Monday 19 October 2009

Keith Jarrett - Testament Paris / London


Keith Jarrett is a piano prodigy and one of jazz's few luminaries to also perform critically acclaimed classical music. Originally a sideman of Miles Davis, he became a global superstar after the success of The Köln Concert in 1975, an impassioned masterpiece of extemporization that became the best-selling solo jazz album of all time. Since then he has continued to play in small groups, no longer as sideman, and periodically returns to the world's great concert halls to perform improvised solo recitals. Throughout the course of these three CDs, Jarrett's playing is sublime, though the Paris concert is not as outstanding as the London. Grunting and moaning, his spinning fingers weave sounds that are idiosyncratic and timeless: ecstatic folk, wonky blues, and haunting classical. Jarrett's oral sound effects are notoriously grating and there is a preponderance of twitching dissonance - this is intensely absorbing and rewarding music, but not for the dinner party.

Jack DeJohnette - Music We Are


Drummer Jack DeJohnette established his name playing with Miles Davis during his 'electric period', featuring on the seminal Bitches Brew. Acknowledged as one of jazz's finest drummers, DeJohnette has led and backed many influential names and in particular has enjoyed a fruitful 40-year recording relationship with fellow Davis alumnus Keith Jarrett. Here, for the first time, he is flanked by both bassist John Patitucci and pianist Danilo Perez, towering names in contemporary jazz and members of Wayne Shorter's (an earlier Davis protégé) much-lauded current quartet. The record is genuinely experimental, veering from tango (classy opener 'Tango African' featuring an overdubbed DeJohnette on melodica) to abstract classical, post-bop to free improvisation. Though perhaps conceptually incoherent, the trio's post-modern genre-bending is best understood not in terms of its component styles but rather as the successful summation of individually outstanding musical talents. This album is a gem of forward-thinking music.

Art Themen Quintet - Jazz In The Lund - 17th September 2009

The new Jazz in the Lund season was inaugurated by Art Themen and his Jazz Wizards, a quintet led by the British tenor and sometime soprano saxophonist which also featured Henry Lowther on trumpet, John Critchinson on piano, Andy Cleyndert on bass and drummer Trevor Tomkin. These éminences grises of the British scene began with a blistering rendition of the John Lewis bebop number 'Afternoon in Paris', filling the chamber with an effortless swing propelled by the rhythmic engine of Cleyndert and Tomkin - the former irreproachably slick and the latter interspersing a forceful approach with lilting latin inflections.

The band's accomplished chops were evident as they played classic material ranging from bebop and hard-bop to ballads. In-between tunes the casual amicability of the performers, ribbing each other throughout, created a light-hearted atmosphere - the audience even being treated to Critchinson's avuncular joke-telling. But this levity hardened when the band started up again and a certain musical tension became apparent. The tonal characters of Lowther's trumpet and Themen's saxes were irresolvably different - Lowther formed cool, crystalline notes with a delicate vibrato and immaculate attack whereas Themen see-sawed from sultry, breathy lows through bristling highs to super-sonic squeaks and splutters. Perhaps these contrasting stylists would have jarred if it were not for Critchinson, the chordal anchor, whose sympathetic varying of style and rhythm - honed for many years as house pianist of Ronnie Scott's - centred the band. When it was time for Critchinson's solo, a very personal elegance and expressiveness flowed out.

The show's highlight came when Lowther stepped off stage for the penultimate ballad, Strayhorn's 'Chelsea Bridge'. The song began and ended with unaccompanied bowed bass and was a model of soulful restraint, with Themen declining from the more dissonant colours in his sound-palette. The group-interplay was sparkling as each member paid obeisance to the tune, containing themselves until their turn arrived and, without exception, bursting out into a wonderfully measured solo. Jazz in the Lund has started promisingly indeed.