Off Minor

Quite a few large groups at this year’s festival: Abram Wilson’s large Ride! Ferris Wheel… group on Sunday evening, and two ‘proper’ big bands: the Mingus Big Band (performing here at the mid-point of their UK tour) on the Friday, and Stan Tracey’s (more traditional) big band filling the ruins’ marquee on the Saturday night.

The Mingus Big Band

» Ryan Kisor, Kenny Rampto, Alex Sipiagin (trumpets), Wayne Escoffery, Craig Handy, Vincent Herring, Abraham Burton, Lauren Sevian, Ronnie Cuber (saxes), Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Conrad Herwig, Earl McIntyre (trombones), Johnathan Blake (drums), Boris Kozlov (bass), Kenny Drew Jr. (piano) «

The Friday became, in fact, something of a Charles Mingus extravaganza, starting with a showing of the decently arty Charles Mingus - Triumph of the Underdog; a film that, as much as possible, tries to convey the man behind the music rather than give the biographical back-story as a history lesson. The last bit gets a bit eulogistic, and seems to turn into a promotional film for Epitaph, but there’s some killer footage (including some wicked stuff with Eric Dolphy), and it’d definitely be worth your while digging out (YouTube, cough). Also solid of the festival to bother putting it on… It’s good to have this sort of thing to help break up the solid continuation of music a bit, but also good to set the main performance (which immediately followed this presentation) in context…

The Mingus Big Band—originally established in 1991, and operating with ‘artistic direction’ from Charles’ surviving wife, Sue Mingus—currently holds a solid residency at NY’s Iridium club, but has just finished touring the UK (and only for the first time, apparently). It’s playing classic Mingus music, arranged for a 3 trumpet, 5 sax, 3 trombone, and rhythm section group drawn out of a larger pool of regular working musicians. Unfortunately, for me, the music didn’t really live up to the (probably justified) hype. The sound was a bit too generic, and the arrangements actually seemed pretty conservative… Although they were playing the standard Mingus tunes, there didn’t seem to be, identifiably, any of the solid Mingus ’sound’. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if they’re making their own thing rather than play blind copy-cat homage to his own tradition. In practise, however, the arrangements all came out a bit flat; they were full and dense, but the scope of the band seemed too limiting; the doubling up of instruments seemed to cloud everything into a murky mess, the horns just bleeding into one another. Compounded by a relentlessness and a lack of real dynamics—no real ‘light and shade’—this left the music, for me, fairly impenetrable. I think it’d be a lot better with just a smaller group, maybe an octet or something… Is that the sort of thing Mingus originally tended to write for? Just something to make it a bit more transparent, because there were some brilliant musicians, and there was a great slab of swing rocking back and forth underneath the fog… Wayne Escoffery played some pretty solid solos, with lead trombonist Conrad Herwig the most humble and thoughtful contributor. The rhythm section itself was killer; Boris Kozlov on bass duties (and, according to Alyn Shipton, possibly using one of Mingus’ old instruments) played great personal lines throughout, and there was empathy with powerhouse Johnathan Blake on drums… The final piece of the night rounded off with an extended bass/drum conversational workout which was absolutely worth the ticket price alone…

Cameron Pierre Trio

With Mingus still ringing in my ears, I ran off to catch the end of Cameron Pierre’s gig at the canal basin’s Taylor John’s House.

» Cameron Pierre (guitar), Anders Olinder (hammond organ), Rod Youngs (drums) «

It was a pretty interesting contrast to the Mingus group because, although the trio was essentially pretty straight up and down not-quite-standards, I found it all a lot more infectously engaging. Pierre was all great winding, heavily vocal, articulate lines. Anders Olinder played great tight, effortlessly matter-of-fact organ lines, and Rod Youngs brought it all together with sensitive drums… Doesn’t have to be complicated!

Stan Tracey Big Band

» Stan Tracey (piano), Nathan Bray, Mark Armstrong, Guy Barker, Henry Lowther (trumpets), Mark Nightingale, Andy Wood, Alistair White (trombones), Nigel Hitchcock, Simon Allen, Brandon Allen, Mornington Lockett, Alan Barnes (saxophones), Andrew Cleyndert (bass), Clark Tracey (drums) «

I had previously seen Stan Tracey in trio format (with Cleyndert and Clark Tracey) ’supporting’ Wayne Shorter at the Barbican, last year, but wasn’t really overwhelmed. This big band—retaining that same trio as a rhythmic core—was much more invigorating. A hot selection of pieces, some Ellington stuff, Epistrophy and other Monk workings, but covering a range of moods, from hot swing to thoughtful ballads. Nice soloing from Alan Barnes and Mornington Lockett, Guy Barker too, off-hand fluid movements, but lines that strode through the beefy arrangements; clear and definite. Andrew Cleyndert’s bass was particularly fulsome. Even though this is a band working within fairly well-defined territory, and even with the standard big band cliches all present and correct, pasted in to all the right places, it came over much more successfully than the Mingus band… Even if only in terms of clarity. Though I actually first formed interest in jazz music through listening to my grandparents’ big band recordings, once John Coltrane had been discovered, I pushed ‘big band’ away, tired of the cliches and too-slick arrangements. But hearing this powerful band live I think I might have to reappraise that prejudice. Although, I think live is the key, and I’m not sure it could necessarily preserve the fire on tape.

Seeing this has also taught me to reappraise my prejudice against the Godfather himself. At the Barbican, the trio sounded stodgy, clumpy and as cold as granite. On record: Under Milk Wood is good for Starless and Bible Black, but the rest of it seemed too cold and lifeless, melody by numbers and rock hard. But in the context of this (much) larger group, I really liked Tracey’s piano playing; it’s sort of minimalist in a partly Duke Ellington sort of way, almost monophonic, but here it underlined and texturalised the band in a sound that was very profound.

As I snook out at 10 o’clock, to make way to see Polar Bear, the band were still playing through their final suite. The strains and echoes of their sound were bouncing around the cathedral complex, and it sounded so marvelously majestic it was really quite beautiful… Definitely a group that anyone should go out and see, even if you have the same prejudices as me…

Postscript: John Evans has a slightly better review of this gig at Jazz Groove

A fair smattering of free gigs across the weekend… Putting them on at lunch time, in places serving plenty of food, made them, on paper, look like warm-ups; but that’s disingenuous… Good music!

Bryan Corbett Quartet, at the Escape Bar

« Bryan Corbett (trumpet), Levi French (piano), Ben Markland (bass), Neil Bullock (drums) »

Friday—the first full day of the festival—set off with Bryan Corbett, at the nice, newish Old Fire Station Escape bar. It opened all pretty solid, really, breezy and open hard-bop sounds; tight, prompt, and together solos, sounding like a Blue Note recording studio from the end of the 1960s. Played a couple of Dizzy Gillespie tunes… Corbett’s horns opening out wide transparent lines… Levi French providing the hard swing on keys, with assistance from Neil Bullock’s back-line percussion. Ben Markland played some nice expressive bass lines and solos. I preferred the second set, only because it was a bit more up, French switching to organ (presumably by the touch of a button) and the band moving into something a little more funky and maybe more contemporary. Corbett trading off the compact drum rides, and French nudging out the powerful funking swing…

Alcyona Mick Trio, at the Herbert Café

» Alcyona Mick (piano), Julie Walkington (bass), Jim Hart (drums) «

(Sorry the photo is so appaling). I nearly didn’t bother with this, but was glad I did… Saturday, noon, at the Herbert art gallery… Saw only about half of it, but a very solid trio, Alcyona Mick’s inspired piano ensuring everything sounded full. Individually, the tunes seemed to slot into a number of definitive styles, but they were all pretty honest; a few decidedly Bill Evans-y, a few definitely heavily Monk-ish, although most of them were Mick originals. I tend to find rhythm section trios get boring too quickly (loosing dynamics) but this swathe of styles (and blind quality) kept it well interesting. They finished the first set with a piece that was very, very Nordic-ly E.S.T (but more subtle!); all they need is the light show, and they’d be completely on their way…

Alec Dankworth - Spanish Accents, at the Coventry Biggin Hall 24/5/07 » Alec Dankworth (bass), Christian Garrick (violin), Mark Lockheart (saxes), Phil Robson (guitars), Marc Miralta (percussion) «

The Coventry Jazz Festival guide-booklet lists this as ‘A Taste of Spain’; the Warwick Arts Centre programme as ‘Con Alma’; but, definitively, the bands own flyer puts it as Alec Dankworth’s ‘Spanish Accents’. In any case, the clue is in the title. (Any of them.) A hard-bop, post-hard-bop quintet playing various tunes (covers and originals) of anything with a Spanish twinge… Authenticity established through the inclusion of a real Spaniard—yes, a real one—in the form of percussionist Marc Miralta, this percussion being a conventional drum kit assisted by a (pretty neat, and new to me) cajón. In fact most of the distinctly Spanish sound seemed to come from Miralta and Robson, both: Miralta’s playing consistently, impressively controlled; powerful, intriguing, changing lines. The violin added a nice extra dimension, Christian Garrick using some slight electronics, I think, particularly when called upon to recreate some Spanish bagpipes. (Apparently these are featured on Dankworth’s upcoming, related, CD release.) I was sitting there thinking back how often I’ve seen violin featured in improvising groups recently… More often than I would have imagined a few years ago… Whether that’s a movement real or imaginary I can’t say, but it’s quite interesting; the strings are capable of such a wide range of textures, compared to, for example, just a sax front-line, it’s nice. Mark Lockheart played mannered and industrious solos (is industrious the right word?)… Dankworth’s site claims that this group usually features Julian Arguelles on horns, but Lockheart has apparently been featured throughout this May tour. As for Dankworth himself, he was fluid and lyrical, but seemed to spend a lot of the time ‘running’ the band, as band-leader, leaving most of the staging up to the other players.

The tunes themselves ranged from Dizzy Gillespie, Jack De Johnette and Chick Corea covers, to a selection of homegrown material, some of it based on traditional Spanish melodies. I think it was noticeable that the band sounded best on their own pieces; the tunes had a lot more life and energy to them.

A nice straight-up jazz band, well worth checking out… CD apparently out soon… This gig pretty much opened the Coventry jazz festival, and was playing as a Jazz Coventry event at the Jazz Coventry traditional Biggin Hall…