One That Got Away

Partikel - Partikel (F-IRE)

Amazon has the official release date for this debut album from London jazz trio Partikel as October 2010, but somehow it's only just passed under my radar. It's a shame I didn't pick up on it earlier as it should undoubtedly have been included in my albums of the year list.

Partikel are a young band and it would be an easy argument to suggest that they might perhaps have recorded their debut album too early, before the individual players had really found their compositional or improvisational voices (they are recent graduates from Trinity College of Music's jazz course). This proves emphatically not to be the case, however. Saxophonist and composer Duncan Eagles, bassist Max Luthert and drummer Eric Ford honed their skills hosting jam sessions at the Hideaway venue in Streatham, South London, and so emerge as a fully formed, empathetic and interactive unit on this thrilling debut album.

Eagles' writing is melodically accessible and direct, thus potentially introducing new audiences to more sophisticated rhythmic techniques and to more interactive performance. This is a world where Luthert's propulsive lines and Ford's creative drumming (often incorporating an interesting range of auxiliary percussion instruments) have fundamental and vital roles in the ensemble. There are other contemporary jazz groups operating in a similar area - Kairos 4tet spring to mind as the most obvious contemporary comparison point. Partikel are exploring these avenues with a similar commitment to creativity, energy and accuracy.

Although the melodies may be direct, this is not to say that they are without depth. Oojimaflip has lines that seem straightforward - but it is a real skill to write compositions this immediate, but which serve as an inspiring springboard for improvisation and experiment - rhythmic modulation is a common feature of the band's daring and exciting music.

The band make great use of the space and freedom afforded by the piano-less trio format. Eagles plays with an impressive dynamic range and a full bodied sound, with consistently imaginative phrasing. He is more than ably supported by Luthert and Ford, the former a completely dependable presence, anchoring the music, while Ford plays creatvely and expressively throughout. Often, as on the track that gives both the band a name and the album its title, the band create a wealth of material from very minimal foundations - in this case a simple riff built from very few notes. Even when the music veers into freer territory, there is still the sense that the band are still exploring outward from the basis of the original idea.

The album is bookended by two short segments recorded at soundchecks, perhaps there simply to demonstrate the band's open-mindedness and continual development. In between are compositions rich in variety. Highlights include the unexpected twists and turns of Cryptography and the delicate, graceful lilt of The River.

Infinite Space

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma (Warp)

It's very difficult to make a convincing written case for just how amazing the disjointed, disorientating, genre-spanning work of Steve Ellison is. Every rule that governs the operation of the music business, both in creative and marketing terms, Ellison breaks. His output as Flying Lotus has been lazily classified as 'instrumental hip hop' in the past, or, perhaps even more misleadingly, bracketed with the UK dubstep movement. Whilst some of the Flying Lotus work might share with the likes of Burial a compelling and murky atmosphere, Ellison's scope is considerably wider. On 'Cosmogramma', he seems to have inherited some of his Aunt Alice Coltrane's spiritual concerns. This is a work as indebted to the revolutionary jazz sound as it is to hip hop and electronica.

Initial promotional copies of 'Cosmogramma' were sent out as one long track, although the finished product is divided into seventeen largely brief segments. Part of FlyLo's approach so far has been, much like the work of Prefuse 73, a scattershot approach that makes rapid switches between styles and never allows ideas to outstay their welcome. This might be a major problem, were it not for the coherence and power of the overall vision and architecture.

To my ears, 'Cosmogramma' might helpfully be divided into three distinct movements. The short opening section, comprising 'Clock Catcher', 'Pickled!' and 'Nose Art' is the most electronic and funky section, mixing sinister undertones and playful humour. The opening gurgles and bleeps of 'Clock Catcher' offer the listener a false sense of security - it feels like we're in fairly predictable Warp territory. Similarly, the bass extravaganza of 'Pickled!' could have come from a Squarepusher record.

As it's title suggests, 'Intro/A Cosmic Drama' takes us somewhere else entirely. The longer, central section of this album is beautifully orchestrated and ferociously intense. Even so, this allows for FlyLo to veer from the delightful analogue electro of 'Computer Face/Pure Being' to the improvised drum solo that initiates 'Arkestry'. Again, the title is a giveaway - the sonic and spiritual outlook of Sun Ra is clearly a major influence. All the disparate strands are held together through the serene harp playing of Rebekah Raff.

Within this highly imaginative sound collage are some of FlyLo's most transparently commercial offerings to date. In his hands, however, they sound wondrous. The familiar murmurings of Thom Yorke make '..And The World Laughs With You...' sound eerie and mysterious. The wonderfully titled 'Do The Astral Plane' is a further reminder of Ellison's superb sense of humour. It's an irresistible slice of cosmic disco. 'Mmm..Hmmm', which features Thundercat, is possibly the most straightforwardly melodic thing Ellison has produced to date, but it also has its own unique slinky, cerebral and atmospheric charm.

Some critics have found fault in the final stretch of 'Cosmogramma', from 'Satellliiiite' onwards. It certainly becomes more impressionistic, hazy and distant at this point. To me, it is suggestive of the numinous - something unfathomable beyond the known limits of the universe. This is Ellison at his most expansive and abstract.

It's unlikely that there will be a more diverse, pleasurably confusing, radically unpredictable album in 2010. It's also unlikely that there will be another album with as convincing and exciting a vision. This is brighter, more celebratory and at times more accessible than previous Flying Lotus records - but it's certainly no artistic compromise.

New Directions

Polar Bear - Peepers (Leaf)

I don't always admire the work of Paul Morley, but his current Guardian video series investigating the nature of modern jazz in Britain is fascinating and important. So often, jazz cocoons itself in existential worries ('is this jazz?' 'is it too accessible?') and shields itself from other forms. Yet in this country right now, there is a very vibrant scene of improvising musicians forging connections across the contemporary musical spectrum. It was pleasing to see Polar Bear's Sebastian Rochford and Pete Wareham, in conversation with Morley, highlighting the likes of Zed-U and TrioVD, but also recognise that adventurous, compositional rock bands such as Grizzly Bear might offer inspiration to the aspiring jazz musician.

Rochford appears to see jazz as more of a concept or approach than a sound - it doesn't have to swing, but it does have to be 'liberating', confident and prepared to take risks. Rochford is something of an old-fashioned collector of music who enjoys making new discoveries in independent record shops. He has absorbed a massive range of music yet the result of his avid listening is a remarkably distinctive compositional voice. Perhaps there was a danger of this developing into a formula - many will probably feel that 'Peepers', a relatively concise and focused set, is exactly what was required after the dense, sprawling exploration of their previous self-titled work (for the record, I loved that album too).

There are two central relationships crucial to Polar Bear's alchemy - the powerful connection between Rochford and Tom Herbert, which is both steady and dynamic, and the relationship between saxophonists Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham, as contrasting and complementary a frontline as you could hope to find. 'Peepers' sees Rochford now using this foundation to branch out into new territory. Electronics wizard Leafcutter John plays guitar on a number of tracks, giving the band harmonic accompaniment for the first time. If anything, though, the effect is largely rhythmic or atmospheric, either producing ska-infused choppiness or surprising tenderness.

The exhilarating burst of unashamed joy on the opening 'Happy For You' will be familiar to long time Polar Bear fans, as will the lurching groove Rochford deploys on the hugely enjoyable 'Drunken Pharoah'. These are unselfconcious pieces of music, rich in character and humour, but with a strong musical understanding and interplay cementing them. What will be less familiar are the moments of delicacy and vulnarability that mark 'Peepers' out as Polar Bear's most varied and immersing work so far. 'The Love Don't Go Anywhere' is an impressionistic piece tinged with sadness and regret, whilst 'A New Morning Will Come' is a shimmering delight.

Perhaps my favourite moment on the album is the subtle 'Want To Believe Everything', on which the internal dynamics of Rochford's drumming are brilliantly controlled. The piece takes Polar Bear's familiar off-kilter groove and plays it out in a lighter, more airy setting. The gentle closer 'All Here' has something of an inspirational feel - like a soft prayer. It sounds like a Stax soul ballad - a Mavis Staples song as played by a jazz ensemble. This is new territory for the group, and certainly not unwelcome.

'Peepers', contrary to its title, is not the sound of a band tentatively peeping at another direction. It's a confident, assured opening of new doors. It has a raw, unpolished sound that may infuriate some but which delights me - it sounds like a real band playing intuitively.

Celebrating a Polymath

Ian Carr - A Celebration of a Life in Music
Nikki Yeoh
Art Themen, Norma Winstone, Michael Garrick, Don Rendell, Dave Green, Trevor Tomkins
Musicians from Royal College of Music, Guy Barker, Tim Whitehead
Nucleus Revisited: Geoff Castle, Mark Wood, Rob Statham, Nic France, Tim Whitehead, Chris Batchelor, Phil Todd, plus guests John Marshall and Ray Russell
Queen Elizbeth Hall, 23rd February


Given his achievements as a jazz musician, a composer, a pioneer of jazz-rock fusion and also as a writer and educator, this concert celebration of the great Ian Carr (who died from Alzheimer’s disease last year) was always going to be an ambitious task. Luckily, it had been carefully planned, satisfying those in the audience who knew Ian well (I myself was one of his students at WAC in North London) and offering a neat snapshot for the uninitiated.

The words often seemed as vital and important as the music. The musings and memories of Nikki Yeoh, Julian Joseph and Michael Garrick captured Ian’s character (his breadth of knowledge, his passions for literature as well as music, his encouragement and his occasionally acid tongue) with real detail and affection, with Garrick even veering into an uncanny impression.

The concert opened with a short solo set from Nikki Yeoh, a star student of Ian’s, who spoke openly and honestly about his inspirational teaching. Her ‘Dance of Two Small Bears’ seemed appropriately indebted to Keith Jarrett (who, along with Miles Davis, represented the pinnacle of musical achievement for Ian), delightfully playful and vibrant but with a deeper, more romantic substance.

Yeoh was followed by a group lead by Michael Garrick, and featuring members of the great Rendell-Carr quintet. The rhythm section of Dave Green and Trevor Tomkins seemed more pensive and less propulsive, but compositions such as ‘Dusk Fire’ and ‘Voices’ still have a commanding resonance. The involvement of the great vocalist Norma Winstone elevated the performance, even if she occasionally threatened to interject too frequently. The appearance of an aged but still powerful Don Rendell drew deserved cheers from the audience.

The second half began with arguably the concert’s highlight, the London premier of Carr’s work for jazz trumpet, saxophone and small string orchestra ‘Northumbrian Sketches’, originally commissioned twenty five years ago. These pieces vividly capture a sense of time and place and the writing, whilst unassuming, is absorbed in the blues and rhythmically driven. Soloists Guy Barker and Tim Whitehead played with clarity and feeling and conductor Mike Gibbs controlled the ensemble with the very minimum of physical effort. Hearing a string orchestra swing will probably always remain an unusual experience. In this case, it was also a richly enjoyable one.

The finale of a very long evening was provided by a large ensemble based on the Nucleus fusion groups of the 70s and 80s. It was extremely loud, and dominated by distorted guitar and a tightly grooving rhythm section (with Rob Statham on bass and the excellent Nic France on drums). Geoff Castle’s keyboards, especially the acoustic piano, were sadly occasionally overwhelmed. The short selection of Ian’s pieces was judicious, including ‘Mister Jelly Lord’, ‘Selena’ (inspired by Miles Davis’ ‘All Blues’ and writer for Ian’s daughter), ‘Lady Bountiful’, ‘Roots’ and a majestic ‘Things Past’. I must admit to preferring the more intuitive and considered improvising of special guest guitarist Ray Russell to the histrionic shredding from Mark Wood, although the roof-raising finale featuring two guitarists and two drummers (John Marshall joining Nic France) was as vibrant and brilliantly chaotic as one of Ian’s WAC workshops. Tim Whitehead’s exultant solo on the closing ‘Things Past’ was both fittingly emotional and musically articulate.

London Jazz Festival 2009

London Jazz Festival Diary 2009

Respecting the Masters
Saturday 14th November

Sonny Rollins/Liam Noble Trio – Barbican Centre

Getting things off to a fabulous start, the opening weekend of the London Jazz Festival brought a performance to treasure from one of the last surviving titans of the American jazz tradition. Rollins still performs with impressive frequency for someone on the cusp of turning 80, but there’s always the feeling that every visit to London could be his last.

Like Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen in the world of pop and rock, Sonny Rollins is such an icon that to pair him with a support act would seem both unnecessary and insensitive. Luckily, the festival organisers have the perfect answer with their series of free gigs. Liam Noble’s Dave Brubeck-inspired trio provided the perfect complement to hearing a true legend perform. Noble is a hugely gifted pianist capable of vivid flights of melodic invention who also has a radical and distinctive harmonic sensibility. His handling of Brubeck compositions, some of which (‘Take 5’, ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk’, ‘In Your Own Sweet Way’) are among the most familiar in the jazz repertoire, is respectful without being overly reverential. He uses Brubeck’s themes as a springboard for original and intelligent extemporisation.

His humorous description of one of the group’s more abstract moments as being ‘like kids messing in a sandpit’ somehow succeeded in being both self-deprecating and slightly truthful. There was a wonderful innocence and naivety to Noble’s rapid flow of ideas but also a palpable artistry in their expression. The empathetic playing of bassist Dave Whitford and drummer Dave Wickins ably supported this imaginative flow of ideas. Refreshingly, this ensemble is a long way from the ‘power trio’ setup that now threatens to become a cliché. Yet it’s also far from the delicate, near-silent trios on the ECM label. Wickins’ lithe and expressive drumming is unobtrusive but highly creative. The result is a dynamic, flexible unit, taking inspiration from a master and generating something new and exciting from it.

Of course, there was a time when every Sonny Rollins gig must have been audacious, imaginative and creatively challenging at the highest possible level. This was not one of those performances. In later life, Rollins has developed his own comfort zone, playing similar sets with a generous helping of heavily stated, crowd-pleasing calypso rhythms.

He ambled onstage uncomfortably, looking hunched and as frail as one might reasonably expect an 80-year old to appear. Yet from the first notes it became clear he still had the energy and air in his lungs to produce a tough, full bodied sound from his saxophone. His accompanying musicians, whilst undoubtedly impressive (especially drummer Kobie Watkins), mostly offered adaptable and willing support for his unpredictable bursts and flurries. For a while, the rhythm section swung beautifully, before unleashing toe-tapping urgency and palpable joy.

The more rigorous side of jazz performance may now be lost to Rollins. He played tentatively over his musicians’ solos, as if he was struggling to keep his place, and towards the end he exploded in an unstoppable, barnstorming tirade of sound, delivered directly into the faces of people in the front row. This felt like a relentless, highly energised rock n’ roll take on jazz, something akin to watching James Brown or The Rolling Stones. What it lacked in formal precision and sophistication, it compensated for in sheer enthusiasm and excitement.

Two Sides of the Musical Coin
Vijay Iyer + Leszek Mozder and Lars Danielsson – Purcell Room, Sunday 15th November

This could be one of the most challenging pieces of concert programming in the entire festival week. For the headline act, the festival brought over from America Vijay Iyer, a remarkable pianist with a PhD in physics and an interest in cultural history, justly lauded for his fiendish rhythmic complexity. Mostly working with a quartet or, more recently, a wonderfully intense trio, on this occasion Iyer performed solo piano. Completing the double bill were the duo of Polish pianist Leszek Mozder and double bassist Lars Danielsson. By way of contrast with Iyer, these musicians had a distinctly European sensibility, seemingly absorbed more in the traditions of classical and European folk music than with the American standard repertoire.

In Mozder and Danielsson, the festival has introduced some previously unfamiliar but supremely able musicians. They played with subtlety and tremendous technical facility but more importantly with a synergy that proved entirely unflinching. Not even some technical glitches could disturb their refined delicacy or the gleeful precision of their rapid unison phrasing. Whilst I’m sometimes suspicious of the overuse of effects pedals, hearing electronic effects applied to the acoustic bass produced surprisingly rich results – with the additional chorus basking the room in a warm aural embrace.

All this impressed the audience greatly, who offered them rousing applause for which they won a surprise encore. In spite of this, there seemed, to these ears, to be something missing. Without wanting to get drawn into a tedious debate over what, precisely, might constitute ‘jazz’, it might at least be uncontroversial to suggest that jazz is a music that requires both tension and release. Dissonance was almost entirely absent and the occasional selections of foreign notes seemed to lack conviction. This music too often seemed firmly rooted harmonically, with a combination of playfulness and serenity that became saccharine and repetitive over the course of a whole set. With his dark clothes, long hair and cross around his neck, Mozder perhaps looked better suited to being in a heavy metal band. He announced the final piece as being called ‘Suffering’ with no sense of irony.

After the interval, Vijay Iyer stated his intent immediately and with percussive attack. The opening ‘Testing’ featured extravagant rhythmic gestures and his trademark complex cyclical structures. He continued with a confounding take on the standard ‘I’m All Smiles’, at once playful and measured. Perhaps some audience members were expecting more of the duo’s benign calm. The minor exodus from the venue at least indicated some frustration or confusion in the ranks of the audience.

Yet whilst Iyer is noted for his intellectual approach to composition and also for his intricacy, he usually couples these characteristics with a strong melodic sense. At his best, he employs all his technique in the purpose of creating a forceful emotional impact. His boyish appearance belies a mature and nuanced musicianship. Sometimes the effect of his music is visceral and unsettling, but it would be unfair to brandish him as alienating or impenetrable, however fearless and radical his ideas are on pieces such as ‘Autoscopy’.

Perhaps this would have been made clearer to those departing audience members had they stayed to hear Iyer joined by Talvin Singh, playing Tablas with fluency and elegance, on a clever and highly physical reworking of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Big Brother’. Even more impressive was Iyer’s surprise choice of encore – an interpretation of Michael Jackson’s ‘Human Nature’ that coupled asymmetrical phrasing with a previously disguised lyricism. He also demonstrated his knowledge of the jazz tradition with a spirited and sincere rendition of Duke Ellington’s ‘Black and Tan Fantasy’. His latest trio album ‘Historicity’ contains new versions of previously recorded originals, brand new compositions and a wide range of interpretations. Iyer now seems to be joining those musicians determined to build a new standard repertoire, an important move that could really help widen the audience to music too often mistakenly viewed as elitist or inaccessible.

For all this concert’s scope and imagination, it also seemed a little tentative at times. It’s possibly unfair speculation, but I wonder whether Iyer is as suited to the solo piano setting as Keith Jarrett or Stefano Bollani. Jarrett always has a massive range of emotion and mood within his reach, from lush romanticism to angular expressions of doubt or loss. He always plays with absolute conviction and confidence. Iyer’s ideas sometimes didn’t quite seem to reach full sustained flourish. Part of the joy of his recorded repertoire so far has been the sheer wonder in hearing his ensembles keep pace with his breathtaking demands.

There can be little doubt though that Iyer is one of a clutch of music taking American jazz to new places, fusing it with influences drawn from his heritage and wider framework of interest. He has a compelling story to tell.

When Whispers are Wrong or Turning Disappointment Into Triumph

Hans Koller Band
The Oxford, Kentish Town – Monday 16th November

A sizeable audience created a rather sweaty atmosphere upstairs at The Oxford, many appearing following rumours (from credible sources) that Bill Frisell would be sitting in with Hans Koller’s group. Sadly, an inscrutable world of political intrigue and contractual issues prevented that from happening. To his great credit, Koller explained the situation, and addressed the disappointment of those hoping to see a legend in such an intimate setting. Again to his credit, Koller’s lively music hopefully enabled those people to go away nonetheless satisfied.

Koller’s arrangements are closer to the lush orchestrations of Mike Gibbs than the tumbling, turbulent energy of Dave Holland’s big band works. Some contrasts in improvising styles amongst the players made for an engaging, unpredictable performance – from the bright, singing lines of Nick Smart to the unassuming but effortlessly intelligent phrasing of Julian Siegel. Koller himself made for a warm and humble presence.

Drummer Jeff Williams and bassist Dave Whitford provided steady support, although Williams proved markedly less interventionist than Gene Calderazzo (who played on Koller’s ‘London Ear’ big band recording). Whilst the performance occasionally lacked a sense of danger or risk, there was plenty of space for the full sonorous detail of Koller’s arrangements to shine.

The Quirky and Quixotic

Carla Bley and The Lost Chords/Julian Siegel Trio
Tuesday 17th November – Queen Elizabeth Hall

This concert seems to have been one of the most rapturously received of the festival, with the Telegraph rather uncritically claiming that Bley’s performance was ‘beyond praise’. Bley’s injection of irony and humour into her music has long made her one of the most distinctive and refreshing jazz auteurs.

Actually, in the event, I was perhaps more impressed with Julian Siegel’s quite wonderful trans-Atlantic trio with Greg Cohen and Joey Baron. Siegel’s themes are simultaneously both simple and complex. He plays inventively with a restricted complement of notes – twisting rhythm and phrasing with playful and stimulating results. His musical personality is restrained and unpretentious, but his technique and imagination are tremendous.

Baron has long been one of my favourite drummers on recordings, so I was glad to finally get the opportunity to see him live. Located centre stage, his imposing charisma, utter commitment to the music and enthusiastic interactions almost threatened to distract attention from his bandleader. Luckily, though, he is a drummer that does not feel the need to fill every space (contrasting hugely with performances from Jack De Johnette and Eric Harland later in the week). His solo patiently and carefully develops musical ideas, and his bizarre disintegrating drumsticks raise a few bemused reactions in the audience. Speaking to Baron in the interval, I discover these sticks were made from rattan and, as a result, ‘decompose’ on impact, but ‘make a really interesting sound in the process’. Baron is as interested in the variety of sounds he can draw from the drum kit as he is in rhythm and phrasing.

Although Carla Bley, painfully thin, looked both physically and emotionally vulnerable, she began her set in customarily comedic mode. Explaining that she would begin with a suite based on ‘Three Blind Mice’, she played the nursery rhyme’s basic melody, claiming we would hear those notes but also ‘many more’. She then proceeded to exclaim – ‘I feel like Wynton Marsalis up here!’ This, perhaps a dig at Marsalis’ tendency to be a self-elected educator and evangelist for the jazz tradition, raised a predictable cheer from her fans.

This may have been the most demanding performance of the entire festival, bookended by two long suites (the aforementioned ‘Three Blind Mice’ and the suite that gives the group its name). These lengthy, highly composed works were full of mysterious twists and turns and bold melodic and harmonic developments. Between them, the band performed brighter, more immediate pieces such as the Lee Morgan-inspired ‘Sidewinders in Paradise’.

The prevailing temperament throughout though is one of subtlety and restraint, which sometimes threatens to conceal Bley’s characteristic humour. Her improvising is delicate and tentative, and sometimes her phrases seem to end too early, without reaching a natural point of resolution. Occasionally, the band echo her uncertainty – there was a point when Billy Drummond and Steve Swallow were feeling beat one of the bar in different places for a long and noticeable amount of time before recapturing the delicate groove. Swallow has, however, retained his graceful elegance on his five string electro-acoustic bass and his mastery of the upper register of his instrument was in plentiful display.

My review of John Surman is on The Write Stuff section of the Jazzwise magazine website.


Expanding the Vernacular

Stefano Bollani and Enrico Rava
Thursday 19th November - King’s Place

For Stefano Bollani, jazz and comedy are closely connected. This makes the experience of watching Bollani play live markedly different from that of listening to his recordings. His work is mostly refined, elegant and expressive, his collaborations with trumpeter and mentor Enrico Rava being a particular highlight. Rava is the special guest at this, the second of Bollani's four night residency at King's Place, but anyone going in having never seen Bollani before could hardly have expected such merriment and mirth.

Bollani started proceedings with his new trio, featuring Danish musicians Jesper Bodilsen on bass and Morten Lund on drums. Even at this early stage in proceedings, the group made it clear that they intended to be more kinetic and driving than on record. Lund's ferocious, all-frills drumming provided much of the momentum, with Bollani spurring him on with his extraordinary technique at the piano. Veering between fast runs, percussive block chords and expansive lines traversing the full breadth of the instrument, Bollani demonstrated precisely why he is so highly praised. He kicked his left leg out and, when particularly energised, even played standing up.

The apperance of Rava added an extra dimension. The relationship between Bollani and Rava is jovial and full of warmth, and they traded jokes in Italian and English. There was a particularly hilarious discussion about Stan Getz living in London as an 'amateur archaeologist' - 'so that's why jazz musicians say I dig it', Bollani wisecracked.

There seemed to be a spontaneous quality to much of the performance, with debates over who would start a particular piece and some simple but clear gesturing to mark out structures. In addition to this, the stating and inventive exposition of recognisable quotes (including tunes as well-worn as ‘The Surrey with the Fringe on Top’) played a major role in the performance, Bollani and Rava seemingly playing elaborate games with each other. Rava's control of sound is breathtaking, both in terms of his microphone technique (he was happy to play off-mic when the musical texture demanded it) and in the range of tones he can produce. The second set proved particularly entertaining, with Bollani and Rava engaging in a frantic duel, and with the memorable encore of 'Bandeleros' even allowing for some audience participation.

How refreshing it is to see jazz musicians at the highest level of artistry working to make a performance witty and joyous. After all, what could be more inherently ridiculous then 4 people on a stage making it up as they go along?

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Troyka – Clore Ballroom Freestage, Royal Festival Hall
Overtone Quartet/Clarinet Council – Queen Elizabeth Hall
Friday 20th November

I really want to like Troyka a whole lot more than I actually do. On an individual basis, the group includes my favourite musicians currently operating on the London scene. Chris Montague is a guitarist with not just a mastery of electronic effects, but also a nimble agility around the fretboard and an apparent love for the dusty resonance of Bill Frisell. Kit Downes is frantically justifying all the hyperbole used in praise of him, playing in a wide variety of contexts and displaying both prodigious technique and sensitive musicality. His trio with Calum Gourlay and James Maddren has made some involving, beautiful music. Josh Blackmore is the mad scientist of the drums, although I prefer it when his supreme articulation is deployed with greater subtlety in Tom Cawley’s Curios.

I’m just not yet sure that there’s a wider concept, purpose or direction behind their particular brand of jazz-rock fusion. Time Out’s supposedly positive description of them as ‘King Crimson for the iPod generation’ actually encapsulates all their limitations. There’s fearsome control, rhythmic security and technique but a quickfire onslaught of ideas that suggests a severe case of attention deficit syndrome. The results are often briefly exciting, but alienating and austere over time. I enjoyed it when they allowed time to develop their ideas, particularly with the unfamiliar sound of Josh Blackmore on brushes on the superb new composition ‘Rest’ and a desert take on Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’. Too often though, the intricate, asymmetrical grooves too rapidly disintegrate into murk and fog.

If the paring of Vijay Iyer with Leszek Mozder and Lars Danielsson seemed uncomfortable, this was nothing compared with the double bill of Dave Holland’s new supergroup with David Jean-Baptiste’s ‘Clarinet Council’. A lot of people I spoke to in the interval reacted angrily against this opening act. It’s not hard to see why – chamber jazz is an uncomfortable format anyway, even more so with an unconventional quartet of variations of the same instrument. There’s probably an argument that the humble clarinet deserves some sort of regeneration, but I’m not sure Jean-Baptiste’s project is going to achieve it. This was jovial and endearing to some extent, but rhythmically insecure, overly polite and ultimately, better suited to a corporate function.

Overtone were every bit the powerhouse group you’d expect them to be. New compositions from every member of the group, including extraordinary drummer Eric Harland, proved ambitious and sophisticated, although Holland’s music continues to stick doggedly to his winning formula. The audacity and quality of interaction in the ensemble was at the highest level, with Holland’s relaxed, super-secure basslines enabling Harland to stretch and contract the time feel with consummate ease.

Some sound problems undermined my enjoyment slightly. Jason Moran’s improvising may arguably have been the most original and attacking in the group, but both the acoustic and Rhodes pianos could have done with a brighter sound and more attack. Others in the audience voiced their frustration at not being able to hear Chris Potter’s saxophones.

Potter seemed to have adapted his playing to suit this new environment – less flighty and verbose in his language than in his own groups. Tremendous power remains the basis for his full sound – but here he demonstrated his versatility and restraint. The memoral themes – both lyrical and sprightly, lingered in my mind after the gig’s conclusion, even if Eric Harland’s outrageous, lengthy drum solo threatened to induce a panic attack.

Meditation and Reflection

Tord Gustavsen Ensemble/Andrew McCormack and Jason Yarde
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Saturday 21st November

The preceding days of this superb festival had been heavy on intensity, pace, drive, humour and entertainment. They had been relatively short on reflection and contemplation. This excellent concert went some distance in redressing the balance. The opening duo set from Andrew McCormack and Jason Yarde was both inspired and playful, with McCormack’s crisp and clean right hand beautifully supported by his busy, conversational left hand. He plays the piano as if one hand is conversing with the other, a style that proved particularly beneficial to the duo setting. The duo had a brilliant way with developing simple ideas – as in one piece with a recurring melodic and rhythmic motif subjected to all manner of imaginative harmonic extensions.

I’ve not yet been completely comfortable with Tord Gustavsen’s latest album release but this concert made me glad that I’ve held fire writing about it. I shall return to it very soon. The addition of Tore Brunborg on saxophones and replacement of bassist Harald Johnsen with Mats Eilertsen does not seem to have disturbed the finely tuned equilibrium of the core trio too much. Indeed, Brunborg’s typically Nordic sound actually serves to have enhanced the group’s sensitive dynamic rather than punctured it.

Gustavsen described more than one of his pieces as ‘prayers’ and, indeed, the likes of ‘Tears Transforming’ and ‘Draw Near’ had a spiritual, becalming, perhaps even sacred quality. Singer Kristin Asbjornsen was absent, so the group could only tackle a limited amount of the new material. Still, this provided an opportunity for the group to expand a little beyond its spacious, quiet comfort zone, with a further hint of the energy and fervour of gospel, something that complemented rather than competed with Gustavsen’s spiritual preoccupations. This group’s music is defiantly simple rather than simplistic, and the audience responded to this with jubilant enthusiasm.

The Flight From Convention

Flaming Lips – Embryonic (Warner Bros, 2009)
David Sylvian – Manafon (Samadhi Sound, 2009)

A new Flaming Lips album is always going to be a talking point. It’s unsurprising then that the nature and character of ‘Embryonic’ has already been well documented in publicity and interviews. It’s a massive double album, constructed largely from ‘jams’ in the studio, a move supposedly taken to liberate the group from the restrictions of the song form and to stop them from repeating themselves.

I certainly applaud the band’s willingness to adapt, although it is starting to look as if those brilliant companion albums ‘Zaireeka’ and ‘The Soft Bulletin’ might become twin albatrosses around the group’s collective neck. ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’ has not, at least for me, endured all that well – relying too much on quirks and production tricks. ‘At War With The Mystics’ may well have been a better record, but it felt dense and impenetrable in places.

Perhaps ‘Embryonic’ might have come as more of a shock if Wayne Coyne hadn’t already explained and justified it so thoroughly. Now that he has, its sound is relatively unsurprising – full of fuzzy noise, propulsive drum grooves (still reliant on that colossal, distorted Dave Fridmann sound) and heavily inspired by the likes of Can and the electric period Miles Davis groups.

Melody is clearly not a priority for the group here, and one of the most interesting changes is the way Wayne Coyne’s voice has now been subsumed into the overall texture of the music. On ‘The Soft Bulletin’, they made a clear virtue of his shaky pitch, presenting him as the very vulnerable, human heart experiencing a sense of cosmic awe. Now he sounds like a background figure, somewhat overwhelmed by the unhinged chaos surrounding him.

As a result, it’s the moments where everything relaxes and the music sleepwalks into a laconic drift that are most surprising. ‘Evil’ is eerie and appropriately sinister, whilst ‘I Can Be A Frog’ is tender and barmy in equal measure, albeit slightly undermined by unsubtle interjecting sound effects. Even better is ‘If’, which sounds like a more aquatic version of Neil Young’s theme from ‘Philadelphia’.

Elsewhere, there is much to enjoy, if you have the patience to trudge through the whole thing. There’s something gleeful and delirious about the chanting on ‘Worm Mountain’ and the opening ‘Convinced By The Hex’ makes for a suitably warped and disconcerting introduction. The frantic, glorious rush of ‘Silver Trembling Hands’ and the way it melts beautifully into its frazzled half-time chorus, is a definite highlight.

Sometimes, though, it has to be conceded that ‘Embryonic’ exposes the limitations of this approach to music making. For improvisation to work, it has to be unselfconscious, with inspired music emerging as a result of a natural, unforced interplay between the members of the ensemble. Yet this is not really what the Flaming Lips do. Their reputation has been built on careful orchestration and meticulous studio processes. In concert, when they are not busy with gesticulation and gimmicky showmanship, their performances consist of near-perfect facsimiles of the studio recordings. It would perhaps be too much to expect them to abandon this aesthetic entirely.

As a result, much of the supposed ‘randomness’ of ‘Embryonic’ sounds meticulously plotted and pre-ordained. When at its least successful, it sounds like a number of, well, ‘embryonic’ ideas stitched together. Yet there are so many ideas here – some worthwhile, whilst others lead the group up cul-de-sacs. At the very least, it invites careful repeated listening. It’s the sort of album that will inspire and frustrate in equal measure.

Embryonic is currently streaming at http://www.colbertnation.com

By way of contrast, David Sylvian is an artist who has been on a path away from the conventional song form for quite some time now. His output has been sporadic, but has always seemed like the result of a clear and driven mission, if not of complete repudiation of his past, then at least in search of radical new directions. It worked brilliantly on ‘Blemish’, a genuinely caustic and provocative record, on which Sylvian sought some kind of catharsis following the collapse of his marriage. It featured contributions from the late, brilliant avant-garde guitarist Derek Bailey and from electronic artist Christian Fennesz.

One of the major characteristics of Sylvian’s recent work has been an attempt to escape from the restrictions of time and rhythm. Like ‘Blemish’, ‘Manafon’ has no drums or percussion, and has a floaty, dreamy atmosphere. Some might argue that Sylvian is more interested in ‘pure sound’ than music here and, as such, ‘Manafon’ does seem more like the product of an art installation than a studio collaboration between experienced musicians. All this reminds me of Ian Carr’s warnings about the limitations of a certain approach to free improvisation. Whilst he had great admiration for the likes of Evan Parker, he also claimed that attempting to avoid time was usually futile – ‘as soon as you play a group of notes, you’re playing in time’.

Whilst ‘Manafon’ adopts a similar approach to Blemish, with Fennesz returning to play a greater role on laptop and guitar, it’s a notably calmer work. Even amidst its references to tortured poets and ‘random acts of senseless violence’, it’s Sylvian’s voice, with its hint of vibrato, that’s placed firmly in the foreground, representing a peculiar sort of serenity. Here is someone who has, at least supposedly, abandoned false idols in search of something pure and crystalline.

This music is pregnant with silence, space and air. The musical contributions from Evan Parker amongst others are quiet and mysterious rather than furious or wild. It’s not fair to say that this music lacks melody – it’s more a case of the improvised backdrops inspiring Sylvian to improvise his own melodies. When these integrate well with the music, as on the opening ‘Small Metal Gods’ and ‘Emily Dickinson’, the results are hypnotic. On the longer pieces, though, any sense of shape or flow tends to dissipate, and the results are rather opaque mood pieces.

‘Manafon’ would have worked brilliantly as an EP or a mini-album. But with the entire full length album adopting this delicate, brush stroke approach consistently, it sounds much more like one continuous, overlong piece than a set of individual songs. I deeply admire the emphasis on space, but can’t help longing for some sort of contrast or surprise.

It could certainly be argued that ‘Manafon’ requires one hundred per cent total immersion and concentration to deliver its full rewards. But the individual statements of the musicians, however subtle and controlled, are fleeting and transient, over which Sylvian’s incantations are clearly intended to be transcendent. His intellectual and philosophical musings don’t always offer anything to connect with emotionally, a problem that did not afflict ‘Blemish’.

One has to admire Sylvian’s audacity. Like Scott Walker, he has distanced himself so thoroughly from his former life as a pop star that one now has to expect something challenging and deeply unconventional with every release. His last release with Nine Horses was a smoky treat – and his record label Samedhi Sound is beginning to establish itself as a source of stimulating, powerful music, not least the haunting, beautiful music of Mercury nominated Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Yet in his search for a transcendental, spiritual response to the dangers and chaos of the world, Sylvian may have produced a work which is ultimately rather difficult to enjoy and appreciate. It’s almost as if his music has been so purified that any sense of humanity – any rage, anger, love, passion has been excised in favour of a detached, impartial gaze. It’s arguable that he has done this very thoroughly and successfully but there will be divergent schools of thought as to whether this is a musical goal worth aspiring to or not.

Head Music

Steve Lehman Octet – Travail, Transformation and Flow (Pi, 2009)

It cannot be said that the title of this album does not prepare the listener adequately for the music it describes. Saxophonist and composer Steve Lehman is a fearless intellectual and his music comes far more from the head than the heart. Lehman has been exploring the possibilities of metric modulations and broken time for a few years now, both in his own work and in his outstanding trio Fieldwork with Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey. His explorations have resulted in some of the most challenging and provocative music currently being made in American jazz.

For this new work, he has focused at least in part on his interest in the techniques of ‘spectral composition’, an approach most closely associated with the composer Tristan Murail, with whom Lehman has studied. This goes well beyond my areas of expertise, but the process apparently involves using computer modelling to base harmony on sound properties rather than on intervals. Its application to the dynamic of a jazz ensemble, particularly the relatively unconventional octet format, at least appears rather apt. The sheets of sound on the opening ‘Echoes’ are weird and disorientating, especially when combined with Lehman’s fondness for head-spinning rhythmic innovation. ‘Echoes’ sets the scene for what follows, which is essentially further explorations of the same ideas, with varying degrees of abstraction.

Lehman’s music here certainly sounds thoroughly composed and arranged. It will also sound somewhat unfamiliar to those ears fully rooted in the jazz tradition. It’s easy to see why it divides opinion (some find Lehman’s relentless complexity and harmonic approach alienating or even unmusical). Yet it’s also possible to approach this challenging music more positively and constructively. For all his preoccupations with software mapping and mathematical precision, much of this music feels spacious and liberated, even accounting for the constant distraction of Tyshawn Sorey’s rapid fire drumming. It works so well at least in part because the rhythm section of Sorey and Drew Gress are strong enough to handle the various subdivisions and tempo changes demanded by Lehman’s arrangements. It also seems that Lehman’s processes can be applied in a variety of ways, from fast tempos (‘No Neighbourhood Rough Enough’) to freer, almost lyrical environments (‘Waves’ – an apt title for this aquatic sounding piece).

This is not, it has to be said, emotional or emotive music. It does not invoke sensations of longing, neither does it express anything particularly profound about the human condition. Only ‘Waves’ approaches anything sensual and the abstruse nature of Lehman’s approach does not result in anything particularly mysterious. It is systems music, perhaps even designed to express nothing beyond itself. Perhaps one does have to work to understand this very specific musical language in order to appreciate it fully. This approach could easily lead Lehman up an artistic cul-de-sac (the same marginal route that many others have followed before him). To these ears, though, there’s something innately thrilling about the juxtaposition of these sheets of peculiar harmony with Tyshawn Sorey’s drumming, seemingly as much drawn from electronic music as from jazz. The impressive technique of the ensemble is put to good use in creating something vibrant and exciting.

Lehman’s success here is to break through borders that are too readily assumed to be closed. His confident absorption of techniques thought only applicable to specific areas of twentieth century composition reinforces the notion that spontaneous interaction and compositional processes need not be mutually exclusive. As if to take the genre-crossing project far beyond its logical conclusion, the album ends with a Wu-Tang Clan transcription, which is as enervating a jazz recording as I’ve heard all year.

New Fusions

Acoustic Ladyland – Living With a Tiger (Strong and Wrong, 2009)

The name Acoustic Ladyland had a certain logic when the group emerged as an acoustic jazz quartet performing works inspired by Jimi Hendrix. Since then, they’ve become a full-blooded jazz-rock ensemble, with increasing emphasis on the rock. The moniker now begins to look more like a stubborn contradiction.

With explosive guitarist replacing the now departed keyboardist Tom Cawley and Ruth Goller replacing Tom Herbert on electric bass, the band have undergone a major line-up change. This hasn’t radically redefined their sound, but has rather refocused their energies and bolstered their already aggressive dynamic. The resulting album is brutal, insistent and undeniably enjoyable, brimming with riotous energy and enthusiasm.

There’s a playful verve to ‘Have Another Go’ and ‘Death By Platitude’, underpinned by Seb Rochford’s drumming, which is at once rigorous and thrilling. Best of all are probably the swampy ‘Gratitude’ and the closing ‘You and I’. The latter has a primal rhythmic urgency. On the former, Sharkey gets welcome space to demonstrate his chops as well as his array of effects pedals and the group begins to resemble an edgier Led Zeppelin.

Much of the music here is taken at a frantic pace (the opening ‘Sport Mode’ certainly wastes no time in establishing the mood), although the band are sounding increasingly assured with slower grooves too. ‘The Mighty Q’, dedicated to saxophonist and band leader Pete Wareham’s newborn son Quincy is one of these moments, demonstrating that there’s a very human heart beneath the relentless attack. ‘Worry’ even allows a slight hint of melancholy into the proceedings, hinting that Wareham might be able to provide the group with much more light and shade in the future.

‘Living With a Tiger’ is a considerably more confident album than its predecessor ‘Skinny Grin’. That record had its moments – but didn’t sound anywhere near as powerful as this. Perhaps part of this process of refinement has been the abandoning of vocals – although I admire Alice Grant’s original vocal style. On ‘Living With a Tiger’, Wareham’s saxophone playing has the passion, guts and gusto of a bellowing human voice. This could easily be stereotyped as angry music, but I’m struck most by its positivity and joy.

Troyka – Troyka (Edition, 2009)

There’s a great deal of love for Troyka at the moment and it’s easy to understand why. The group is based on a straightforward but original conceit. Here is a conventional organ trio line-up (Kit Downes on organ, Chris Montague on guitar and the truly fearsome Josh Blackmore on drums) playing anything but conventional music. This band deconstructs genre boundaries with a wilful and sometimes brutal intent. The virtuosic ability of these three musicians, not purely in terms of technique, but also in terms of developing expressive musical ideas, is impossible to deny.

The in-demand Robert Harder, who also worked on Acoustic Ladyland’s album, again lends his engineering skills here. The whole album certainly sounds brilliant. There’s a constant sense of drama and tension, frequently found in the contrast between the underlying electronics and Montague’s daredevil highwire acrobatics on the guitar. The drum sound is also impressively crisp, with Josh Blackmore’s elaborately arranged kit voicings influencing the overall impact of the performances as much as the interplay between Montague and Downes.

Yet so much is thrown into the musical melting pot here that it threatens to become both overwhelming and oppressive. The compositions are angular and cerebral, and are frequently characterised by metronomically precise but unexpected interjections of electronic noise and crunching rock guitar riffing. In the short term, the control with which the band executes these changes is frankly breathtaking. The outstanding ‘Clint’ veers from a peculiar groove to a heavy recontextualisation of the slide guitar. But after a few listens, I find myself yearning for just some of the multitude of ideas to be expanded and developed.

Somewhat oddly, Montague’s compositions seem to work best when mercilessly concise. It’s refreshing to hear tunes as short as one and a half minutes in length that somehow sound complete. On the longer pieces, the group seem so keen to squeeze in all of their ideas that it’s often hard to find the common thread. Downes’ contributions, especially the mysterious ‘Golden’, offer breathing space for more lyrical playing.

This is exciting, challenging music and if I sometimes fail to rise to the challenge here, it possibly says more about me as a listener than it does about Troyka as an ensemble. Given time, I suspect this quirky, cerebral beast will reveal more than just an intricate logic.

Zed-U – Night Time on the Middle Passage (Babel, 2009)

Zed-U, a trio featuring Shabaka Hutchings, Neil Charles and Tom Skinner have variously been described as thrash jazz or dub jazz. Inevitably, these generic terms don’t come anywhere close to capturing their subtle combination of dreamy fantasia and punchy improvisation. ‘Night Time on the Middle Passage’ is less concerned with browbeating its audience with its innovative credentials, instead concentrating on mood, texture and space. For this reason, it demands concentration and repeated listens, but may actually be the most successful of these recent records aiming to redefine what jazz musicians can play.

Those who have seen saxophonist and clarinettist Hutchings play live will be aware that he can play with an imposing and impassioned authority. This side of his personality emerges less frequently here and is all the more striking as a result. ‘Chief’ is characterised by a fiery intensity and crafty staccato unison lines. Even better is the gradual crescendo of ‘Roki’, which builds from a restrained introduction into tempestuous repeated phrases.

Elsewhere though, the focus is more on his spare and elegant clarinet playing, frequently manipulated through effects and sampling. What is most impressive about this music is the way the instruments leave space for each other, with Hutchings’ direct, clear motifs interweaving with Neil Charles’ expressive basslines. Charles and drummer Tom Skinner do so much more than simply anchor the group – they inform the texture and intensity levels with intuitive musicality.

There will no doubt be tedious debates about whether this constitutes jazz or not. For the adventurous and open-minded listener, it won’t matter much how it’s classified. It certainly falls into the bracket of improvised music – in live performance, the group use this music as a springboard for further exploration, with tremendously exciting results. No two performances will be the same. In this sense, it fits my personal notion of what constitutes 'jazz', and represents a clear attempt to draw from that tradition and make it more relevant to a younger audience both in London and beyond.

Some have criticised the record for foregrounding texture and sound at the expense of composition, but I’m not sure I agree with this. There are formalities and rigours to the music here. It’s arguable that the pieces seem to be based more around phrasing and articulation than around conventional melodies but in some ways this makes the music more fresh and intriguing. The clipped, rhythmic motifs of Kraftwerk’s. Similarly, structure and dynamics play an important role. From start to finish, the album sounds fantastic, with a careful attention to detail and a consistently mysterious, sometimes unnerving mood. Zed-U’s novel synthesis can no doubt be further developed, but this is a brilliantly realised first step.

Summer Meltdown

Acoustic Ladyland - Clore Ballroom Sunday 14th June
Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra/The Bad Plus - Saturday 20th June
Ornette Coleman with Baaba Maal, Flea, Charlie Haden and The Master Musicians of Jajouka - Sunday 21st June

The Meltdown festival has become something of a regular fixture in my musical calendar and the presence of the legendary Ornette Coleman as curator for 2009 made it completely unmissable. Sadly, I wasn’t able to catch as much of it as I would have liked but what follows is a brief dispatch from the shows I did attend.

Whilst their musical tropes are by now familiar, Acoustic Ladyland’s new line-up still comes as something of a shock. Tom Herbert departed to focus on Polar Bear and The Invisible some time ago and now superb pianist Tom Cawley has left to concentrate on his own more meditative music. Ruth Goller has picked up the mantle of aggressive, driving bass playing with consummate ease, but Cawley’s shoes must surely be particularly difficult to fill. Sensibly, Pete Wareham hasn’t tried to do that, instead opting for the terrifying presence of rock guitarist Chris Sharkey.

The new music isn’t much of a departure from their now established thrash jazz template, although whilst the group seemed to be treading water a bit on ‘Skinny Grin’, they now sound positively rejuvenated. The title of their new album (‘Living With A Tiger’) seems apt – this is a tougher, louder beast of a band. Seb Rochford continues to demonstrate his versatility by playing at about seven hundred times the volume he would deploy with Oriole or even Polar Bear, with heavy snare drum accents and swashbuckling cymbals in abundance.

The best of the new tracks slow it down a little, but keep it swampy – with what sounds like a pretty heavy Led Zeppelin influence. Space for improvisation continues to be minimal – but Sharkey’s dynamic bursts of noise have given this engaging, attacking sound fresh impetus. The group’s name continues to seem completely incongruous – and the one significant limitation is that it’s all a little one-dimensional. Hopefully one day Pete Wareham will surprise everyone by writing some ballads that are every bit as exciting.

I would have liked to have been able to stay through for the concert that featured Marc Ribot, Evan Parker and Han Benninck and also a surprise support slot from About, the new improvising group featuring John Coxon, Charles Hayward and Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. From the other reviews of this show that I’ve read, and from what Alexis has told me about the About project, the upcoming album that the group have produced should be one of the year’s essential releases. It’s encouraging to think that Taylor’s presence might bring freely improvised music to a new, broader audience here in the UK.

The final weekend saw Ornette Coleman himself perform twice, and a mouth-watering collaboration between Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, Carla Bley and Robert Wyatt. I missed the first Ornette Coleman show, although a compelling account of it can be found here: http://mapsadaisical.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/ornette-coleman-and-the-master-musicians-of-jajouka-royal-festival-hall-190609/

Support for Charlie Haden’s project came from New York trio The Bad Plus. My opinion on this group has fluctuated widely from passionate enthusiasm through to complete frustration. Where once they concentrated on creating a modern standard repertoire from pop, rock and dance music (Nirvana, Blondie, Aphex Twin etc), they now seem to have shifted to reinterpreting twentieth century classical music (they performed pieces by Stravinsky and Ligeti). I have no objections to this per se, but there’s increasingly something irritating about their studied quirkiness and intellectual playing. There’s no doubting their brilliant musicianship and supreme technical ability, but I can’t help feeling (as I think I’ve said in more than one previous review), that all this talent is now better served by their own compositions. There was plenty of support for this argument when the group unleashed the beautiful ‘Giant’, composed by bassist Reid Anderson and from their best album (‘Prog’), where some restraint and directness enabled the group to come alive.

Joining Charlie Haden, Carla Bley were a group of London musicians, including Shabaka Hutchings and Jason Yarde, demonstrating just how vibrant the Jazz scene in the capital is right now. Haden began the show by emphasising the political context of his recordings – with albums having been recorded under Nixon, Reagan, Bush Snr and Bush Jnr. ‘Don’t make another one!’ shouted a member of the audience, perhaps missing the point that the albums had been written and recorded as responses to the political climate. I don’t get the impression Haden had ever intended to instigate years of reactionary conservatism in the United States!

Reaction after the show from friends seemed mixed, largely due to some rather shambolic organisational difficulties. Apparently the concert had been timed rather carefully to arrange for an appearance from curator Ornette Coleman, which never actually happened (although he did appear at the end to embrace Haden). Perhaps the rustling to locate sheet music not yet on stage, the spaces that Haden needed to fill with some admittedly hilarious jokes and his struggling to announce the names of the musicians correctly may have turned collective ears against what was actually a rather powerful performance. Reviews in the mainstream press so far seem to have been overwhelmingly positive.

The concert featured music from throughout Haden’s career, but focused on most recent album ‘Not In Our Name’. This material could seem redundant in the brave new world of the Obama era, but a reiteration of the value of music as a means of protest and celebration can hardly be a bad thing. Indeed, whilst a lot of ‘political’ music can seem negative or aggressive, Carla Bley’s arrangements of tunes from the classic American songbook (particularly ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘We Shall Overcome’) had a joyous potency.

The sound of a group this size is often a source of great joy, but the playing was often full-blooded and rich. There were some wonderful individual contributions too, from Shabaka Hutchings’ fiery and vibrant bursts of ideas contrasting with mellifluous trumpet solos. The dignity and humanity of the music came through in the group’s playing throughout.

As promised, Robert Wyatt joined mid-set for two numbers sung in Spanish, Silvio Rodriguez’s ‘Tale of the Tornado’ and Haden’s own ‘Song For Che’ (which Wyatt himself recorded on ‘Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard’ and curator Ornette Coleman also performed on ‘Crisis’, if memory serves me correctly). If Wyatt seemed slightly nervous and hesitant on the former, the latter demonstrated his familiar and distinctive conversational style in more confident flow. His voice seemed natural and unforced on this beautiful and haunting piece of music. It was a joy to catch a rare onstage performance from him.

The set ended in truly compelling fashion, first with a majestic drum solo – one of those supremely controlled displays that began with a simple piece of phrasing, before developing it around the kit and embellishing it with flourishes both technically accomplished and musically intuitive. Haden of course made his individual statement too, although it was hard to tell whether his persistent requests to ‘turn the bass down’ were part of the by now jokey atmosphere or a serious irritation hampering him. If the latter, it wasn’t evident as the solo developed, characterised by singing lines and some knowing quoting of Coleman’s modified blues ‘Turnaround’.

It was a shame that the intended appearance from Coleman for ‘Skies of America’ didn’t happen, but perhaps an even bigger shame that the distracting hustle and bustle made everything seem a little on-the-fly and disjointed. The first part of the set seemed a little stylistically boxed too – with a Cuban piece followed by an arrangement with a reggae feel. On balance though, this was a powerful, musically thoughtful performance.

On paper, Ornette Coleman’s closing night performance looked potentially dangerous. With guest appearances from artists in residence Master Musicians of Jajouka, Baaba Maal and that well known free improvising jazzer Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers – this had the makings of a rather confused and confounding event. Thankfully, it proved to be nothing of the sort – and was rather a consistently engaging, wonderfully enervating concert experience.

The Master Musicians’ support set must have required some adjustments for most Western ears. I’ve not got a good enough musical ear to identify what precisely is so harsh about their sound – the pipes seem tuned against each other in very narrow intervals and it takes a while to locate the true pulse amidst their complex polyrhythms. Still, though, their visible sense of enjoyment and showmanship was enough to persuade me to immerse myself in their mesmerising and ultimately uplifting sound.

Ornette Coleman took to the stage immensely slowly, with a sense of fragility that made me a little nervous, especially as he struggled to connect his strap to his saxophone. As soon as the first notes emanated from his alto though, it became clear that the concern was entirely unwarranted. What a marvel that this pioneering figure can produce such eloquent phrasing and vigorous sound at the age of 79 (or 82 as someone else quoted, I’m not sure which is correct).

Titled ‘Reflections of This Is Our Music’, this concert might better have been dubbed ‘reflections of an illustrious and radical career’. Continuing to reject conventional harmonic accompaniment in favour of a two bassists line-up (Tony Falanga and Al McDowell), Coleman’s approach somehow still sounds as furious and otherworldly today as it did in the late fifties. Yet deconstructed airings of ‘Turnaround’ and ‘Blues Connotation’ suggest that those who view Coleman’s music as impenetrable or intractable are missing the point – here is a man who remains as in touch with the blues as he is with his own attempts to move away from form. Veering between violin, saxophone and even a brief spell on trumpet, he seemed gleeful, impish and full of ideas from both within and outside the jazz idiom.

Listening to ‘Blues Connotation’ particularly, I wondered whether the term ‘punk jazz’, which provided the title for a Jaco Pastorius composition and has since been lazily dished out to all manner of groups attempting some kind of jazz-rock fusion, might genuinely be apt for this group. They played throughout with a devil-may-care and visceral abandon that left my heart racing and my thoughts buzzing off in several directions simultaneously. Denardo is an unashamedly unconventional drummer, with a relentless but muffled sound that goes against the brightness and verve of most jazz drumming. He seems to have devised his own range of stick grips and frequently veers out of time, forcing Tony Falanga to work his way back into the fold and his conception of swing exists somewhere out on its own astral plain. Yet there’s something lucid and compelling about his peculiar stomp, and it imbues this already captivating music with an undeniable originality, even when the material being performed is the best part of 50 years old.

The choice of music is both richly satisfying (‘Lonely Woman’) and somewhat bizarre (a perhaps slightly hesitant recontextualisation of Bach’s Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1). The collaborations mid-set seemed like the perfect encapsulation of Coleman’s questing spirit and open-mindedness. I had admittedly been prejudiced against the appearance of Flea, but his intuitive playing somehow managed to make the three-pronged bass attack completely invigorating, and extraordinarily physical. His contributions often featured the language of disco and funk, which might be expected. What was less predictable was just how much of a positive impact his propulsive playing had on the overall sound of the ensemble. When joined onstage by the Master Musicians, it seemed as if Coleman and his group were initially grasping at something and not quite finding it but, slowly, a more singing tone emerged from the saxophone responding to the persistent dynamic of the Master Musicians. It was a tremendous, intoxicating cacophony.

After a trio performance with Charlie Haden for the encore, on which Haden’s bass sounded opulent and resonant, Coleman seemed reluctant to leave the stage, thanking the sound crew before embarking on a personal odyssey to shake as many audience members’ hands as he felt possible. Even when his security intervened he didn’t seem particularly inclined to be rescued. Whether this was an act of gentlemanly kindness towards his audience or an egotistical acknowledgement of his iconic status didn’t really matter – this man has earned the right to a long goodbye. Whoever they get to curate Meltdown next year has some big shoes to fill.

The Virtue of Persistence

Branford Marsalis Quartet - Metamorphosen (Marsalis Music, 2009)

Perhaps the title is laced with irony. Whilst it implies radical change, ‘Metamorphosen’ actually captures Branford Marsalis’ quartet at a time of impressive persistence and resilience. The group has maintained its current line-up for a decade – a long time for a single group in the constantly shifting jazz world. With Marsalis himself contributing just one composition (the outstanding ‘Jabberwocky’), it’s clear that this is very much an ensemble effort. It emphases that great dictum, always most truthful in the best jazz, that the individual and the collective need not (and should not) be mutually exclusive.

Those familiar with the group’s albums will rightly view ‘Metamorphosen’ as a logical progression rather than a bold new dawn. It presents us with a further exposition of the group’s core values, which are open-minded enough to incorporate playfulness, rhythmic vitality and deep longing, the latter particularly evident in pianist Joey Calderazzo’s emotional writing. ‘The Blossom of Parting’ pulls off the rare trick of being at once both free and refined. Similarly, when the group really swing, they do so both righteously and with taste on ‘Jabberwocky’.

The group’s reworking of Monk’s ‘Rhythm-A-Ning’, whilst predictably respectful of the jazz tradition, also comes with an audacity that one can’t help feeling its composer would have appreciated. It’s here that drummer Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts is at his most ferocious and monstrous, with hard-hitting backbeats to offset his more fluid statements elsewhere in the set.

The presence of Tain always reminds me of Julian Joseph’s mobile ringtone, although that’s probably a story for another occasion. There’s plenty of support here for Julian’s Tain evangelism of course. The masterful handling of switches between half time and double time feels, and the consummate understanding of subdivision makes for a swing feel that is accurate but also enervating and driving. The album is sequenced so that his two compositions act as bookends. This works well, with the opening ‘Return of the Jitney Man’ showcasing the group’s quirky, inventive side whilst ‘Samo’ offers a more dogged and concentrated exposition, beginning with intimate and reflective playing, eventually building to something uniquely intense.

So, whilst the various individual composers and their solo contributions offer a dazzling variety of styles and perspectives, the most engaging aspect of ‘Metamorphosen’ is how they fuse into a coherent and effortless whole. Often, the Marsalis’ attack is balanced by the lyricism of Joey Caldarazzo, with Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts providing conversational responses rather than interventions on the drums. Whether at its simplest or most technically audacious and exhausting, the playing always sounds meaningful and honest. With Joshua Redman’s ‘Compass’ also one of my personal highlights of the year so far, the American saxophonists seem to be in a league of their own in 2009.

Big Noise

Big Air – Big Air (Babel, 2009)

I’m baffled and intrigued by this album but, ultimately, I’m also mesmerised by it. The ensemble itself is unconventional enough, with Oren Marshall’s tuba parping substituting for bass and Myra Melford’s mischievous piano hardly keeping to regular harmonic strictures. Then there’s the audacious music, with its generous helping of electronics and effects, and some sly juxtaposing of some traditional influences with highly contemporary approaches to arrangement.

The result risks being cringe-inducing and pretentious and at times there is a nagging sense that this might just be a set of musicians’ jokes. For the most part, though, the playing is playful rather than silly, and the themes are satisfyingly memorable. This kind of adroit and humorous handling of ambitious and difficult music could perhaps be expected from a transatlantic collaboration between London-based trumpeter and saxophonist Chris Batchelor and Steve Buckley with New York’s devilishly confounding Melford. Batchelor and Buckley played as part of memorable Django Bates line-ups, and his influence is never far away in their cheeky compositions.

Drummer Jim Black pins down a righteous groove that roots this music securely but also gives it a driving edge. His playing is relentlessly creative, but he never imposes too greatly. There’s always a sense of space, even when the music is at its most apparently disordered. Buckley’s opener ‘The Wizard’ writhes with a slinky, seductive feel. ‘Airlock’ benefits from a similarly coiled rhythmic impetus.

Melford will always be more Cecil Taylor than Herbie Hancock and her playing may be too interventionist and distracting for some tastes. I’m a fan of her own work, and her delightful harmonium playing on Batchelor’s ‘The Road, The Sky, The Moon’ demonstrates that she is more than capable of playing with sensitivity and delicacy where necessary.

The band make thoughtful use of electronics too. Perhaps the best piece here is ‘Song For The Garlic Seller’ which gradually emerges from some manipulations of tuba and trumpet. The result is a fiery outburst building from a deceptively mysterious introduction. This deployment of tricks and masks is a big component of this group’s innate sense of fun.

The great joy of this fine album is hearing the spirit of spontaneous abstraction merge with a love of the blues and the New Orleans tradition. It’s a provocative mix that will infuriate some as much as it will inspire others. I’m all in favour.

Ian Carr 1933 - 2009: A Personal Tribute

It’s a sad and rare day when I get to write here about a significant figure in British music with a direct and personal influence on my life. For this reason, I’m not going to write too much about Ian Carr’s career and body of work. There are already some excellent obituaries online (to which I shall link at the end of the piece) that cover all this in much more detail than I can manage. It will suffice to say that those not familiar with Ian’s music and his considerable role in the jazz-rock movement should at least check out ‘Out of the Long Dark’ or the first two Nucleus albums (‘Elastic Rock’ and ‘We’ll Talk About It Later’). His playing is also well showcased on Neil Ardley’s adventurous ‘Greek Variations’ and ‘Kaleidoscope of Rainbows’ amongst many other notable sessions. His major contribution had finally been recognised in 2006 with the BBC Services to Jazz award, but by this time he was sadly already afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. In this piece, I want to write more about Ian as an educator, the domain in which I came into contact with him and where I benefited from his considerable musicianship, experience and wisdom.

I was fortunate to attend a prestigious fee paying school with impressive facilities – computers with sequencing software for every student, numerous instruments, concert halls and a recording studio- but there were many ways in which the school’s music department was sorely lacking. One of these was its attitude to jazz. Everyone involved in teaching and performing jazz in the school was well meaning and polite – but they were not specialists and viewed improvisation as a skill far from the reach of teenage minds. Solos for the school jazz band tended to be written out, and there was an unappetising focus on the hoariest of standards, always played exactly ‘as written’ in a staid and organised ‘music for schools’ fashion. Spontaneity and interaction were not exactly encouraged.

Thank goodness, then, for Ian’s workshops at Weekend Arts College, then located in a dilapidated but vibrant shack next to Kentish Town West train station (now located in the classier environment of Hampstead Town Hall). I first attended Ian Carr’s workshops in September 1995, when I was just 14 years old. I had already developed a taste for jazz at least in part from my Dad’s record collection but also from Gerry Hunt’s wonderful classes for younger children at the college on Saturdays. Here I earned myself a bit of a reputation for being prepared to try out almost any instrument, from steel pan to bass guitar, but more focus and higher standards were demanded from Ian's classes. I duly opted to concentrate on drums. At £1.50 for three hours, these classes cost a small fraction of my school music lessons but contributed so much more to my knowledge and experience. In Ian’s classes, improvisation was an essential ingredient of music, and a liberating force.

Crucially, making mistakes was an inherent part of the learning process. Ian was always full of pithy, wise phrases, but the one I remember most clearly is ‘jazz is the art of recovery’. It was in Ian’s classes where I learned the value of getting things wrong. The important mark of a good musician was in how they took risks and recovered when things didn’t quite work: ‘If you fail, fail again but fail more successfully’. Improvised music was a necessarily imperfect art form where learning never stops, no matter what standard you might attain.

Ian was therefore as passionate about the learning process as he was about teaching us – ‘I’m still learning every day - if you have stopped learning, you should stop altogether’, he often used to say. Although he could certainly be a tough taskmaster with some very strong, ingrained opinions, he also enjoyed working with his students as much as working for them. As a result, he was never patronising. When we eventually got to perform our repertoire for the term, he would often play with us, and would be tremendously guilty about taking a long solo for himself when his passion and enthusiasm simply wouldn’t allow him to sit out. He once told a guitarist in our group: ‘Tom, I’m so sorry, I think I took your solo – but it was so damn groovy I just had to play!’ In these situations, he couldn’t be stopped and, as a rhythm section, we got the undoubted benefit of supporting him.

Ian could be particularly tough on the rhythm section, and as a somewhat unconfident teenager, this could sometimes present a challenge. It would sometimes feel as if he might be singling out particular individuals for censure over apparently trivial issues. Only when our analysis of the structure and function of a piece of music progressed did it become clear how sensitive and attuned his attention to detail was. As a trumpeter and keyboardist, he didn’t teach me so much about playing the drums but he taught me a great deal about music and the wider role of the drums within it. He would often put drummers on the spot with questions about harmony or possible scales, making it clear that drummers could not get away with just hitting things and knowing next to nothing about the form or harmonic structure of the music. He was particularly intolerant of virtuosity for its own sake – bass players had to master a solid and dependable walking feel before they varied their placements and he would be far more enthusiastic about a drummer with comfortable time feel than one with dexterous chops and poor judgment over which ideas to play. I remember him castigating poor Alex Gould (a technically excellent drummer) for not placing the cross-rim on beat four of the bar during ‘Milestones’. ‘That rimshot on beat four is the absolute crux of the piece!’ he would enthuse – ‘it cannot be put just where you want it!’ I learnt quickly to focus on my ride cymbal feel and get to grips with the structure of the piece, before attempting to impose my individual contribution.

It was really through Ian’s classes that I learned how to listen. It’s this quality he recognised in my playing at the time – an ability to listen to the contributions of other members of an ensemble and to play supportively. He also directed my listening in the broader sense, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz history and artists’ discographies. He would be offer very specific recommendations – Oliver Nelson’s ‘Blues and the Abstract Truth’ was one of ‘the key albums of the 1960s’, whilst ‘Tales of Another’ by Gary Peacock, Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette was another of his all time favourites. I doubt I would have even heard of George Russell, a major but underestimated presence in jazz history, were it not for Ian’s praise of him and subsequent radio broadcast.

It was often hard to elicit praise from Ian but when it came, he would deliver it in spectacular fashion. We worked on an aggressive, driving rendition of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Elegant People’ (still among my favourites of his compositions) to which Ian remarked: ‘Daniel that was so deep down in the swamp I thought you’d changed colour!’ Lack of political correctness aside, I could only take that as a very sincere compliment.

Then there were his wonderful, lengthy stories – of encounters with Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett, of his experiences performing (those infamous ‘double diminisheds!’) and, latterly, writing. He had certainly experienced a lot in his lengthy and illustrious career, not all of it positive, but all of it somehow valuable and informative.

Perhaps Ian’s most transparent flaw was his innate suspicion of free improvisation. More recently, having enjoyed the music of Evan Parker, Tim Berne, David Torne and many others, I’m not sure that I share Ian’s views here. He certainly saw few limits to improvising within a compositional structure – indeed, his teaching often emphasised just how wide the choice of scales and ideas could be. Yet whenever we requested to improvise completely freely, he was well out of his teaching comfort zone. Fairly understandably, our attempts at free improvisation were often tentative, sometimes even plain embarrassing. Perhaps Ian merely felt we needed to get to grips with a tradition and a language first. I remain unsure as to what his true opinions were here but I think it stemmed from his emphasis on the importance of time to all music. He felt that ‘time’ could never be entirely abandoned (‘play two notes, or even the same note twice, and you are playing time’) and maybe therefore that the free improvisers’ quest to escape these strictures was rather futile. Indeed, the possibilities of playing time were so vast that it needn’t be seen as a stricture at all.

It could sometimes feel as if Ian was condemning you with faint praise. His final report on me said something like ‘Daniel is starting to become a very good drummer’. It was perhaps the phrase that followed that that was more significant though, and I’m only now starting to understand what he meant. ‘Where he goes now is up to him’. This seemed quite an ambiguous and mysterious statement to my 18 year old self but it now seems very simple. A clear conception of your direction and what you want to achieve is vital to your progress as a musician. I certainly don’t regret studying history instead of music. At the time, I was quite hot-headed and fervently believed that studying music or literature might risk destroying my personal passions for the art I loved. I now believe this opinion to be ignorant and naive and am finally, ten years on, taking the steps I think Ian was encouraging me to take then. I’m doing it later than most, but there is still time and I will long be grateful to Ian for setting me off on a very long road.

I was lucky to catch Ian at the end of his teaching career. His playing had started to deteriorate and he would often be visibly frustrated by this in classes, although he had lost none of his enthusiasm for the music or for communicating. He retired from WAC a year after I left to study history at University. Subsequently, Tim Whitehead, Jonny Phillips and Ricky Mian have all ably stepped into his shoes, inheriting and developing a great tradition of jazz education at the college.

It’s deeply sad that Ian’s career was cruelly cut short by health problems at precisely the time he was gaining both a new audience and the wider recognition he’d long deserved. He’d often been unfairly portrayed as being in the shadow of his hero, Miles Davis, when his contribution to jazz-rock was actually contemporaneous with that of Miles. Some extraordinary musicians passed through Ian’s workshops at WAC - Julian Joseph, Courtney Pine, Jason Rebello, Mark and Michael Mondesir and many of the pack of musicians now revitalising British music – Zoe Rahman, Naadia Sheriff, Tom Herbert, Tom Skinner, Dave Okumu, Jesse Hackett of Elmore Judd and many others. This is testament to his manifest qualities as a teacher and his legacy will live on through these musicians for many years to come. Personally, I respect him for managing to combine pretty much all of my personal interests in one career. He composed music that crossed the often unnecessary boundaries between classical, jazz and rock (accompanied by an open-minded appreciation for a variety of musical forms), he wrote passionately and authoritatively about jazz, and even became an excellent broadcaster too.

Some links to more informative and objective obituaries covering Ian’s life and music:

http://www.iancarrsnucleus.net/IanCarrobituary.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ian-carr-trumpeter-and-composer-whose-band-nucleus-was-at-the-forefront-of-the-jazzrock-movement-1633339.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5810825.ece

Wordless Thoughts

Mountains - Choral (Thrill Jockey, 2009)
Lars Horntveth - Kaleidoscopic (Smalltown Supersound, 2009)
Joshua Redman - Compass (Nonesuch, 2009)
Enrico Rava - New York Days (ECM, 2009)

Maybe it's a result of being slightly frustrated by some of the song-based music released so far this year but I find myself absorbed by a fine selection of instrumental music at the moment. With new albums from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Alasdair Roberts and Bill Callahan imminent, this may not however last very long, so I'll revel in it while I can.

If you should never judge a book by its cover, then you certainly shouldn’t judge the contents of an album from its title. ‘Choral’ is the third album from electronic duo Mountains but, aside from the odd buried whisper or moan, it contains no human voices whatsoever. Instead, it’s one of those deceptively minimal, thoroughly engrossing tapestries of sound akin to those constructed by Christian Fennesz.

For the most part, it’s a good deal less abrasive and disturbing than much of this music can be. Its embracing, hazy fuzz distances Mountains from the more terrifying work of artists such as Xela or Elegi. Instead, it comes with a warmth and open-heartedness that might broaden its appeal, without compromising the ethos or power of the music. By mostly rejecting confrontation and noise for its own sake, Mountains nimbly escape cliché, and make their comparably rare burst of more aggressive sound at the album’s conclusion more brutally effective.

‘Choral’ is more in keeping with other contemporary electronic music by rejecting demands for conventional harmonic movement, rhythmic impetus or melodic hooks. Two tracks stretch over the twelve minute mark mostly built on layering drones upon each other. The emphasis is therefore more on sound, timbre, mood and atmosphere. The frequent interjection of acoustic guitars or modest percussion instruments imbues the somnambulant textures with benevolent, human presence. The gently rolling ‘Map Table’ is particularly impressive in this regard.

‘Choral’ is a haunting and distinctive individual contribution to a still-burgeoning genre. Its music slowly and gently unravels in a beatific and engaging way. There is a strong sense that, with ‘Choral’, Mountains have crafted a form of avant-garde folk music where tradition allies comfortably with innovation.

Jaga Jazzist multi-instrumentalist Lars Horntveth describes ‘Kaleidoscopic’, a single 37-minute composition, as an attempt to reflect what he enjoys listening to, without consciously striving to copy anything specific. Eleni Karandiru, Gil Evans, Bernard Hermann, Jean-Claude Vannier, Robert Wyatt, Jim O'Rourke, John Fahey, Astor Piazzolla, Colin Blunstone, Dr. John, Steve Reich, Van Dyke Parks, David Lynch and Yma Zumac all appear on his list of admired artists. Even limited to just these artists, Horntveth has clearly absorbed an inspired cross section of contemporary music. Unsurprisingly as a result of all this digestion, ‘Kaleidoscopic’ is an absorbing listen.

It’s arguable that perhaps it dives too swiftly across the musical map. Textures and sounds are rarely given enough time to settle, and fairly conventional melodic themes disappear as quickly as they’ve emerged. The music is most effective when Horntveth focuses on simple ideas – an insistent ostinato, for example – and threads other motifs around it. It’s this combination of minimalism and adventure that would appear to provide the most fertile ground for his musical imagination.

Horntveth’s writing is also confident and assured in its catering for quirky ensembles of instruments within the wider orchestra. ‘Kaleidoscopic’ effortlessly merges electronic and acoustic textures, incorporating harp, guitar, vibraphone and saxophone. None of this sounds in any way awkward or self-conscious, although the overall mood of the piece is peaceful and serene, rather than dissonant or aggressive.

I have no qualms whatsoever, even at this very early stage, in hailing ‘Compass’, the latest album from saxophone virtuoso Joshua Redman, as one of the albums of the year. Redman has openly acknowledged the influence of Sonny Rollins’ classic trio date ‘Way Out West’ (going as far as to call his previous album ‘Back East’ in tribute) but his use, on five tracks here, of a quintet with two bassists (Larry Grenadier and Reuben Rogers) and two drummers (Brian Blade and Gregory Hutchinson) also perhaps owes a debt to Ornette Coleman. Whilst Redman has always had the chops and language to stand beside such lofty influences, his music has at times perhaps been too taut and controlled. ‘Compass’ sounds loose and liberated, in the best possible way.

Redman had deployed this unconventional quintet in a musically satisfying way, avoiding the temptation simply to gain more momentum and power from the extra rhythmic impetus. Instead, the musicians engage in intelligent conversation with each other, and the ideas germinate as much from leaving space as from making statements. Helpfully, when two drummers are used, considered stereo panning helps us distinguish the individual contributions. As a result, ‘Compass’ is particularly well suited to listening on headphones.

When the full quintet is not being used, Redman assembles a variety of trio configurations, all exploring that fascinating world where harmony is implied rather than stated. What is perhaps most impressive about the music on ‘Compass’ is its strong sense of harmonic progression, in spite of the absence of a chordal instrument. This is immediately apparent on the beautiful opening ballad ‘Uncharted’, brief at just two minutes, but speaking volumes in that time.

Redman’s themes on ‘Compass’ are mostly conventional and striking in their simplicity. It may well be precisely this that has created the sense of freedom and space in the rest of the music and which has resulted in such thrilling interaction within the various ensembles. Often, as on ‘Insomnomaniac’ and ‘Un Peu Feu’, the themes are driven by rhythmic syncopation, but Redman also proves himself capable of real emotion too, as on ‘Moonlight’, which places Beethoven in an entirely different context, where the feeling seems to come from a restraint rather than from an outward expression. It’s remarkable in its austere sadness.

Redman’s playing is consistently superb – with its clear, crisp tone and confident extemporising. Nevertheless, ‘Compass’ could hardly work as well as it does without the sheer artistry of the ensemble players. Blade and Hutchinson particularly are magical, coming as close as possible to making the drums sing. ‘Compass’ is a rare gem – a cerebral jazz album with spontaneous chemistry that also has an immediate emotional impact.

Larry Grenadier, as in demand as ever, makes another appearance on ‘New York Days’, the latest set from Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava, a record very different in tone and spirit from Redman’s. In keeping with the grand tradition of the ECM label, this is a record more preoccupied with lyricism and atmosphere. Having said that, the kind of sublime subtle musical conversations evident on albums such as Bobo Stenson’s outstanding ‘Cantando’ is also evident here, particularly on the two meditative free improvisations.

These largely gentle, contemplative performances do not necessarily leap from the page and are slow to unravel. Instead, they require (and reward) close attention. The most transparent quality here lies in Rava’s trumpet melding effortlessly with the contributions of saxophonist Mark Turner – they seem to both contemplate and embolden each other’s playing. Much of the supporting playing is characteristic of the individual preoccupations of the musicians involved. Stefano Bollani remains an impressionistic and ruminative pianist, sometimes even opaque, although the peculiar intricacies of his accompaniments are often highly original. Paul Motian’s superlative drumming remains unique in its deployment of texture and colour. It is never purely about rhythm, but as much about phrasing, both directing the other musicians and responding to them.

If this music might on the surface seem bereft of the creation and release of tension that characterises the most exciting jazz, closer listening reveals hidden fruits. The two improvisations work as the group gradually convenes, bringing order from an initial wash of calm thoughts. Even with curiously introspective titles such as ‘Outside’ or ‘Interiors’, much of the music still has a warm and romantic quality which rescues it from seeming aloof and detached, a pitfall that ECM’s less successful releases sometimes fall into. As ever, Manfred Eicher’s production has an audiophile’s sensitivity, and every sound and stroke is precisely rendered.

For those that recognise some kind of dichotomy between European and American schools of jazz, Rava might just be the connecting point between the two, having spent much of his career playing and studying in the US. Miles Davis is an obvious influence on his playing, and he also cites Duke Ellington as a major influence here. Yet the music does not swing in the exaggerated, American style – it has the fluidity and languid grace of European music.

The Price of Genius

Keith Jarrett, Royal Festival Hall, December 1st 2008

If there has been a common thread in much of the live music I’ve witnessed in 2008 – it’s been a strong sense of occasion, rarity and, along with that, financial expense. Credit Crunch be damned - Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder and, now, Keith Jarrett – they’ve all been event gigs with very high ticket prices (only Wonder failed to deliver value for money though – two out of three ain’t bad).

These days, Keith Jarrett is as much a self-proclaimed living legend as a widely respected pioneer. He performs infrequently and places heavy demands on his audience. Fortunately for him, they all adore him rather uncritically and are all too happy to be berated and chastised for using cameras or, heaven forbid, coughing. Coughing, apparently, is ‘a sign of boredom and inattention’. I suspect on this chilly evening in early December, it was more likely a sign of a common cold going around.

Even if Jarrett is basically right, his comments surely invite the response that it’s his job to sustain the audience’s attention. Now paid astronomical fees for these one-off performances, he’s probably earning twice as much in one night as many of these affluent punters earn all year (more like five times my annual salary). We have paid our money, and we surely deserve his respect as much as he deserves ours. No star is bigger than the audience that enables them to perform. This doesn’t mean that audiences should not be challenged and have their ingrained prejudices questioned – but that they should always be treated with respect. Also, younger musicians just beginning to build their audiences ultimately have to endure far worse – murmuring conversations during the performance, drunkenness, heckling. The odd cough is ultimately nothing much to worry about in comparison.

He can get away with this kind of contemptible and condescending behaviour because he is, even now, still the very best. Whilst the more hard-working Herbie Hancock has settled into a comfortable and repetitive routine, Jarrett still plays with a physicality and primal urgency that is basically sexual. All those grunts, moans and groans that his critics could never abide, whilst now perhaps less prevalent, are still there – accompanied by quite extraordinary physical gestures. He stands up when he’s especially impassioned, almost humping the piano. There really is as much physical ecstasy as cerebral effort involved in the process of making music for this man.

He has certainly stopped innovating now, performing exclusively with his Standards Trio and as a solo pianist. There have been no fresh contexts whatsoever for many years. Perhaps this is something to do with the effects of the chronic fatigue syndrome he endured for some time, or perhaps it’s inextricably linked with his very conscious rejection of the process of composition. Whatever the reason, this admittedly outstanding concert doesn’t offer much that’s new or unpredictable.

What it does achieve, with a generosity of spirit not evident in Jarrett’s irascible outward personality, is a very contrived but hugely satisfying summary of all the key strands of his long career. The pieces are short in comparison with his brilliant extended improvised concerts that are so revered (Koln, Paris, Bremen and Vienna especially) – but we still have the recordings for that. These concise expositions of his central concerns are expressive and move from the tightly controlled to the unrepentantly emotional.

Jarrett has said ‘the older a person gets, the more simplicity is profound – timing is the complex part of simplicity’. Much of this concert was an inspiring illustration of his point. He plays lush or impressionistic pieces with a very strong harmonic base and occasionally even indulges himself with a twelve bar blues. Yet it’s the way he develops these forms, with a language that is fluent both lyrically and rhythmically, that truly astonishes. He always imbues this flowing, spontaneous music with emotional depth, even at his most ponderous and reflective (as in the opening piece). The blues pieces he performs tonight border on barrelhouse boogie cliche at times (particularly the playful encore), but there’s always an intriguing ambiguity as to whether they are being played with a four to the bar or two to the bar feel, which creates palpable tension.

Elsewhere, there’s an example of his more atonal preoccupations, during which he also gets to exercise his considerable dexterity and four encores which offer concessions to other aspects of his work. There’s a rare outing for one of his most affecting compositions (‘My Song’) and a swooning, thoroughly charming take on ‘Over the Rainbow’. The audience are understandably elated and I’m left speechless with mirth at Jarrett’s pompous long bows and clasped hands act.

During this protracted ceremony I’m struck by the observation that even the very best, with all their ego and conviction, have some kind of vulnerability. After so many years at the highest level, Jarrett still needs this level of rapture and devotion from his followers. If it’s what he feeds on, perhaps this makes his snarly outbursts less objectionable.