Off Minor

Sonny Simmons & Tight Meat Trio, at the Red Rose, 19/11/07 « Sonny Simmons (alto sax), David Keenan (alto sax), Alex Neilson (drums), George Lyle (double bass) »

My second and last Wire magazine WXXV event, this time at free-improv bastion, the Red Rose… Kicking off: a set by, support act, Italian Jooklo Duo (their website). Virginia Genta on fiery, tumbling tenor sax, and David Vanzan on free, astral, scattering drums; a really crude outlook, but cool sound. Vanzan with that beautiful floating shimmering hi-hat like Rashied Ali off Isis and Osiris. Genta more noisy but perfect, with deep roots to the avant-garde of the 1960s.

After a break, Sonny Simmons with Glaswegian Tight Meat. They kicked off with TM’s Keenan dominating with up-tempered rolling overdriven blasts, Sonny Simmons meeting him with more-clearly jazz-inspired fast-paced lines. Lyle played naive sounding scrabbling and scratching bass, while Neilson blasted real free rocking, punkish drum lines. I mean, the drums were fantastic, and with Keenan’s screeching, grinding alto it came out like some cool punk breaking away from the jazz sphere (“punk-primitive post-noise mindset” is how The Wire puts it), Simmons’ Actual Jazz touching up with more melodic detail. Pretty great. This was an excursion from a series of London Jazz Festival events, for me; this years festival proper has been slightly coma-inducing all round. Why wasn’t this hooked up?…

Some more bad photos, on flickr:

You should probably also check out David Grundy’s post, with pictures and sound.

(Sorry this is a bit late in posting, time to check spelling mistakes has been scarce…)