Alexi Tuomarila Quartet - 20/05/2006 @ Arts-ô-Bases, Brussels

In years past, I've spent Brussels Jazz Marathons walking, if not 42 kilometres, a fair few between venues indoors and out. No longer. I didn't go on either Friday or Sunday, and on Saturday I pretty much attended just this concert, even though I caught bits of things elsewhere. There's one BJM tradition that I'll probably always participate in, however: eating TUC biscuits. They're one of the main sponsors and hand out seemingly endless amounts for free and I eat seemingly endless amounts of it. I'm not sure how effective a campaign it is, though: I hadn't eaten any TUC since... the last BJM. Also, I missed the Eurovision finals, but it's sort of okay because half of the band is Finnish and I spent time talking to a Finnish couple. So I got my quota of Finland anyway.

Scarily, the last time I saw Alexi was exactly 364 days ago. Alexi's back in Finland now, but is going into the studio today to record his third Quartet CD, with familiar Belgians Nicolas Kummert on saxophone and Teun Verbruggen on drums (although Lionel Beuvens - whom I like more every time I see him - was playing tonight) and newcomer Finn Anntti Lötjönen on bass. He's also recorded a trio album with different musicians that's coming out on a Norwegian label later this year.

Alexi's playing has grown out of his natural reserve: there's a sense of abandon under that measured surface, and a particular brand of funkiness, too. He even stood up and made announcements! Loud! Nicolas usely handles speaking duties. I asked Alexi how come he's started talking on stage, he simply answered "Because I had to." He's a laconic guy.

Nicolas is still contributing some great tunes. "69-8," so-called because it contains 69 8th-notes, had a powerful afro-tinged beat set off by a percussive saxophone riff. For the first half, Nicolas relied on his smooth Garbarek-influenced tone, but later brought out a richer, breathier one, especially during a ferocious duet with Beuvens and on a shambolic-but-fun "Monk's Mood." By the time the theme returned for the close, it had been stripped down into a series of percussive exclamation points.

I'd never heard Anntti before, but he was brilliant (he's a part of this band and this one, which seems more avant). Never more so than during his only solo, taken on the concert's only true ballad: when he ended it by playing only with his left hand high on the neck, coaxing out extremely thin, quiet notes in an unorthodox manner, you could hear a pin drop. Modestly, he attributed the solo's success to it being the only time he didn't have to read the music.

A lot of the tunes were in odd meters, in seven, actually. The unnatural "counting" feel that often happens with odd meters was avoided by means both intentional and accidental. Intentionally, beats were added to the scheme here and there: three bars of 7 with a bar of 8 in their midst, for example. Accidentally, given the band's unrehearsed nature, there were some... let's call them disagreements, that created a fruitfully messy feel.

Cordoba Reunión - 22/01/2006, Brussels

I hadn't been to the Arts-ô-Bases in almost forever and was agreeably surprised by its revamping. The stage has moved from the middle to the back of the long shoebox-shaped club, so it now makes more sense as a performance space. The bar is near the front and, just like at the Sounds, the labyrintine passage to the toilets is stage left. The Morrocan food is good. Owner (?) Abdel still takes the stage at the end of the concert to add his qraqeb to the churning rhythms. One thing still missing, however, is proper heating: we were semi-shivering during the second set. The real temperature contrasted with the warmth of the venue and of the musicians on stage.

Cordoba Reunión is led by drummer/percussionist Minino Garay and includes three other Argentinian musicians. Garay's stage persona is an endearing mix of stiffness and humour, and the venue lent itself to horsing around. Introducing a song whose title referred to the 2000 Argentinian financial crisis, he said (in French) "It was the first time that rich and poor were in the street together, because all their money had been stolen. I had put my money in Switzerland."

The music could be described in shorthand as Argentinian jazz, but my longhand feeling was that it was Argentinian music that, without really being jazz, wouldn't have been possible without jazz. Various native rhythms (no tango!) powerfully propelled elegant and lyrical compositions. Even at their most confusing or straight-laced (during a fantastic classically-influenced piano-percussion duet), their dance-rooted nature was still strongly felt. Saxophonist Javier Girotto played soprano throughout and his specialist status (still a rarity, despite the Bechets and the Lacys) showed: neither strident nor sappy, his tone was always full. He could scream and holler or play extremely quietly, but his bread 'n' butter was a folk-derived volubile melodic language. That low volume, though: infinitely sensual, with all the tension of virtuoso seduction. Not a slow jam, but the act itself.

Often, I would hear in a rhythm, a chord sequence or a general feeling, an echo of music I know from Martinique. This is something that happens regularly in Brazilian or Cuban musics (a kind of panamerican charateristic, maybe), but that I never hear in afro-american music of any kind. This may be because other societies were more thoroughly creolised, meaning that there was a greater retention of spanish and french forms, along with the african influence. In Martinique at least, this is pretty clear, for example in the names of the traditional music forms: quadrille, mazurka, biguine. Another element that sets North America apart is in its less multi-layered rhythms and less natural handling of polyrhythms. The invention of the drum-kit probably played a part in this, as every technological innovation leaves some things behind even as it adds new ones. Or maybe the streamlining of the drum part simply allowed for the layers to be scattered among the bass, guitar, piano, etc., whereas elsewhere the two or three percussionists would handle all of those rhythmic functions themselves.