Edinburgh Jazz Festival
Aug. 12th, 2007 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhythmaningLast week, I went to four concerts in the Edinburgh Jazz Festival; four consecutive evenings. Three of the concerts were in the Bosco Theatre, part of the Spiegel Garden complex they erected in George Sq for the Jazz and Fringe festivals; a large, circus-like tent, it was a much better venue than the Spiegel Tent – when I last went to the Spiegel Tent, it was full of glass and mirrors, which created lousy sightlines and awful echoes: it was a lousy venue for music.
But the Bosco Theatre I rather liked.
The first band I saw there was Happy Apple. Led by drummer Dave King – his other band The Bad Plus had played the previous evening (and both bands would play together the following night, as Bad Apple) – this was a saxophone trio, with Erik Fratzke on electric bass and Michael Lewis on tenor saxophone. The first set was good, but the second was excellent – they caught fire. They were quite off the wall – free but rhythmic, the bass being pretty steady, the sax freaky and the drums quirky. At times they seemed positively Ornette-like (which I learned later was quite appropriate).
Fratzke played the electric bass posing as if he were in a rock band – maybe there is something about the way one holds the instrument that just makes one pose (and whilst one can pose with an electric bass, I couldn’t help thinking that acoustic bass is much much cooler).
Lewis was very animated – leaping up and down, practically to his knees, blowing all the while; and he blowing up and down the dots, too. It was generally quite powerful, though on the softer numbers, he brought a touch of beauty.
But the centre of the band was definitely King. He held the mike, made all the announcements (and kept up a bit of banter between the tunes, telling anecdotes which were as weird and wacky as one might have expected – for instance, about the glee the band felt when they received a royalties statement showing they had sold a single copy of a CD in North Korea…), and drove the music. Playing somewhere between jazz and rock – he didn’t really swing much that evening – he was continually inventive, finding new ways of keeping the beat going.
The band were on the border between jazz and rock – though the bass was definitely more jazz, and the sax was way out there. The tunes didn’t have a rock feel. Some of the quieter tunes sounded rather like material from King’s Bad Plus colleague Reid Anderson (and I really can’t recommend The Vastness of Space highly enough) – perhaps King has absorbed some of Anderson’s style by osmosis; or perhaps they are in a band together because they think the same way. Whatever, it works – there were some lovely melodies hidden within the freedom and anarchy.
The next night, it was another does of Dave King; indeed, Dave King in three different incarnations. The first set of Bad Apple was played by the Bad Plus Only three numbers – over half an hour or so – and it was interesting to compare them with Happy Apple the previous night. The tunes were slightly differently constructed (sure, it’s hard to tell on three numbers – but I have seen this band a lot, and it quickly came back to me); and there was a piano. Ethan Iverson – a regular visitor to Edinburgh, with or without King and Anderson – plays quite sparse piano: he likes Monk (and last year he played a set of Monk tunes), and often his input into the music is just a few chords here and there.
I believe Reid Anderson is the real star of the Bad Plus: his bass playing gives the band both solidity and flexibility – he allows Iverson and King to play around more. And he writes beautiful tunes which build in the intensity.
Then there was another, short set from Happy Apple. Their last tune was excellent – building and building to a climax, Lewis wailing on sax against the solid electric bass and King’s insistent drums. Wonderful stuff.
After the break, all five musicians came back on as Bad Apple. (Three of the five sport shaven heads; I couldn’t help feeling they should have been called Bald Apple. Lewis and Anderson seemed resolutely hirsute.) Before the concert, the Canadian couple sitting next to me had asked me what to expect, since they knew neither band; I had replied that it would probably wacky and a bit “Ornette-ish”. So I felt very clever when King announced that Bad Apple were going to play a set comprised solely of numbers by Ornette Coleman.
King explained that the only other time his two trios had come together was at a celebration of Coleman’s music to mark his birthday a while back, and that Coleman had been a big influence on all the members of both bands. That had certainly been apparent in the Happy Apple gig.
The music they played spanned Coleman’s career, including tunes from his collaboration with Pat Metheny, Song X. Fratzke played electric guitar throughout the concert, leaving Anderson to take the bass duties. Lewis switched to alto sax (Coleman’s main instrument; I was relieved that none of the band chose to emulate Coleman by trying to play trumpet or violin).
It was very good: exciting, sometimes wild and manic, sometimes gentler. King surprised me with his more swinging style. The freedom was very much in evidence, but like Coleman’s Prime Time bands, they were rather funky too.
With Anderson centre stage, he and Lewis worked up a strong relationship – Lewis was as energetic as before, bobbing around as he blew his saxophone. Fratzke and Iverson seemed rather sidelined – they made key contributions, with some beautiful guitar and piano, but the trio of Anderson, Lewis and King seemed to dominate.
The next night, it was off to one of Edinburgh more usual jazz venues, The Lot. This functions as a jazz club throughout the year, and last time I was there – back in February (which seems like an awful long time between visits!) – it was for a concert by alto saxophonist Laura MacDonald. Then, she was playing with a Norwegian drummer; this time, it was meant to be a collaboration with trumpeter Ryan Quigley, but Quigley (a fiery player who excels at hitting the high notes) had cancelled, so it was more or less a quartet date, with the Paul Harrison on piano, Aidan O’Donnell on bass and Tom Bancroft on drums – an excellent band.
Perhaps because of the missing trumpeter, the band fell back on a mixed set of MacDonald originals and old standards – including several old Charlie Parker numbers. It was good but it felt safe: MacDonald played as if perhaps her heart wasn’t really in it. Perhaps it wasn’t – most of the band were part of Bancroft’s band who were playing a later set, so maybe they felt they had to keep something in reserve.
Individually they played really well – Harrison and O’Donnell particularly – but as a band it seemed a bit ordinary.
MacDonald brought on fellow alto player Paul Towndrow for the second set – a curious choice since adding another alto didn’t really extend the dynamics a great deal. Towndrow was excellent, though, playing some great solos.
My last gig of the Jazz Festival was the Zoe Rahman Trio. I saw this band last year in a large, cavernous concert hall, and I thought they’d be much better at a more intimate venue; so I decided to check out the theory at their gig at the Bosco Theatre.
They were great. This was quiet, gentle, contemplative music – Rahman played several Abdullah Ibrahim tunes (thankfully without the reverence that Ibrahim requires), as well as some Monk numbers and several of her own. Her playing was good, but she also presented an air that she was surprised to be there: surprised that anyone would come, and surprised that people would know her music. Before one of the Monk’s tunes – following a couple of her own – she said “And now back to some music you are more familiar with”: but the audience had come to see her play! And she has won many awards for her albums – so people would know what to expect.
It was a good gig, bass player Oli Hayhurst and drummer Gene Calderazzo working well as a unit – they really gelled. Indeed the only downside was that during the quieter moments, the noise outside came through the tent-walls of the theatre.
Oh, and if anyone is wondering why there aren't any photographs of the piano players, it is becasue they sit with their backs to the audience, or at best side on,. and they look away. They are really hard to photograph. But they are great to listen too.>/small>
But the Bosco Theatre I rather liked.
The first band I saw there was Happy Apple. Led by drummer Dave King – his other band The Bad Plus had played the previous evening (and both bands would play together the following night, as Bad Apple) – this was a saxophone trio, with Erik Fratzke on electric bass and Michael Lewis on tenor saxophone. The first set was good, but the second was excellent – they caught fire. They were quite off the wall – free but rhythmic, the bass being pretty steady, the sax freaky and the drums quirky. At times they seemed positively Ornette-like (which I learned later was quite appropriate).
Fratzke played the electric bass posing as if he were in a rock band – maybe there is something about the way one holds the instrument that just makes one pose (and whilst one can pose with an electric bass, I couldn’t help thinking that acoustic bass is much much cooler).
Lewis was very animated – leaping up and down, practically to his knees, blowing all the while; and he blowing up and down the dots, too. It was generally quite powerful, though on the softer numbers, he brought a touch of beauty.
But the centre of the band was definitely King. He held the mike, made all the announcements (and kept up a bit of banter between the tunes, telling anecdotes which were as weird and wacky as one might have expected – for instance, about the glee the band felt when they received a royalties statement showing they had sold a single copy of a CD in North Korea…), and drove the music. Playing somewhere between jazz and rock – he didn’t really swing much that evening – he was continually inventive, finding new ways of keeping the beat going.
The band were on the border between jazz and rock – though the bass was definitely more jazz, and the sax was way out there. The tunes didn’t have a rock feel. Some of the quieter tunes sounded rather like material from King’s Bad Plus colleague Reid Anderson (and I really can’t recommend The Vastness of Space highly enough) – perhaps King has absorbed some of Anderson’s style by osmosis; or perhaps they are in a band together because they think the same way. Whatever, it works – there were some lovely melodies hidden within the freedom and anarchy.
The next night, it was another does of Dave King; indeed, Dave King in three different incarnations. The first set of Bad Apple was played by the Bad Plus Only three numbers – over half an hour or so – and it was interesting to compare them with Happy Apple the previous night. The tunes were slightly differently constructed (sure, it’s hard to tell on three numbers – but I have seen this band a lot, and it quickly came back to me); and there was a piano. Ethan Iverson – a regular visitor to Edinburgh, with or without King and Anderson – plays quite sparse piano: he likes Monk (and last year he played a set of Monk tunes), and often his input into the music is just a few chords here and there.
I believe Reid Anderson is the real star of the Bad Plus: his bass playing gives the band both solidity and flexibility – he allows Iverson and King to play around more. And he writes beautiful tunes which build in the intensity.
Then there was another, short set from Happy Apple. Their last tune was excellent – building and building to a climax, Lewis wailing on sax against the solid electric bass and King’s insistent drums. Wonderful stuff.
After the break, all five musicians came back on as Bad Apple. (Three of the five sport shaven heads; I couldn’t help feeling they should have been called Bald Apple. Lewis and Anderson seemed resolutely hirsute.) Before the concert, the Canadian couple sitting next to me had asked me what to expect, since they knew neither band; I had replied that it would probably wacky and a bit “Ornette-ish”. So I felt very clever when King announced that Bad Apple were going to play a set comprised solely of numbers by Ornette Coleman.
King explained that the only other time his two trios had come together was at a celebration of Coleman’s music to mark his birthday a while back, and that Coleman had been a big influence on all the members of both bands. That had certainly been apparent in the Happy Apple gig.
The music they played spanned Coleman’s career, including tunes from his collaboration with Pat Metheny, Song X. Fratzke played electric guitar throughout the concert, leaving Anderson to take the bass duties. Lewis switched to alto sax (Coleman’s main instrument; I was relieved that none of the band chose to emulate Coleman by trying to play trumpet or violin).
It was very good: exciting, sometimes wild and manic, sometimes gentler. King surprised me with his more swinging style. The freedom was very much in evidence, but like Coleman’s Prime Time bands, they were rather funky too.
With Anderson centre stage, he and Lewis worked up a strong relationship – Lewis was as energetic as before, bobbing around as he blew his saxophone. Fratzke and Iverson seemed rather sidelined – they made key contributions, with some beautiful guitar and piano, but the trio of Anderson, Lewis and King seemed to dominate.
The next night, it was off to one of Edinburgh more usual jazz venues, The Lot. This functions as a jazz club throughout the year, and last time I was there – back in February (which seems like an awful long time between visits!) – it was for a concert by alto saxophonist Laura MacDonald. Then, she was playing with a Norwegian drummer; this time, it was meant to be a collaboration with trumpeter Ryan Quigley, but Quigley (a fiery player who excels at hitting the high notes) had cancelled, so it was more or less a quartet date, with the Paul Harrison on piano, Aidan O’Donnell on bass and Tom Bancroft on drums – an excellent band.
Perhaps because of the missing trumpeter, the band fell back on a mixed set of MacDonald originals and old standards – including several old Charlie Parker numbers. It was good but it felt safe: MacDonald played as if perhaps her heart wasn’t really in it. Perhaps it wasn’t – most of the band were part of Bancroft’s band who were playing a later set, so maybe they felt they had to keep something in reserve.
Individually they played really well – Harrison and O’Donnell particularly – but as a band it seemed a bit ordinary.
MacDonald brought on fellow alto player Paul Towndrow for the second set – a curious choice since adding another alto didn’t really extend the dynamics a great deal. Towndrow was excellent, though, playing some great solos.
My last gig of the Jazz Festival was the Zoe Rahman Trio. I saw this band last year in a large, cavernous concert hall, and I thought they’d be much better at a more intimate venue; so I decided to check out the theory at their gig at the Bosco Theatre.
They were great. This was quiet, gentle, contemplative music – Rahman played several Abdullah Ibrahim tunes (thankfully without the reverence that Ibrahim requires), as well as some Monk numbers and several of her own. Her playing was good, but she also presented an air that she was surprised to be there: surprised that anyone would come, and surprised that people would know her music. Before one of the Monk’s tunes – following a couple of her own – she said “And now back to some music you are more familiar with”: but the audience had come to see her play! And she has won many awards for her albums – so people would know what to expect.
It was a good gig, bass player Oli Hayhurst and drummer Gene Calderazzo working well as a unit – they really gelled. Indeed the only downside was that during the quieter moments, the noise outside came through the tent-walls of the theatre.
Oh, and if anyone is wondering why there aren't any photographs of the piano players, it is becasue they sit with their backs to the audience, or at best side on,. and they look away. They are really hard to photograph. But they are great to listen too.>/small>