Showing posts with label Jan Garbarek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jan Garbarek. Show all posts

Saturday 14 November 2015

Plowing one's own furrow

This is a review of a gig that James Farm gave at Saffron Hall

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


15 November

This is a review of a gig that James Farm gave at Saffron Hall on Saturday 14 November 2015

As Joshua Redman (tenor (and also alto) saxophone) made us aware, as spokesman / leader, all of the compositions were by members of James Farm, the sidemen being Aaron Parks (on piano (and Rhodes keyboard)), Eric Harland (drums / percussion), and Matt Penman (double-bass)


Set-list (one undivided set) :

1. Two steps ~ Matt Penman

2. If by air ~ Joshua Redman

3. Unknown* ~ Aaron Parks

4. City folk ~ Joshua Redman

run together with

5. Farms ~ Aaron Parks

6. Aspirin ~ Joshua Redman

7. North star ~ Eric Harland


Encore :

8. Otherwise ~ Aaron Parks




The gig at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW) opened with the full quartet of James Farm (@jamesfarmmusic), because sometimes it dropped down to the classic trio of piano, bass and drums when Redman wandered around to the other side of the stage for a breather, and ‘to listen in’, and with Penman’s (1) ‘Two steps’ : with Harland (drums), Penman laid down a bass-pattern, overlaid by Parks (on piano), and then Redman came in softly on tenor.

With time, Redman moved to a breathy voice, with a slightly ‘flattened’, melancholic tone, and this was the first in a versatile employment, across the set, of differing tone-qualities and timbres. In this, he was amply matched by Parks, who evoked a rain-drenched mood before, not for the last time with these numbers, this one became syncopated. That paved the way for some bluesy playing from Redman, which was also go-ahead, exploring soulful aspects of the tune in honeyed terms – the overall feel was incredibly loose and sassy as it concluded.


Apart from gentle cymbals, Redman gave a solo statement of the theme of his (2) ‘If by air’, and, as the others joined in, his playing was freely placed and elegiac. As he dropped back, and we heard him more alongside Harland’s drums and Penman’s bass, there was the first of several feelings of being reminded of Keith Jarrett. Whether others sensed that, too, we were being taken, with piano textures underneath, to other places in this gig. A change of pace led into a simple, unadorned statement of the theme, which developed a rhythmic overlay, until there was a holiday / celebratory feel to the whole.

As leader, Redman gave the impression of a skilled pilot of the quartet, but (as he did when going over to the mixing-desk) of being all right with letting the group form a trio, where Parks could be exploratory : in fact, he was rocking it, and impressing with the colours and dimensions in his playing. As the initiation of a sort of extended coda to the piece, when Redman had come back in, he gave us a style of cyclic repetition, and, with his ripples of scales, James Farm was tearing it up by the close.


At this point, and with some playful irony when saying it (pretending that he had forgotten the venue, etc.), Redman told us that it was a great honour and a true privilege to be at... Saffron Hall (and he had seemed quite surprised at the reception and attention that the first two numbers had received). More seriously, after naming the preceding items and introducing the other players and himself, he alluded to the attacks in Paris over night, and offered, as an antidote to violence and destruction, musical ‘experiences of the moment’, and, in it, the artists baring their souls as part of common humanity.


Parks’ (3) ‘Unknown’* featured, when he presented its recursive theme solo, a prominently repeated note. Redman, now playing on alto and coming in softly with ‘tapping’ from Harland (who was using soft beaters on the drums), presented a pure, high sax tone first, and then intervallic leaps up and down. As the piece developed, the other members established a solid beat, and with ‘firm’ piano from Parks, for Redman’s warm and rounded tone, and with the energy of the beat for him to lay back on. Over time, it emerged that they were rocking up the tune, until Redman took himself out, and the pace stepped down. When he came in again, he was in a contemplative frame, and less 'bright', and ‘Unknown’ drew to a close, with Parks using the sustaining-pedal to hold a moment in the air.


Redman switched back to tenor for (4) ‘City folk’, and seemed to float notes towards us, as a dance-rhythm materialized (bossa nova ?). Penman began playing in his higher register, and introduced a tap (from the case of his bass ?) – here (as earlier in the set ?), a short unacknowledged solo, which gave way to Parks playing expansively and with drums more prominent. Again, an acoustic space to be punctuated by a feeling of purity from Redman, bringing a ‘straighter’ sound-quality. From this place, we slipped away into a clear solo for Penman, with him up and down the finger-board of the bass, and using a ‘slap’ style of playing.

Then, with cymbal added in, along with Harland clicking the rim of his drum, we heard Parks sounding wide, and nearly ‘lush’ (so the notes say ?), on piano – another spot where Harland, Penman and he just took up as a trio. With Redman’s energetic re-entry, over what turned into Messiaen-like spaced piano-chords, one became aware that the ensemble’s playing resembled a ladder, with a sense of modulating ascent – and, as earlier in the set, Harland could be seen in wonderment at Redman, as he was picking up the number and going with it :

Here, Redman was pushing – and circling – through with his sax, and with a confident and uncomplicated tone, a part of the set that felt truly at its nascent peak, for its elongated elaboration, and the punch and invention of Redman’s performance. Eventually, the number came right down to Harland using the end of his stick on the centre of a cymbal, to the subtle rattle of shells, to percussive space noises, and to minimal contributions of texture from Parks.


As ‘City folk’ ended, it was not with its absolute end, and it became clear that what turned out to be (5) ‘Farms’ (Parks) was arriving. James Farm was creatively talking matters over to itself – and in communion with itself and its thoughts – in this ‘baring of souls’, there on stage, to which Redman had drawn our attention. This is what is at the heart of what the best of jazz means, that it can have a provisionality to it, and, in that, a quality of responsiveness and spontaneity : trying may not always work, or catch the right cadence or mood, but is it not so important that the attempt is made** ?

Here, a new, dance-like riff made itself known (which felt like waltzing ?), and we heard open, ‘sounded’ figures on piano. When Redman came in, he brought a richness of tone, alongside Harland on brushes, and the use of twang in Penman’s bass-notes : his sax was moody, with short runs, accents, and held notes. Perhaps echoing an (as yet) unplaced standard, there was a ‘relaxed’ feel, with Parks balladic, expressive, urbane on piano, until we wound up to tenor to the fore, and on a strong beat. Yet, in the event, a very different ending, with piping from Redman, Harland on brushes, and Parks gently letting chords reverberate.


For Redman’s (6) ‘Apsirin’, Parks switched to a Rhodes keyboard, making sequences of three-chord statements, as if they were spoken utterances (a fall, and then a greater rise). This was a multi-patterned number, with a strong ensemble feel, and which migrated from being flowingly tender to an energized and passionate section.

Parks now switched to a setting on the Rhodes as if of a chime, with minor bell-like overtones, and the intention, at any rate, appeared to be that Redman and he would alternate, with the former making relatively short, and fluid and increasingly faster, responses to Parks' passages. However, whether cues from Parks were being missed or not clearly given, this section did not often appear to flow, and one must credit the effort and the risk, because Parks and he did get ‘into line’, and the piece could grow, and then end with drums and the triple-chord motif.


Redman, introducing Eric Harland’s (7) ‘North star’ as the closing item, said of him that he is ‘the most optimistic’ person that he knows, and that there is not a sad song of Eric’s : the composition was also quite a challenging one, in that the beat had been multi-divided between time-signatures, with the further effect that there was an integral interruption to it (Harland is, after all, a highly experienced drummer, as well as a composer).

When Harland was laying this pattern down, one could see that the other players, such as Parks, were attempting it, but not straightaway picking it up, so all credit, again, to James Farm for playing this number from their City Folk album live, and choosing to do so as the closer. For a moment, one saw Matt Penman bowing his bass, around the time that Parks passed over to Redman, and the two of them were then left again to explore Penman’s intense bass, with Parks supporting, in the trio.

Redman, whether in response to a sudden inspiration or hearing a pre-arranged cue, then had the conundrum of getting back in from the other side of the stage, because he found that there was no navigable route between drum-kit and the bass-amp, or between Penman and the far end of the piano… When back on (he jumped over, past his own playback speaker), he produced an echoey, transparent tone, and then the drums came up, Penman’s bass became strong, and Redman presented what sounded like strokes in Morse.

Between them, with Redman fleetingly placing notes over the top, Harland and Parks were growing the sound, until they fell back into a quieter mode, to which Redman added a ‘wider’, more open sax-tone, and started blending in and out of the whole. Later, as he moved in and out of the groove, came scales (or fragments of them) and trills, and then the overall sensation became that of pulsation, and of a textured backdrop to a driving force. Just before the close and a decrescendo, Redman started playing more breathily, and we ended with drums, strummed bass-notes, and a short flash of harmonics.


Needless to say, a very appreciative house was intent on making clear that it would not be satisfied without hearing a little more…

Building on his earlier irony, Joshua Redman suggested that it was going to be a surprise that James Farm (@jamesfarmmusic) was going to give Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW) ‘another song’ – after all that applause seeking it !

It was (8) ‘Otherwise’, one more by Aaron Parks (and from the new album – or, as Redman put it, from the second of the last two albums - which, he went on to say, are the only two albums – yet...).

Parks presented something funkyish, even slightly spooky, before becoming more rhythmic, and Redman now adopted a more relaxed intonation, but with a hint of angularity. The initial ‘feel’ from the group was as smooth as Henry Mancini’s title-theme from The Pink Panther (1963), but later reminded a little, quite appropriately, of Keith Jarrett : his so-called European quartet again (especially the albums Belonging and My Song), with the rise and fall as of Garbarek on sax, and a swinging piano style and a Jarrett-type ‘punch’.

Redman’s tenor soon became more pulsing in nature, and pushing the song forward with his playing, as well as making note repetition part of his expression – and with Parks using the structure of his chord progressions to create a tension. From that, Redman brought us back into the initial smooth section, and, after momentarily giving us some funk, the very end was sax flutter-notes and drums.


Reluctantly, members of the audience at Saffron Hall accepted that the gig was over, and pretty much on schedule, and queued to buy their CDs and get them signed...









End-notes

* The title ‘Unknown’ chimed with a discussion about names of works and bands before the gig (it has been told that ‘James Farm’ derives from those of the group’s members, which at least seems to hold good for J[oshua] + A[aron] + M[att] + E[ric]), in which one observation had been that, since the start of the twentieth century – and no doubt highly confusingly so for curators ! – ‘Untitled’ has been a prominent label for works of art.

** Indeed, the evening's programme-notes (by Peter Bacon), once they have put the members of James Farm in their jazz and own contexts, go on to provide an overview of the tracks on the City Folk album, and then say :

But while that may be how it all worked out on the recordings, in live concert it might evolve in a completely different way. Aaron Parks has remarked that the real challenges in playing with James Farm are not only in finding ways to improvise over the song-based structure that the band favours, but also in dealing with the unpredictability of these always adventurous and challenging musicians. […]




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Saturday 20 June 2015

He’s the daddy ! : Colin Currie DJs at Saffron Hall (Part II)

This reviews Colin Currie Group’s all-Steve-Reich concert at Saffron Hall (Part II)

More views of or before Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


27 April


This is Part II of a review of The Colin Currie Group’s all-Steve-Reich programme, with Synergy Vocals, at Saffron Hall on Sunday 26 April at 7.30 p.m.

The review is in two Parts : Part I is reviewed here



Music for 18 Musicians (19741976)

Impressionistically, let us start where (after a beautiful first half) we ended the night at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW), with the huge feat that is Music for 18 Musicians, and which only commenced after a sacred silence :




This was music heard as it really should be, live, not as we might know it, say, from YouTube (@YouTube), Spotify®, our own collection of physical recordings, or from the Live In Concert programme, on week days on Radio 3 (@BBCRadio3)…

Though orchestral concerts may still be their own type of monumental enterprise, which usually guarantee that we will hear, for example, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 more or less as we know it, those things will not bear comparison with what is outside the everyday the stuff of what is, say, uniquely best at Aldeburgh Festival (@aldeburghmusic) [e.g. Gerard McBurney's A Pierre Dream at The Maltings, Snape], in Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (@HCMFUK), or in a jazz-gig that is devastatingly in the moment**.

What had Colin Currie (@colincurrieperc), with Colin Currie Group (@ColinCurrieGp) and Synergy Vocals (@vocalsynergy) wanted to bring us in Music for 18 Musicians ? One cannot usefully summarize this work, but best feel for its over-arching structure, behind the sensation of pulses within pulses, patterns within patterns :

Probably, Reich predominantly does not wish us to be in wonder per se – as might seem to be what Michael Nyman’s** music expects of us or, as with that of Philip Glass**, to be mesmerized ? No, something else, here part of which is to do with, in purely visual terms, how the percussionists, as well as some of the singers and pianists, moved around the Saffron stage, and gave us sounds that cohered, coalesced, metamorphosed, and fragmented***.



As one example, how the playing of the large, bright-golden shakers (which were also shaped as if to resemble ice-cream cornets) was passed, baton style, to pianist Huw Watkins (@WatkinsHuw) : Watkins started shaking a second set in tandem with, but more quietly than, the percussionist whom he was relieving, and then the latter, between shakes, deftly dropped out, to be free to play another part, and which gave Watkins variety from the piano riff that he seemed to have been repeating.

Or likewise, on marimbas, the fact that someone else in the ensemble, who, on another of the concert grands, had been doubling up (with bass-textures), slipped into the pattern of first the right-hand pair of beaters of the person from whom she was taking over, and then both, so that he could walk around her and away, to his next role. Even more so, say, than when (in a move that, too, mimics dance in a larger-scale orchestral setting) an entry can be seen to have been given to the second desk of violins, but just so that the first desk can come in with the key entry, or counter-response, this appearance of instrumentalists in sympathy / synergy with each other was almost balletic : Seeing is hearing.

For words such as sympathetic (for co-resonating strings, etc.), concord, consonance and harmony are all, not without reason, integrated into the language of music and musicality : as was joyously noted, during this performance, When I lose faith in what humanity is, or exists for, moments of this kind tell me.




With any concert, of course, even if only through a video (where one cannot choose what to see), one can enhance one’s understanding of the sound that is being made (when, where, and how, and by what means), and can learn to view one’s way into what is being heard, e.g. which instrument / player is contributing a tone or effect. Just as, here, one could identify, from the movement of her lips, the high soprano (credited as Joanna Forbes L’Estrange) from the four seated and loosely microphoned singers all of whom, at times, came to resemble wordless angel-voices… (Or, from the distribution of the parts in other repertoire, isolate the singers with exquisite vocal-colour in Stile Antico, maybe, or The Sixteen.)


All was in keeping with the poetic formality of the lay-out of the stage (no doubt specified in the score (as since confirmed by buying the recording pictured)), with two ranks of sopranos looking at each other across a paired violinist and cellist, who faced twin clarinettists (on B flat and bass instruments). Far back, two twinned grand pianos, and forward of which, in the intervening space, several pairs of likewise twinned marimbas, a golden vibraphone centrally, and, behind it, two facing xylophones. All with feedback monitors, and with a sound engineer at the back of the auditorium, who later confirmed that, when he detects interference fringes, or the xylophone is played with attack near the end of the work, he can bring up the sound a little to give those things emphasis.



Adding or taking away layers, we saw the care with which Colin Currie curated the performance, clearly signalling each change of section (as, on a smaller scale and amongst nods and other gestures, we saw the principal clarinettist doing, by raising the bell of his instrument, seeming to mark the number of iterations) : it felt as though Currie oversaw it, and maybe had licence (from Reich or his score), to vary the emphasis of each section, given by its duration.

Afterwards, no wonder that those eighteen people linked hands : to us, they were linked in our hearts and souls already, and this was their triumph, that they had communicated something so special, and in all its fullness we were full of magic, and of admiration for Reich’s, and their, conception of this work.




Part I of the review (Music for Pieces of Wood (1973) and Quartet (2009)) is here



End-notes

* Let alone one such as Jan Garbarek’s one-set Barbican Hall concert at the time of the Dresden album (2010 ?)…

** One has to suggest that there is little more than a superficial relationship between any of these actually quite different and differentiated composers, or, indeed, between most of those who are thought of as together as writing minimalist compositions.

*** Fragmentation fragmented, only by us, so that, in the repetitions (or near-repetitions), we could focus on what the cello contributed, or some other instrumental, or human, voice.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Saturday 6 June 2015

An equal partnership, full of felicity

This is a review of a gig given by Tommy Smith (tenor) and Brian Kellock (piano)

More views of or before Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


6 June

This is a (delayed) review of a gig given at The Stables, Wavendon, by Tommy Smith and Brian Kellock on Tuesday 2 June at 8.00 p.m.

The jazz world / market remains a dazzlingly small one, and no disrespect to Stacey Kent’s enchantingly quirky vocal-style, but there is no way that the ticket-price of her gig at The Stables (on 1 July) at Wavendon, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes (@stablesMK) should be £9.00 more than that for someone of the class of Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith ! Let alone excellently partnered as they have played together for some years by pianist Brian Kellock. (More, if one considers that an announcement offering two tickets for the price of one had been made.)




Staff of The Stables, talking about the gig beforehand and the fact that it was two sets of fifty minutes, seemed puzzled that it was piano and sax, not a trio they had clearly not figured that a jazz trio is, typically, piano with bass and drums, whereas it is larger groupings, from a quartet upwards, where one has a voice (human or instrumental, since clarinets, saxes, trumpets, trombones, flutes, etc., have much in common with our voices), or a pair of such voices.


The gig tended to alternate slower / quieter numbers with livelier / faster ones, and the first transition needed to bed down, after a number by Michel Legrand (he had a piece in each set, as did hits for Glenn Miller). For there is something banal about ‘I want to be happy’* (from Tea for Two), and, after quite a right-ahead statement of it, the duo took a time to work their magic, before getting it away into jazzified territory : they did it, because they can do anything, but the shock of the new did not subside straightaway.

After that, and with Hoagy Carmichael given an elaborate piano introduction of that dizzying kind, where one can both not catch the tune or even confidently state any more what ‘Stardust’ should sound like, they treated the repertoire as raw material for their ever-inventive treatments.




At times, they came very close to home, sweetly rendering the melody, but, with the same reverence, embellishing, enlivening and abandoning all but its shape. Both men have a strong rhythmic quality to their playing**, not just, with Brian Kellock, elements of boogie-woogie, blues or stride, but in their phrasing, and in fitting so well together, though both are from the harmonics and note-pattern of their chosen standards creating before us, with and through their practised feel for chordal variation / progression, and changing accentuation.


If the staff at The Stables had been worried about any lack of difference, from piece to piece, in the sound of a duo, they need not have been standard orchestral playing can easily be less varied than that of a small ensemble, if one is attuned to the dynamics, pace and resources of chamber musicians :

In December 2014, hearing Jan Garbarek, majestic again with The Hilliard Ensemble*** , one reflected on his distinctive sound-quality, sharp in a sort of way that maybe (as we know it to be so ?) suggests Scandinavian and what it is that gives those players who have their own voice a tone that is all theirs, even if, of course, it will be cast in a variety of hues. Sound-production is always going to be subject to a number of factors, but, with Garbarek, it is only partly his attack, and more, at the heart of it, how he breathes with the instrument, and infuses his phrasing with the felt physicality of the breath.



Calling Tommy Smith’s tone ‘straight’ might sound as if it implies that he is square, but consider the word in phrases such as He looked at me straight or In a straight-ahead linking passage, and think again. Nothing simple / simplistic in what he does, but a clear and candid way of delivery that gets right to the point, and, bringing to his approach, a wealth of skill and experience that lets him place juxtapositions of register, breath-quality, intensity and feeling with strong, intuitive assurance.


Something that Tommy Smith did in one piece, very atmospherically, was directing the sound of his tenor into the body of the piano. At first just so that his playing came off the lid onto the strings, but, later, pointing the outlet from the horn onto the strings, and even with the bell of his instrument inside the frame.


During the interval and quick to get to the foyer, one found Tommy Smith, all ready to sign CDs for just £10 (and Brian Kellock soon joined him). He was asked about his breathing, because his breath-control and the way that, sometimes almost speaking, he breathes through his sax had been a joy to witness. As he was going to say in the second set about the ensembles that he had been playing with (from a quartet to new compositions with a symphony orchestra, where he needed to use a harder reed), as well as that talk of directing his sound into the piano, he answered that it depends what one is playing and with whom. But he was very alive to the idea of someone watching him as he played, breathing through these longer phrases, and having wondered how he did that.



When we resumed, we were told that some had come up, made themselves known, and bought CDs and got them signed, so we were also given an explanation of the title of the new one, Whispering of the Stars not a piece of vanity that the pair are stars, but how, in the North of Norway (where Tommy Smith apparently spends some time), the effect of exhaling into the cold air is described.


We were also told us a little more about blowing into an open piano :

* As a twelve-year-old at a school in Edinburgh that did not have many resources, there had been the stringed frame (no more) of a piano on the wall, and Tommy Smith had liked playing notes at it (which, he swiftly revealed, had been the opening ones of the only tune that he knew, the ‘Pink Panther’ theme)




* In a concert with The Stables’ own Sir John Dankworth to celebrate 150 years of the sax (so in 1991 ?), he had a piece for eight saxes, JD and his Eight Dwarves, but also a solo piece, likewise played with a pianist (but in the dark), and also into the body of the piano which was reported in the press as having used a synthesizer...

* Brian Kellock, he observed, had been using moments of opportunity to determine his use of the sustaining pedal


Come a second Gershwin song, ‘They can’t take that away from me’, it seemed (he was not quite clear) that Brian Kellock might have heard Tommy Smith sing at some point, when the latter admitted that he did not know the words anyway. (Behind, and unheard on stage, a woman said The way you wear your hat.) In the light of this observation, it was curious that Tommy Smith chose to tell us that he was puzzled by what the title might mean, for, in fact, the lyrics are plain enough : the song must have a context, where, even if one separates a couple, the memory of qualities that one observed in, or of experiences with, the other cannot be negated (I’ll miss your fond caress).

What, if permitted, would have made a great photograph was Tommy Smith, standing the base of the bell of his sax on the floor, and leaning on the neck, during an extended piano solo. After the gig, one joked with them about the longest that he had had to wait, and Brian Kellock quipped As long as possible !



In the first set, one could see Tommy Smith, with respect tinged with amusement, look down the length of the instrument, under the lid, for an indication from his colleague it did come, but it was a long time coming, both times, as the other really got absorbed by his solo, and away into a distant fairway, from which he yet came back.


They finished with nothing as late as a tune from 1927 (Tommy Smith had managed to suggest, earlier, that one’s relation to a date subsequent to one’s birth made a song from that year not earlier, but a later one), but from around five hundred years ago, whose title, in Gaelic, he did not try to pronounce. The meditative tone of the piece and its playing brought the gig to a different type of close, where each, as we applauded, could celebrate the other’s artistry and the whole evening.


On leaving The Stables, they were getting into their hire-car (Tommy Smith behind the wheel), so they were saluted next stop was Brighton, and one wished them well for that.


End-notes

* Which Tommy Smith was getting at, in the second set, when talking about musicals and ‘The Surrey with the Fringe on Top’ (from Oklahoma (Rodgers and Hammerstein)) : revealingly, given that he has even less reason to be called what he is than Chick Corea** (Tommy Smith is not his real name), he told us that he had had to watch his uncle in Les Misérables, as Jean Valjean, fifteen times, because he had been in the show as many times (although he begged to see the backstage effects on the last occasion...).

We also learnt that he had been forced, in childhood, to side with his father against a maternal predisposition towards The Stylistics, and (to which Tommy Smith ascribed a painful side) The Twist, in favour of Glenn Miller and other jazz influences, so we had a lively take on a well-known Miller number :



** Especially so in a Rumba by Chick Corea called Armando, which, as was rightly suggested, is his Christian name ('Chick' is a nickname that has stuck, not uniquely in jazz).

*** In their final collaboration, and also in the concert after which the singers were to cease being a vocal quartet : until one first saw them, it was barely credible that just four men could produce such a rich and consistent texture.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)