Here are the links to the TV performances, back in january 2003 each one minute long:
Hollywood, Lullaby of Birdland, Nature Boy, How High the Moon, Devil May Care
The links are to the broadband videos. You can also go to this page, do ctrl + f to find "Junior Jazz" and click on the low bandwidth videos.
Saxophonist Ellery Eskelin has put up some home-video concert clips. They are more of interest to the fan than the neophyte and feature singer Jessica Constable.
Ellery's website
On Jazz Forum there is an article (it's in Dutch) on a 14 year old girl singer who's just recorded an album of pop, jazz standards and bossa nova. She seemed happy to have done recording it, but is loathe to tell anyone about it, probably won't listen to it at home and doesn't really like jazz that much. Not that I hold it against her, I just find it funny to learn all these facts right at the end of a rather lengthy article.
Eline Van Coillie was noticed by the record company after being on a show called "Man bijt hond" (Man bites dog). Every day at the end of the show, an act has one minute of air time. People then vote by phone on whether or not they want that act to re-appear the next day.
The album is on Virgin Music Belgium, but as you can see, they're not exactly flush with info.
I didn't see her appearance on the show, but last time I watched there were men in liederhosen prancing around, as beer-maids looked on. It was impossible for me to tell if this was serious or a send-up. Can people seriously do that German liederhosen music thing? Really?
Ingrid Labrock (?) - ts
Pete Wareham - ts
Tom Herbert - b
Sebastian Rocheford - d
As promised, I returned to the Hnita-Hoeve to see the English quartet Polar Bear. We don't get non-free improv English jazz very often, so that stoked my curiosity. Apparently, many others felt the same, as Peter Anthonissen from the Hnita noted that he was happy that the audience trusted him enough to come to see a virtually unknown band. Considering people's reactions after the concert and a whole box of CDs sold, that trust was rewarded.
They played 11 originals penned by Sebastian Rocheford, the leader with the improbable hair. The melodies were generally low-key and deliberately paced, but with a kind of sad beauty. The two-tenor frontline weaved in and out of unisson and counterpoint and the music was precision-crafted, yet retaining a loose, open feel. Underneath, rhythms were established and deconstructed, as on "The Shapes in the Clouds Aren't Always Happy," when Herbert and Rocheford took apart a slow 12/8 to re-fashion it into minimalistic but irresistable pointillistic groove.
There were no microphones on stage (only the double bass was amplified), which suited the room and the music just fine. Saxophonists Wareham and Labrock (or is it LeBroque?) were subtly different. The former had a thinner sound and his fragmented explorations were more interior and dark blue, seeming to never take the direct route to get his point across, whereas the latter had a warmer, fuller and more generous sound and flowing lines, more golden, something like a Dexter Gordon to Wareham's Wayne Shorter. When they duetted, the saxophonists were careful to not step on each other's toes: not quite as unfettered as Chris Potter and Robin Eubanks can be in the Dave Holland Quintet, then, but still interesting.
An interesting aspect of both of their playing was how their respective foundations transferred themselves to their freer playing. Without reaching screeching extremes, Ingrid seemed to favour the more extroverted and joyous end of free jazz, whereas Pete built more on post-bop complication and minimalist soundscapes. For example, on the last song of the first set, Rocheford brushed a light drum'n'bass groove which steadily built up as Wareham moved from riff to riff throughout his solo. At maximal volume (which, in absolute terms, was not that loud), Labrock joined in with an ascending motif and Wareham moved on to grating harmonics.
Playing both inside and out was but one aspect of the band's palette. While many of the songs had binary rhythms, some veered towards up-tempo swing, such as "Argumentative," which was "inspired by the movie 'So I Married an Axe-Murderer,' with that guy from 'Wayne's World'," said Sebastian. Towards the end of the song, Ingrid went up high to somehow manage to sound like a dixieland clarinet.
I just listened to the CD, which, interestingly, is on a Belgian label (info@rubrecordings.com) and was extremely surprised by how different it was from the concert. Many of the tunes played last night are not on the CD, and were arranged differently, drawing on a larger palette. For example, in concert "Urban Kilt" began with arco scrapes and Wareham beating out a percussion part on his saxophone keys, over a slow and dark binary groove, but on CD none of this is present.
The quartet (with Mark Lockhart instead of Ingrid Labrock) is joined by cello and viola on several tracks, to very good effect. Just yesterday I was thinking about how strings are used. It seems to me that jazz musicians use strings mainly harmonically, which tends to be a bit boring, whereas in pop strings tend to be used to double or expand on the melody. Rocheford writes for the strings in a very interesting way, drawing on both approaches. "Snow" has a vocal part and I think it could appeal to the Portishead/Björk fringe of pop radio.
In a few hours I'll be heading up to Antwerp to interview the band, so maybe you'll get some more info then.
You can listen to some mp3's on the website: http://www.polarbearmusic.com.
Here is a transcript from a panel by the Jazz Journalists Association on how the international aspect of jazz is (or isn't) represented in North America, in festivals and magazines.
Andy Gilbert makes an interesting comment on the importance of local coverage (which I feel concerned by, as I sometimes feel like covering the Belgian scene is as effective as throwing bottles out to sea):
I think that in many ways the battle being fought for writers covering local scenes is to get those scenes covered. Being on the west coast, the media is so New York-centric. I grew up in Los Angeles and my mission was to get the word out about Horace Tapscott, Bobby Bradford, John Carter, and Vinny Golia [applause and some shouts of "Yeah" from the audience]. Drawing attention to these other great scenes and musicians is something I'd love to do, but I feel that, like many writers, I'm a partisan of the musical scene, the musicians I've watched develop.
Those were some of the edgier players. But there were mainstream players too, like Harold Land, Teddy Edwards, these amazing musicians who couldn't get any coverage, or even minimal coverage in the national magazines or in The New York Times. And that goes back 50 years. You know, I don't think that Art Pepper was ever on the cover of Downbeat during his life, or if he was it was only much later during his come-back. So it is like 'What battles are you going to fight?' Sort of being based in the Bay Area, the first one I'll fight for are the great musicians I see weekly who I feel should get more attention. Then, its try to open up and have this different idea of who is important and who the interesting musicians are.
Earlier on, there was talk of the ownership of jazz, with this sad anecdote recounted by Paul deBarros:
The last time I talked to Branford Marsalis, I had just come back from Turkey and I said 'Have you of this guy from Istanbul on Double Moon Records?' and he just went into a rant about how 'who are these people who think they can make innovations in a music that isn't part of their history and culture. How could they presume to do that?'
The irony, of course, is that while seeking to re-inforce the Afro-American claim on jazz, Marsalis rather fences himself in and expresses a very narrow view of what culture is and what capacities individuals as such (rather than only as off-shoots of a culture) possess. Taken to its extreme, he almost justifies the exclusion from classical music Blacks suffered for a long time.
A nice quote by Bill Smith:
There is always this proclamation 'jazz is dead, jazz is dead.' But what it really means is that the writer has come to the end of their ability to continue to listen to newer forms. We always used to laugh about people who were stuck in Benny Goodman, stuck in Woody Herman, Stan Kenton. They were frozen there, couldn't go on to the next one.
That sums it up nicely, for me: "the ability to listen to newer forms." I don't think not being able to get with the "latest thing" is anything to be embarassed about, but one must come up with criticism that sounds like something other than "I prefer the past."
I had come across her name a few times, in The Wire and a few other magazines some time ago, but actually heard her for the first time only recently, while driving. Terrible, and totally catchy, mix of punk, electro, old-school hip hop (and maybe more, but I've only heard the song once), all for the cause of shaking your genitals. Play with Peaches here.
The Studio Athanor is a hip club in the very centre of Brussels, with low ceilings, curvy red upholstery and black & white portraits painted on the walls.
The music varies from electro/DJ parties (hence the hipness factor) to funky or acoustic jazz, along with a weekly jazz school and a monthly residency on thursdays (both are free and are followed by jams. Door and drink prices are reasonable.
This month's notable concert should be Pierre van Dormael's 404 Quartet, with Anne Wolf (p), Otti van der Werf (el b) and, surprisingly, Osvaldo Hernandez (perc) on november 21st.
Hotel Arlequin
Galerie de L´Îlot Sacré,
Rue de la Fourche 17-19
Petite Rue des Bouchers 14
+32-25-14-16-15
info@athanor.be
www.studio-athanor.be
I just came across this three-headed blog: Blue Notes: Riffing on Jazz :. Not a huge amount of posts, but a lot of content. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of jazz blogs, so if these three guys can pick up the blogging rate a bit, it could become an interesting place to visit regularly.
New articles on Citizen Jazz. Two new reviews of mine up there:
Marc Matthys & Friends - Crossings (rather pedestrian jazz meets classical)
Steve Houben & Boyan Vodenitcharov - Les Valses (another classical meets jazz album, though better than the former)
A few days ago, Greg Sandow discussed clapping, taking Mozart as example.
Yesterday on Arte (it's a Franco-German somewhat high-brow cultural channel) I caught, purely by accident, Mozart's piano concerto number 20 played by Piotr Anderszewski and the Warsaw symphony. Anderszewski conducted it himself. I wouldn't normally have watched it, but these past few weeks I've been hearing a fair bit of Mozart on the radio in the car and finding I greatly enjoy it. Also, it made me think about two issues: clapping protocol and watching classical music on TV, which I think I read something about in the NY Times.
There was one point, during either the first or last movement, when the orchestra came back after a long, virtuosic and exciting stretch of solo piano that I clapped in front of my TV. I'm not quite sure what my reaction would have been, had I been in the room. Also, I found the silence (actually, coughing and chair scraping) between movements extremely artificial and even tense and uncomfortable. How can anyone prefer that to brief applause? I certainly felt like clapping.
As for the televisual aspect, I enjoyed that too. There was the visual effect of Piotr Anderszewski shifting between conducting and playing: there was a quasi-magical moment when his fingers seemed to drift off the keys, to continue playing not the piano but the orchestra. Also, he really seemed to be enjoying himself, but not at all in an exuberant way: sometimes just a slight raising of an eyebrow seemed to be totally in sync with the music. Finally, some nice camera work focussed on his hands, showing his beautifully relaxed style.
Another issue Sandow has been commenting on is classical music dress code. Anderszewski was dressed in all black, but wore a relaxed turtle-neck, whereas the orchestra (or what I saw of it) was more formal. Anderszewski's relaxed approach worked well with his overall demeanour, I thought.
Last night I went up to the Hnita Hoeve jazz club to meet up with some of the members of the Dutch-language Jazz Forum. Small crowd, but conversation raged on 'til 3:30 AM. I must say I'm pretty proud of my Dutch: I understood nearly everything that was said and incredibly made myself understood. I even made them laugh once or twice, no easy task in a foreign language.
I'll be headed back up there for Polar Bear, an English quartet led by drummer Sebastian Rocheford, this coming thursday. They've just put out (or are putting out) their first CD and even the club owner hasn't heard their recent music, so we're right on the cutting edge of discovery.
To atone for the string of non-Belgian jazz-related posts below, here's a strong recommendation for the Chris Mentens album first discussed here. The compositions and arrangements are excellent (vibraphonist Jan Nihoul nails the inside parts beautifully, bringing at once solidity and lightness) and the solos are worthwhile: trumpeter Sam Versweyveld (a name to me) particularly stands out, coming from the bold Lee Morgan school and with a fine architectural sense and melodic flair.
I passed up Pharoah Sanders and Fabrizio Cassol on aulochrome to go see this with my-girlfriend-the-George-Clooney-fan. Love above all, I guess. Not that I'm complaining: it was good fun. Most interesting was how Clooney abandoned his usually puppy eyes mannerisms and over-acted everything, eyes wide open, and made it work.
I went to a job forum a few days ago. There were stands for temping agencies and all sorts of companies from Caterpillar to associations to help the handicapped, but the busiest stand was one where a lot of high-school aged girls were getting, or waiting to get, their hair done.
Médéric Collignon fans (he plays with Louis Sclavis and Le Sacre du Printemps, among many others) who read French might want to check out his recent spate posts (under the pseudonym "médo") on the Citizen Jazz Forums, this post in particular. This was brought on by the fact he fractured to ribs falling off stage at a concert (!), so he's currently at home a lot.
Cuong Vu - tp, electronics
Stomu Takeishi - el b
Elliot Kavee - d
I got to the de Singel, a massive arts complex, a tiny bit late, so I had to wait for the end of the first piece to enter the room. I found this totally ridiculous: this isn't classical music. It's electronic, it's loud, it's fairly simple and I didn't even have to disturb anyone to get to my assigned seat. Anyway, on with the show.
I actually listened to Cuong Vu (Come Play With Me) for the first time the morning of the concert and some of the same songs were played that night. Globally, the music sounds like a mix of Miles Davis circa Big Fun and more modern rock and noise influences. Vu also does a fair amount of knob-twiddling to fill out the trio sound with layers of trumpet, as did Stomu Takeishi by looping lines on his bass. Songs tended to follow a general theme-group looseness-theme structure. I say "group looseness" because there weren't really any solos as they are generally conceived in jazz. At its best, the group moved together in a way analoguous to the Esbjorn Svensson Trio or The Bad Plus (but with very different musical results). Less interesting were the moments when the group drifted apart, though they may have served as scene-setting contrasts. The trumpet melodies were calm and pastoral, even when aggressively challenged by bass and drums.
The very last piece abandoned melody for a noisy soundscape underpinned by wildly shifting pulses by Elliot Kavee: from a slow 12/8 to fleet drum'n'bass, from loud to soft in mere instants. Suddenly, a rocking riff would come in, creating a great head-nodding groove, followed by more disintegration. When that riff came back to end the piece and the concert, I was uninterested and I'm not sure why.
Two odd events at the end of the show: first, a lone boo-er amid the applause and second, each of the musicians received a bouquet of white flowers. Maybe it's a tradition at de Singel.
Flat Earth Society
Peter Vermeesch - leader, cl
Too many others to list
I've been greatly enjoying The Armstrong Mutations, which I discussed briefly last month. The Flat Earth Society is "a band of rebels," according to the Toots Thielemans on their website. Certainly, the 17-piece big band is full of humour, fun and clever stylistic mish-mashing. The Armstrong Mutations is about taking music by or associated with Louis Armstrong, along with other pieces such as "Caravan" and original compositions and presenting it all in a quilt that goes from ragtime, stride and dixieland through to r&b and Cecil Taylor.
The concert started great: the two percussionists were on stage doing nearly nothing for about a minute. Then, a clarinettist, trumpeter and trombonist (a dixieland frontline) entered from behind the audience and played some wonderful dixieland counterpoint walking down the aisle. Other highlights included clarinettist Tom Wouters shouting vocals over the powerful "King Ink," a great piano-brass-vocals rendition of "What a Wonderful World," featuring wonderfully soft brass voicings, which was followed by an 5-reed tune over a bass clarinet vamp that had a feeling similar to a slow "Caravan." "Caravan" itself closed the set, the synthesizer (of some sort, looked pretty old and had a sci-fi sound) rendition of the melody shows the kind of irreverence FES does well. The encore consisted of an off-mike trio of vocals, tuba and brushes-on-floor song playing something about "Mr. Monotony." Halfway through the song, the rest of the band members (who were off-stage) suddenly leaned out from behind the side curtains to add some group vocals.
Flowers were also handed out, but only to FES's leader. I guess de Singel is on a budget.
I don't generally go in for the typical "here's a link" (or even "here's a link to a link") type of blog post, but I'm always up for an exception.
The High Hat is an interesting music/film/books/rants webzine and has just released its second issue. For jazz, there's Sadism and Perversity At Work, a review of the Miles Davis "Blackhawk" box. Its author, Phil Freeman, blogs at Most Weird, Some Normal.
Isn't the first note of Inspiration Information simply the happiest sound you have ever heard?
A wide open mouth exhaling an "aaaaaahhhh" of endless optimism, with undulating guitars underneath amplifying the feeling. You can't help but see the world in the washed-out oranges and pinks on the cover with a note like that. Even the shift to a more disjointed and staccato groove for the body of the song does little to dispel the happiness. And the rest of the album isn't half bad, either.
