London: Jazz

[rhythmaning]

By the time I got back to the Queen Elisabeth Hall, it was packed. I was surprised - I don't think of jazz being that popular, and even if it were, Mike Westbrook wouldn't be thought of as that popular: he usually plays quite avant garde music (which I rather like: his Art Wolf project was broadcast on Radio 3 during the summer, and it was stunning, exciting music). But then this was the first concert of the London Jazz Festival, and it was free; and I think just about every contemporary jazz fan in London had turned up - together with a great many musicians (I recognised Chris Biscoe, a great alto player who has played with Andy Sheppard, Carla Bley - and Mike Westbrook); it is easy to tell the musicians at gigs: they are the ones who stand around talking and drinking.

There were no seats available, but then someone noticed a stack of fold-away chairs, and I noticed him grabbing one from the top of an eight foot high pile; so I did the same. (I doubt I would have unless I had seen someone doing so first.) An old guy - much shorter than me - asked if I could get him one, so I gave him my chair, and went back to grab a couple more (one for me, one for his wife); and by then everyone standing had seen the first bloke and then me help themselves, and pile diminished, until it was all gone. The foyer of the QEH was jammed - there was no free space at all.

Westbrook uses lots of different bands: Art Wolf is a quartet (sometimes a sextet); he has big bands. This was the Village Band - apparently formed in the village in Dorset where the Westbrooks live: no rhythm instruments, just brass - saxes, trumpet, trombone, english horn; and euphonium. They played tunes from the broad history of jazz - numbers by Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton, together with Mingus (Goodbye Pork Pie Hat - so they had me won other from the outset - and Jelly Roll Soul), Monk (Monk's Mood), Ellington (The Mooche) and a tune by Tad Dameron (If You Could See Me Now); and a long suite by Westbrook and his wife, which compared the internet to the freak shows of Victorian England (no, really).

It was a great concert: informal, but fun. It was really interesting to hear those tunes interpreted by the brass instrumentation: it was modern jazz as if it were played by an early New Orleans marching band. I sat there drinking Guinness, enjoying the music: really fun.

Then I went into the Purcell Room - part of the same complex as the QEH, for a concert by two artists who were knew to me: I had decided to see new names to me, rather than old favourites - just to experiment with new things. It is a while since I have gone out on a limb, trying something new that I didn't know. It made it very interesting, but only partly successful.

First up was the Neil Cowley Trio. Playing high energy, exciting and intense music, they are going to get really bored being compared with Esbjorn Svennson Trio - but it is a fair comparison (even their website makes it; though it also says they sound like the Clash - which they might, had the Clash ever played acoustic jazz, with a piano and upright bass and a really good jazz drummer*). This was a really good band: the three musicians communicated well - they were very together (some of the tunes had series of intricate stops and false endings; they were on top of the lot of them). It was great a gig; and Cowley came across as a very genial guy - he clearly knew a lot of the audience (which included his primary school teacher - "Where did you go wrong?", Cowley asked) - and the music had a lot of humour and wit, too. I must get their CD.

Second on the bill was Nik Bartsch's Ronin: a very different prospect. They were billed as "zen-funk", sufficient in itself to make me intrigued. A quintet, with Bartsch on piano, a six-string electric bass player, a drummer, a percussionist and a bass-clarinetist, they were clearly rhythm-heavy. And the clarinetist wasn't playing harmony or melody, but simply adding to the rhythm - and the pianist was simply twiddling in the background - it was all a bit much. Dominated by the bass and drums, it reminded me of the intro to Massive Attack's Safe From Harm** - and it sounded pretty good. But the next track sounded exactly the same; and the next; and the next. After a while, it was all a bit wearing - there was little dynamism, and frankly not much happened. It looked good - stark, Brechtian lighting (like a Bunnymen gig) - but it was ultimately unrewarding: it didn't go anywhere, there was no build up nor release.

It might have been different in a different venue - if people had been dancing, say - but in the seated only Purcell Room, it was all a bit flat. I left after about an hour, when it was clear that they only knew one tune, and they were determined to play it and play it and play it. Definitely a case where less would have been more.

It also struck me as curious to match Ronin with Neil Cowley - they created very different moods - why have Cowley as the support for Ronin?

It was a similar situation the following night. First on the bill in the Queen Elisabeth Hall was the Zoe Rahman Trio. I specifically wanted to see Rahman: she won various prizes last year, and was nominated for the Mercury prize, so I was curious. She had played recently in Edinburgh, but I missed her, so I took the advantage of catching her in London. She was good, but not overly - she didn't really bear comparison to Neil Cowley. I think a lot of it might have been down to the venue: her trio were spread across the broad stage of the QEH, and I think they found it hard to fill the auditorium with their sound. It all seemed a bit distant.

(I was discussing this recently with a friend, a jazz promoter who has twenty years experience of managing gigs; I reminded her of how the pianist Michel Pettruciani had managed to completely fill the Royal Festival Hall, captivating his audience from the outset at a concert she had run, and to which she insisted I had to go. She said that this was down to the fact that nowadays, musicians got famous too quickly - to meet the needs of fitting all the audience in, they play big halls, whereas "Michel had to pay his dues in the small clubs, so he could grow in stature..." This was a bit unfortunate, since Pettruciani, although a giant of a musician, was actually very small - he suffered from brittle bone disease. He is sorely missed.)

I definitely think seeing Rahman in a more intimate venue would have been worthwhile; in Edinburgh, she played the Lot, a small club that holds 150 at most. I should have made the effort to see her there. In London, she was good; but why was she not matched with Neil Cowley the previous night? I am sure that would have worked.

Whereas she was first up to Richard Bona. I had not heard of him; and three numbers in, I knew I wasn't in the mood for the latin-funk he was playing. I lasted three numbers before leaving. It just wasn't my scene.

So I saw five bands, loved two, liked one, thought one was ok and hated one. Not too bad a score sheet.

* Topper Headon was reputedly a very good jazz drummer - apparently he could turn his sticks to any style; But although the Clash did play Jimmy Jazz (zed zed; zee zee zee), they never played jazz.

**Safe From Harm is based around a sample of bass and drums lifted from a mid-seventies' fusion track by Billy Cobham - so this isn't necessarily inappropriate.