join him on the stage; initially just three joined him, but Bobby said he was cool with that.  But then suddenly a great rush came bounding down from the higher parts of the hall and there were more than 20 on stage.  Bobby was cool with that too. Each one got to do a short dance improvisation to Bobby’s vocal improvisation.  Then it was the turn of the singers; this time about 15 came to join Bobby each one singing a song or developing an improvisation with accompaniment from Bobby.  We had Summertime, a Britney Spears song, but quite a few improvisations, including one from a large gentleman who had been sitting in the front row and was desperate to be part of this.  I must admit to dreading his performance and I noticed that, even though he was first to get on stage, Bobby delayed his performance to quite late.  But, in fact, he was excellent with a very successful imitation of Bobby’s own technique.  All great fun!

Then Bobby was joined by the Voicelab, who are a resident choir on the South Bank.  They improvised along with Bobby basically repeating his lines and giving the songs the impact that 20 different voices produce.  Then for the encore Bobby was joined by Ornette and they improvised a short song together.

A top night from which came the realisation that Bobby McFerrin is one of the world’s great live performers with a wonderful warm and friendly stage presence.

I was back down for Patti Smith the following night.  I have to admit to a certain disppointment with this night.  I had not heard her perform before; I enjoyed her singing and her personality on stage is so strong that she held a very disparate night together.  It was nicely arranged that she would do a few solo pieces including reading or rather declaiming some of her poetry, some songs with her daughter Jessie, then with bass guitarist Flea, and then a trio with Adrian Uttley of Portishead on guitar plus a drummer whose name I didn’t get.  She did one number with the Master Musicians of Jajouka from Morocco adding a very attractive if acerbic clarinet sound to the wailing of their horns.  Then she did a number of songs with the The Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra, including a very moving tribute to Ornette’s spirit.  I kept expecting Ornette to appear as we had been promised that he would appear with Patti, but he didn’t come on till the gig was over and there was no sign of his saxophone.  Patti did launch into an encore, but I was beginning to worry about missing the last train back to Birmingham and felt that, even if Ornette did join her in the encore, he would only be adding a few phrases here and there.  So I left.  My disappointment was not so much with Patti Smith: I really enjoyed hearing her in the different contexts of the night, but she had talked in interviews about she, when invited to Meltdown, had been overjoyed at the prospect at playing with Ornette.  It just didn’t happen!

I’m back to Meltdown at the weekend for two concerts: Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra and Ornette’s review of his 1960 album This Is Our Music.  I will report on those on Monday.

I caught a very odd discussion of the worth of jazz on Radio 5 at 12.30 am this morning.  This was part of Richard Bacon’s 10pm to 1am show and it went on for a good 40 mins with a few interruptions for news and sport.  They had a journalist in - didn’t get his name - whose basic point was that jazz is worthless, completely fails to engage audiences and isn’t worth the time of day.  Simon Cooke from Ronnie Scott’s was there to defend jazz and he did a reasonable job.  But the discussion was a bit desultory because it is simply ridiculous to talk about jazz as if it is a single entity.  Do we discuss whether classical music or rock is worthwhile?   It all seemed a massive series of generalisations and, sure, some jazz is not worth listening to and fails to engage its audience, but that is true of every genre of music.  There was a some discussion of the demise of Ronnie Scott’s Birmingham, but someone rang up to say how he had heard some marvellous music there one night, and the room had been totally silent and totally taken up in the music.  I’m afraid I don’t remember too many nights like that, as Ronnies Birmingham tended to be a noisy, non-listening venue!

Eventually the critic of jazz admitted that he did like one piece of ‘jazz’ he had heard and it turned out to be Louis Armstrong doing one of his Hello Dolly type songs!! Aaagh!

Tony