Cuong Vu Trio & Flat Earth Society - Antwerp, 21/10/2003

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.

The High Hat

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.

Shuggie Otis

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.

Djana - Brussels, 15/10/2003

Bo van der Werf - bs
Jozef Dumoulin - Rhodes, synth, laptop
Otti van der Werf - el b
Stéphane Galland - d

It had been a long time since I had last been to the Café Central. They regularly put on concerts that usually veer towards free/improvised music, with occasional incursions into turntable territory and one-offs such as Lou Donaldson or Mal Waldron. This concert was one of those exceptions.

All four musicians are part of the slice of the Belgian scene of which AKA Moon (of which Galland is the drummer) is the best-known exponent. A few other noteworthy musicians from this scene are Fabrizio Cassol (saxophonist and leader of AKA Moon), Pierre van Dormael (guitarist), who recently published the magnificent Vivaces and Kris Defoort (who has published several albums on De Werf. Many foreigners participate in this scene: Frenchmen Geoffroy de Masure (trombonist)and Guillaume Orti (saxophonist) and Dutchman Chander Sardjoe all play in Bo van der Werf's Octurn (I am currently writing an article on Bo). This collection of musicians could be thought of as a European answer to Steve Coleman (and several of them have played with Coleman). That's a lazy description, failing to capture all its diversity (for example, AKA Moon is more melodic and less compositionally-based than Octurn and Vivaces is yet another animal), but it will have to do for now.

The quartet is used to playing together, but not necessarily in this formation. Bo van der Werf is a fairly unique baritone player. Starting from a basis of bebop and admiration of Pepper Adams, he moved on to integrate Messiaen's techniques into his playing. As such, his phrasing, note choice and overall mode of expression has little to do with what is thought of as jazz saxophone. It is soft-spoken, introverted and even after a fair amount of listening, leaves me scratching my head. Jozef Dumoulin is one of the newer additions to the scene described above. I first heard him on piano on Eclipse, which is mostly a duo with singer Barbara Wiernik, but I've only ever seen him live on electric keyboards. He seems to be improving on that instrument: moving from a "weird sounds" and pianistic lines approach to something more percussive, textural, abstract and more suited to the instrument. His solo towards the end of the first set was a highlight, tapping into funk-like energy, giving this otherwise difficult music a more immediate appeal.

Indeed, the music was difficult, filled with odd meters, shifting tempos and murky structures. The exploratory nature of the music was shown when the musicians themselves seemed pleasantly surprised when they simultaneously brought a piece to an abrupt end. This might have appealed to the music student crowd (hang around them long enough and it's easy to tell who's a music student and who isn't), but certainly did not make for relaxed, easy listening. I asked tenor saxophonist Nicolas Kummert (who was there along with his frequent employer, pianist Alexi Tuomarila) what he made of it and he admitted to not quite getting everything. Alexi was more confident.

Otti van der Werf added a more legible element: his simple, yet deeply grooving vamps anchored the music, while Galland returned to his usual busy self. One enterprising music student attempted to transcribe one of Galland's grooves, but never quite made it: Galland's super-human playing can't be stolen so easily.

(photo credits: Jos L. Knaepen)

An aside: accessories

Observing the crowd after last night's concert confirmed something I've noticed over the years: a disturbing number of Flemish people wear rectangular glasses similar to Bart Defoort's, yet I don't think I've seen any Walloons wearing them. In fact, in the subway they are an almost fool-proof way of distinguishing Flems from Walloons (you can then verify by seeing which language the newspaper they're reading is in). I've also found that, generally, Flems are more likely to sport an "eccentric intellectual" look. Why is that?

Bart Defoort Quartet - Bruges, 13/10/2003

Bart Defoort - ts
Hans van Oost - g
Bart de Nolf - b
Jan de Haas - d

In Belgian terms, it's quite a drive from southern Brussels up to Brugge, but this well-balanced quartet was worth the trip.

The 39-year old Bart Defoort is one of Belgium's leading tenors, a permanent member of the Brussels Jazz Orchestra and an erstwhile member of Octurn. He recently released his second quartet album, The Lizard Game on De Werf and the concert was taking place on De Werf's home turf (the club/theater by the same name), so logically the CD's collection of Defoort and van Oost compositions was played. However, the acoustically dry room added a welcome sharpness to the music, which studio reverb renders somewhat distant on CD.

Hans van Oost opened the concert with dreamy delayed chords similar to those so beloved by Philp Catherine, before Jan de Haas came in with a loose binary rhythm (hovering on the edge of ternary) that laid an urgent base for an otherwise relaxed "Laughing Soul." Next came "Sloam," a slow 12/8 blues whose most interesting features were the soft arpeggios and bluesy slurs Defoort blew during the intro.

When the band went into its first ballad, my neighbour started snoring noticeably. He did however wake up in time to applaud solos and songs he had not heard, a pattern that would continue throughout the concert.

Both Defoort and van Oost are soft-spoken soloists: when their note output increased, they tended to play even softer, thus building a nice sense of tension. Ever phlegmatic, van Oost tended to let this tension peter out, but on a ballad during the second set a thoroughly quiet solo during which he alternated between pick and fingers was a beautiful highlight. On the other hand, Defoort would resolve tension with a long, soulful and louder note.

Adhering strictly to a head-solos-head format, atmospheres varied from ballads to funk to uptempo bop. An example of the latter was "The Lizard Game." Defoort explained that the cryptic title was metaphorical: jazz musicians need reflexes as quick as those of lizards. Nice compositional flourishes were scattered throughout the concert: on "Busy Inside" a pointillistic A section contrasted with a flowing B section, on "Mister Dot" an otherwise 7/8 funk tune contained what seemed to be a recurring 10-beat one bar break.

Other highlights included van Oost laying out during Defoort's solo on the uptempo "Strange Things Happen," allowing the saxophonist to thrive in the open space and on Mal Waldron's "Soul Eyes," Defoort opened with an a cappella solo, during which the little reverberance the room had came nicely into play.

The encore that ended the concert hinted at how Defoort has evolved since the 1997 release of his first quartet recording, "Moving." "Blonx" was much knottier and abstract than any of his new repertoire and brought the concert to an exciting end.

(photo credit: Jos L. Knaepen)

Citizen Jazz update

The october issue of Citizen Jazz is now online.

My contributions are an interview with guitarist Pierre Van Dormael, an account of september's Mons en Jazz festival and two reviews: "Vivaces" by Pierre Van Dormael and "Khamis" by Quentin Dujardin.

Chris Mentens Jazz Van - Drivin' (AZ Productions)

Chris Mentens - b Sam Versweyveld - tp Joe Higham - ss, ts, cl Jan Nihoul - vib Bilou Doneux - d Koen Nijs - ts (on tracks 5 and 6) Dree Peremans - tb (on tracks 6 and 8) Ben Sluijs - as (on track 6) Pierre Van Dormael - g (on track 6)

I've just received and spun this new release. A groovy, multi-layered and overdubbed bass solo leads the way into a set of Mentens compositions. The instrumentation (vibraphone instead of piano), the sound (clear and polished) and Mentens's melodic sense gives the album a Dave Holland Quintet-ish flavour, minus the tricky meters. Fine solos throughout, an enjoyable listen. Amusingly, the album opens and closes with sounds presumably made by the van on the cover. More details after more listening.

The Jazz Van is playing octber 10th at the Hnita-Hoeve and october 18th at the Sounds, the latter being part of the Audi Jazz Festival.

Check out the website for info and sound clips.

Upcoming concerts

At the K.Fée (featured in Club Guide not so long ago):

Sayma, described as a mix of jazz, latin, trip hop, ethnic music and drum'n'bass spiced with improvisation, electronics, sampling and video projections. The band is made up of singer Sanja Maas and some excellent Belgian jazz players, such as Erwin Vann (tp), Laurent Blondiau (tp) and Otti Van der Werf (elb). Friday october 10.

Although well past his 80th birthday Toots Thielemans (or should I say, Baron Toots Thielemans?) is still going strong. He's performing with Philippe Aerts (b), Dré Pallemaerts (d) and Jozef Dumoulin, who could easily be Toots's grandson. Following Toots is Greetings From Mercury, a jazz/hip hop group featuring complex rhythms and excellent rapping & throaty singing. Both concerts on friday october 17.


The Raid Note has yet to be featured in the Club Guide, but surely will be one day soon. They have concerts on fridays and jams on wednesdays. Send an email to theraidnote@skynet.be to be informed of future gigs.

The Zero Parallel brings together a Finnish singer (Anu Junnonen), an Italian guitarist (Giacomo Lariccia) and a Belgian rhythm section (Olivier Stalon on electric bass and Jonathan Callens on drums). Friday october 17.

Avenue de Stalingrad 72
1OOO Bruxelles

Club Guide: Hopper

The Hopper café is soon to celebrate its 12th birthday. Illustrious foreigners such as Horace Parlan, Teddy Edwards, Steve Lacy, Nat Adderley and Lee Konitz, as well as all the finest Belgian jazz musicians, have passed through. Its 2003-2004 season is now in full swing.

There are three regular (and totally free) concert series. Mondays and tuesdays are devoted to monthly residencies, while gentle afternoon concerts are held on sundays. In october, the residents are the Antoine Claeys Quintet on monday (reviewed below) and The Acoustics on tuesday. The Acoustics are Frank Vaganée (as), Kurt Van Herck (ts), Jos Machtel (b) and Martijn Vink (d), all of whom are members of the Brussels Jazz Orchestra. If you enjoy acoustic jazz standards, it's worth your while, as these are top-flight players. They're also scheduled for november, with the Bruno Vansina Quartet taking over the monday slot. I have yet to hear Vansina, but drummer Teun Verbruggen tells me he's awesome.

On sunday 12th, there is a Anne Wolf (p) - Theo de Jong (b) duo. I don't know de Jong, but Anne Wolf is a melodic, emotional player, reminiscent of Michel Petrucciani and strongly influenced by Brazilian music. Her debut album with her trio, Amazone netted her a Django d'Or last year and features singer Marcia Maria on a few tracks. On the 26th, singer Yvonne Walter is accompanied by Mary Hehuat (b) and... Jef Neve (p). I've talked too much about Jef already recently (I'm starting to feel like a sycophant), so I'll leave it at that.

Beside these free concerts there are occasional paying concerts. In october, there is the Nathalie Loriers Trio on the 15th and the Harmen Fraanje Quartet. Nathalie Loriers isn't really my thing. I don't know Harmen Fraanje (how many times have I said that?), but the quartet features Nelson Veras, who's quartet I reviewed a few posts ago. Next month, two recommended concerts are those of the Alexi Tuomarila Quartet (on the 5th) and Bert Joris (tp) with Dado Moroni (p) (on the 19th). I've reviewed two of Bert's recent albums, the Brussels Jazz Orchestra's The Music of Bert Joris and Live with his own quartet.

Café Hopper
Leopold de Waelstraat, 2
2000 Antwerpen
03/248.49.33

web page
guy.vdepoel@belgacom.net

Antoine Claeys Quintet - Antwerp, 7/10/2003

Antoine Claeys - g
Koen Nys - as, ts
Jef Neve - organ, fender
Christope Dervisscher - b
Toon Van Dionant - d

I went to this concert, again in the Hopper café, mainly to see what Jef would do on electric keyboards. He seems to have quite a collection: a grand piano and a Hammond B-3, as well as the two keyboards on display here and maybe others I don't know about.

I was sitting in an acoustically poor corner for most of the concert, so the instruments projected poorly (especially the saxophone) and the bass and keyboards sounded mushy. When I moved to the centre of the room for a while, everything sounded much better.

The music itself alternated between straight-ahead tunes and boogaloos. The boogaloos were fun but lacked a bit of that fundamental greasiness and bar-pleasing showboating. Drummer Toon Van Dionant was new to me and did a good job throughout, however. As did Jef, mixing fast runs with rhythmic stabs and the histrionic exclamations so adored by organists.

My only reference point for such music is a very fun Lou Donaldson concert (with organist Dr. Lonnie Smith) I saw a couple years ago, in which Donaldson managed to transform a hip Brussels café into a hot and humid swamp dive. From these two concerts, I'm led to wonder why organists seem to favour the screaming high register so much, when there are so many interesting sounds lower down?

I'm not much of a jazz guitar fan, so I didn't really get into Claeys's linear, fairly traditional solos, apart from a more percussive one on the second boogaloo played. Koen Nys was another new name for me, who seemed more at ease on alto than on tenor. I also got the impression that he would be more at ease in a different context.

A digression into classical music

Since moving out of Brussels, in April, I've been living two doors down from Sébastien Taminiau, a 23-year old violinist studying at the Brussels Conservatory. While I don't listen to much classical music, on CD or live, I have twice had the opportunity to hear him play (not counting the many times I've heard him practice, whether I wanted to or not!). The first time I saw play was in a violin-cello-piano trio, last night it was just a duo, with cellist Alexandre Beauvoir. As usual, they alternated classical and contemporary pieces.

First off was a transcription of a composition for piano by J.S. Bach (sorry I can't be more specific, they didn't give the names of what they were playing). I greatly enjoyed the contrapuntal aspects of the piece: there's so much going on, it's like being caught up in fast-moving traffic: you have the option of isolating one or the other element or taking it in as a whole.

The second piece played was by East European composer Martino (or Martinù?). This was my least favourite of the night, but still, it enjoyably mixed grating dissonances (which sounded something like folk fiddling) and a whimsical skipping from one theme to the next.

Next up was a return to the past, with Stammitz (I have no clue about the spelling), a contemporary of Mozart and Haydn, we were told. Nice enough, but I do feel somewhat disconnected from this kind music. What was its function? How did people listen to it back then? What spirit was it played in? Then again, even if I knew these things, would I be able to get past old-sounding aspects and fully enjoy the music itself?

The concert closed with a piece from the 1930s by Jonghen, a Belgian composer. This one was notable for having perhaps more humour than the others (a manifestation of the famous Belgian sense of auto-derision?), with child-like melodies being plucked in unisson.

Club Guide: K.fée

The K.fée is a place I discovered only recently, even though it's soon to be celebrating its 3rd birthday.

The general atmosphere is open and friendly. The interior design is a warm red, with wrought-iron chairs, wooden tables and hanging scarves lending an exotic air. It's a comfortable place to see a concert, even if there is no stage and is situated in the very centre of Mons.

Highly recommended.

K.fée
6, Rue des Clercs
7000 Mons
065/59.52.20

website
kfee@skynet.be

International Jazz Contest 2003

This contest is held every year in Hoeilaart, Belgium, to promote new talents. The winners then go on to record a collective CD. Past winners include Italian saxophonist Rosario Giuliani and Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila.

The 25th edition was held on the the 26th, 27th and 28th september and the winners are:



Best Group: Fredrik Kronkvist Quartet (Sweden)



Best Soloist: Bjorn Vidar Solli (Norway)



Interpretation Prize: Alessandro Bravo (Italy)

Visit the competition's website

Photo credits: Jos L. Knaepen

Lew Tabackin - Brussels, 28/09/2003

Lew Tabackin - tenor sax, flute
Bart De Nolf - double bass
Martin Taylor - drums

This trio played in the Archiduc, which is something of a Brussels landmark. It has an Art Déco interior design with a beige and green-blue colour-scheme, the balcony gives the room a U shape, there are two pillars about 1.5 meters (4.5 feet) apart in the middle and one of the barmaids looks frightfully like a member of the French resistance, 'Allo 'Allo style.

Before this concert, I'd only heard of Lew Tabackin. Throughout, I was struck by the happiness radiating from his horn. This happiness was also expressed in his idiosyncratic body movements: shuffling dance steps which at times approached tap dancing and lunging foot stomps to accompany percussive growls. Tabackin's flowing, melodious improvisations and open, generally vibrato-less tone on tenor recalled late 50s Sonny Rollins. However, he turned to Ben Webster on Duke Ellington's "Self-Portrait of Bean," capturing the former's gruff tenderness. Most notable, in terms of sheer power and energy, were the three tenor-drum duets. The first of these came during the concert-opening "How High the Moon," during which Tabackin erupted into 30 seconds of free wailing. One audience member quipped "The duets are so fantastic, why bother with the rest?"

Bart De Nolf, a last-minute replacement for Philippe Aerts, remained fairly discreet throughout the set, despite numerous, competent solos. Martin Taylor exhibited a light touch and good communication with the leader. During the duets, the extent of their rapport was fully revealed: the saxophone turned percussive and the drums turned melodic.

Tabackin used flute on two more exotic numbers, a middle-Eastern flavoured Duke Ellington number and what I suppose was an original called "Dancing Maja," which was inspired by Spanish music and featured Taylor tapping out the rhythm on castagnettes. "Dancing Maja" abandoned 4/4 time in favour of a whirling, dance-based 6 beat. The concert closed on a very fast bebop number, with the best of the tenor-drums duets thrown in for good measure.

Introspection

A recent entry in Greg Sandow's blog entitled Don't believe the hype has me thinking about how I approach music, both as a listener and a writer. I think I'm a bit too much of a music geek without having enough knowledge and experience to really justify that approach: the worst of both worlds?

Ideally, I would like to experience music that renders technical and formal judgement (whether something was well-played or not) not only meaningless, but literally impossible because it is in these moments that music takes on all of its power. I've experienced this only fleetingly: in Turkey, walking through a residential neighbourhood, a kid starts tapping out a complex beat on a garbage can lid, without thinking about it, simply because that's what's in his blood; on CNN, seeing a group of Liberian women sing their hopes for peace in a war-torn land, tears streaming down their cheeks.

Such experiences are, in my opinion, made more difficult in the settings of concert halls and even of clubs, which are formalised almost to abstraction. An experience similar to the two cited above was seeing pianist Mal Waldron's quartet perform in the centre of Brussels three nights in a row, two years ago. For all I know, those were his last concerts in the city he lived in the last 15 years of his life. The first set of the second night was 40 minutes of transcendent, inspired music, such that at times I felt like I was levitating. Waldron's blues-based minimalism was hypnotic, as was John Betsch's phrasing on drums. That Sean Bergin is a South African saxophonist who can sing Martiniquan biguines and Jean-Jacques Avenel a virtuoso bassist also recognised as a master of the African kora was just icing on the cake.

Of course, the music and its surroundings cannot be the only things to blame for my frustration. Music can only give back as much as you bring to it. I often ask myself "What am I bringing to the table?" Charlie Parker's "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn" is often quoted to describe the musician's apprenticeship, but does it not also apply to the listener? That is to say, if you don't live it, can you at least hear it? (Please excuse the Carrie Bradshaw-like phrase construction) The answer surely lies in my wider feeling of distance from nearly all things, events and people. Were I fully able to experience things directly, without distance, in other words to "Let the horse go (, baby)," what I hear, and by extension what I write about what I hear, would surely be different.

Mr. Sandow's text has put in bold relief some aspects of music criticism which I had tried to bury and now will do my best to address. I think that in the end it boils down to one question: "Why am I listening to this music?" In every concert or CD review, this question is more or less directly approached and surely deserves a better answer than whether or not saxophonist X has sufficiently stepped out from under John Coltrane's shadow.

I'm famous!

Okay, maybe not quite yet. Les Lundis d'Hortenses is the association of Belgian jazz musicians. Last night I attended one of their meetings to help present a proposal for a website make-over. While at their HQ, I picked up their trimestrial magazine. Reading it today, I saw this:



So it's not quite the New York Times, but you have to start somewhere.

Revisited: Jef Neve - Blue Saga (Contour)

I must admit that I rarely return to records after reviewing them. However, after the terrific concert described two posts ago, I felt the urge to pull out "Blue Saga" once more. I didn't remember hearing the high-energy playing Neve displayed in Pascal Schumacher's group, so I especially wanted to see if I had somehow missed it.

It turns out I hadn't missed anything. "Blue Saga" remains in the running for Belgian album of the year, but it is certainly far more sedate than the Schumacher gig. The set consists essentially of original ballads, interrupted only by the uptempo bop of Charlie Parker's "Segment" and "Pink Coffee" and the dynamic, two-drum back-beat of "When Spring Begins." While this may account for what I perceived as Neve's greater ability to carry a ballad (notably in dynamics and pacing), it offers only a limited view of his formidable capacities.

"Blue Saga" can be ordered from Jef Neve's website. Buy the album and help him pay off his brand-new Citroën Berlingo.

Some new CDs

Over the past few days, I've received 3 new, and quite different, Belgian CDs of which I'll give a brief overview. Upon further listenings, I may return with more detailed accounts.

Hilde Van Hove - Insense (Gandharva)
Hilde Van Hove's debut CD is something of a mixed bag. Her supporting cast is thoroughly brilliant: Michel Herr on piano, Hein Van de Geyn on bass, Billy Hart on drums and trumpeter Bert Joris, who appears on several tracks. Billy Hart is especially wonderful, delicate and sensitive throughout.

The repertory is conservative, but with a few interesting turns. It consists mostly of standards such as "East of the sun" and "Blue in Green." My favourite of these is "When lights are low," a joyous voice-bass duet which successfully captures the bounce of Miles Davis's version on "Cookin'." Alongside the standards are an interpretation of Wayne Shorter's ballad "Iris," which conveys Shorter's mysterious elegance of writing and features a shimmering solo by Herr and two Brazilian offerings, "Gentle Rain" by Luis Bonfa and "Triste" by Antonio Jobim. The programme is rounded out by two originals.

I'm not a big fan of Dutch-speaking singers singing in English because their accent lacks the charm of, say, a Brazilian's. As it is, they generally sound a bit clumsy, and Van Hove is no exception. However, and apart from a totally misguided reading of "Every time we say goodbye," Van Hove does a decent job.

"Insense" is available at Hilde Van Hove's website.

Flat Earth Society - The Armstrong Mutations (Zonk!)
Flat Earth Society is a big band that specialises in somewhat off-the-wall music, as can be gathered from mono-syllablic album titles such as "larf" and "bonk." Here, leader Peter Vermeersch revisits music composed by or associated with Louis Armstrong, such as "What a wonderful world," "Black and Blue" and "St. Louis Blues."

The album's main strong point is that the raw energy that made Armstrong's music the popular, dangerous and fun music of its time is retained, thus avoiding the feeling of visiting a glass-encased museum-piece. Again, a few Flemish singers show up, but on thankfully few tracks. Not that they sing particularly badly, but it is simply impossible to sound idiomatic with a Flemish accent. Overall, however, a very fun and highly recommended CD.

A digression: FES recently provided music for an opera called "Helioglabal." While the opera itself was generally panned, the New York Times praised the music.

Flat Earth Society's website

Quentin Dujardin - Khamis (Agua)
Quentin Dujardin is a guitarist strongly attracted to Flamenco and Moroccan music as well as to jazz. This album, his second, is an intimate affair, with delicate modal improvisations setting a meditative atmosphere drawing mostly on North African modes. Here and there flute, accordion or violin step into the solo spotlight, continuing the Arabic chamber mood. A mood broken only slightly on one flamenco-inspired track with a more insistent rhythm.

Quentin's website does a very good job of presenting this sensitive young man.

Michel Bisceglia Trio - Second Breath (Prova)
Yes, I said three CDs, but here's a quick note to say that Michel Bisceglia has released his third album as leader. On first listen, it's a calm, modern trio date, coming out of the Keith Jarrett tradition and made up essentially of originals, with the inevitable "Blue in Green" popping up once more, Wayne Shorter being represented by "Footprints" and more originally, a version of Jacques Brel's "Le port d'Amsterdam."

Michel Bisceglia's website

Pascal Schumacher Quartet - Antwerpen, 15/09/2003

Pascal Schumacher - vibraphone
Jef Neve - piano
Christope Devisscher - bass
Teun Verbruggen - drums

My oh my... Three words for last night's concert: energy, energy, energy.

I already knew and appreciated the talents of the Belgian rhythm section, but this was my first encounter with Schumacher, who is from Luxembourg (I didn't ask, but probably no relation to Michael and Ralf, despite a passing resemblance).

I may be over-stating the merits of this concert, as I was sitting within striking distance first of the vibraphone, then of the drums, but rarely have I seen young Belgian jazz musicians play acoustic jazz with this combination of energy, enthusiasm, joy and technique. Take away the lacklustre ballads, of which there were few in the incredible first set, too many in the second: these four guys (their collective age would be somewhere around 100) haven't yet mastered the art of dynamics necessary to make the ballads work. That leaves you with roof-raising, no-holds-barred playing on five or so long tunes. The pleasure they took in their music-making was evident, both visually, in the exchange of looks and smiles, and musically. This quartet is recording in November and I hope that this energy and joy can be captured on tape.

Pascal Schumacher was a very pleasant revelation. I pretty much never see vibraphone players, yet I've seen three in a little over a week: Belgian drummer Jan de Haas (vibraphone is his second instrument) and Frenchman David Patrois. Schumacher was the most fun of the bunch. When using two mallets, he successfully played fast bop-blues lines with soulful touches. I don't know what the dynamic range of the vibraphone is, but I would have liked to have heard a bit more space in his phrasing.

Teun Verbruggen refuses to settle into anything for too long. While paring down would lead to increased clarity and deeper groove (but maturity can wait!), his overflowing ideas and rhythmic shifts are a joy to behold. In the first piece, Satieology by Schumacher, Verbruggen moved easily between 3/4 and 4/4, sometimes super-imposing them. Later on, even when not formally called for, different rhythmic formulas tumbled forth.

Christophe Devisscher suffered from the "seen but not heard" syndrome that affects so many acoustic bassists, but contributed an enjoyably knotty, spikey and inscrutable composition called Chu Chu's Groove. While the bass remained fairly steady, the drums were even more unsettled than usual, the melodic elements veered towards the abstract and the whole kept on jumping nervously from one improbable construction to the next.

Jef Neve (interview, in French) was the man last night, for me. I have and enjoy his debut CD, Blue Saga (review (in Fench), which you can purchase at his website when the second pressing is done), but as a sideman he simply took his playing to another level. On a Joe Henderson composition, Neve provided a long, thoroughly awesome solo which started out in a mid-tempo, spare, funky, bluesy and percussive style and built up towards uptempo bop lines brimming with inventivity and playfulness. On another tune, his climax consisted of splintered chordal pounding. Which is not to say that great intelligence and structural elegance where not in play: they were, in spades. On the standard You and the Night and the Music Neve improvised in a Keith Jarrett fashion, throwing out lots of short, semi-abstract boppish lines, with attentive support provided by the rhythm section.

photo credits: Jos L. Knaepen