Off Minor

I think this must rank as one of the best nights of free-music I’ve seen… A special CD-release performance by Bruise (Tony Bevan, saxes, Orphy Robinson, marimba?/steel drum/electronics, John Edwards, bass, Mark Sanders, drums, Ashley Wales, electronics), joined by guest Matthew Bourne (keyboards), at the Red Rose, Finsbury Park (and technically forming this month’s Back in Your Town).

The first set opened slowly, Mark Sanders beating out a call on block chimes, to be answered by Ashley Wales’ tactful electronic sound-scapes, and gentle vibes from Orphy Robinson. Tony Bevan came in with delicate tenor saxophone motifs, while Matthew Bourne laid out tight mathematical patterns on keys. After a while, John Edwards put out a grandiose rhythm on bass that pulled everyone up, and pushed the juggernaut forwards… Although crass, Bruise would be a pretty good metaphor for that first set; from then on, it was an assault that simmered away just under the obvious surface; a great momentum, but perhaps without a singularly identifyable drive; a purely collective contribution… However, individually: Tony Bevan is a great performer and presence, with articulate, powerful lines; Sanders’ loose, rootsy drumming maintaining the pulse… Wales deployed some background electronic effects that meshed nicely with the acoustic sound, his palette ranging from computerised glitch beats, to extended concrète big-band recordings and voice samples. Orphy Robinson played both marimba (electronic, plus effects pedals, and I think it was a marimba) and also steel drum, its uniquely bright sound adding an interesting and unusual texture to the mix. (Actually, it was a pretty impressive balance, all through, particularly—I think—for such a relatively complex instrumental base.) Alongside Tony Bevan, John Edwards was the star of the show; I think he might have been at the most inspired I’ve ever seen him… He played a short solo someway into the first set that was just fantastic, mesmerising… Overall, a great energy to everyone’s playing, continually avoiding the studious.

» Continue Reading

A totally incendiary (two) sets from Led Bib at the Vortex, this Tuesday. Another of The Babel label’s great young progressive jazz acts… they were there promoting their new album Sizewell Tea (apparently released April 23rd, but available some places already).

Going in to see this was a fairly on-the-whim sort of thing, based pretty much on hearing their track on this month’s Jazzwise cover-mounted Babel sampler CD (pretty decent, plus you get a free magazine with it, too). I guess they’re a sort of punk-funk-jazz quintet; more ‘jazzy’ than Babel-mates Acoustic Ladyland or Polar Bear, but sharing that hot contemporary-London-jazz feel; a bunch of music-school graduates coming through from a background of growing up listening to rock music… What?

Led Bib is: Liran Donin (bass), Toby McLaren (keyboards), Chris Williams (alto sax, left in picture above), Pete Grogan (also alto sax), and Mark Holub, the group leader (on drums). The gig itself was a bit of a slow start; the band making it onto the Vortex stage almost an hour after the scheduled start, and with the first set seemingly thrown off-kilter by PA issues; the second set was a lot more cooking… The twin sax line up is cool; in a band like Polar Bear, for example, the saxes (Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart, in that case) tend to stick quite close together, weaving around a single line. With Led Bib, Grogan and Williams play the heads tight together in free swirls, but then separate with very much their own distinctive voices; Grogan plays a more considered, traditional line, with occasional Coltrane-tinges, while Williams is more stream-of-consciousness: every now and then moving into great bursts of bebop-Marshall-Allen. Liran Donin is a great bassist, contributing a couple of brilliantly melodic solos. Toby McLaren was laying the groove well-down with some tight Fender Rhodes, perfectly meshed with Holub’s restrained but inspired drumming. Holub is a New Jersey ex-pat, and you can hear a strong New York-downtown vibe in their music; free-jazz but with the awareness that “people are listening”. Really fantastic group; the nuclear-power reference from their Sizewell Tea is probably pretty apt, just a great fun uplifting band… Sample sounds are available on their myspace and Babel pages…

Another foursome of great music at Boat-Ting, this Monday night. Opening were Alex Ward (clarinet) backing the poety of (the beautiful) Sibyl Madrigal. Alex Ward (website) is just perfect, really… Madrigal is the MC of the evening (and, presumably, Boat-Ting curator) so she tried to claim that they were just the warm-up act. Nonsense. It’s great seeing something fall together so effortlessly, almost ad-hoc… it’s why these evenings are so hot.

Second up were what was now safely described as the Boat-Ting house band: Steve Noble (drums), Lol Coxhill (sax) and John Edwards (bass). I think this is maybe the third Boat-Ting night I’ve written about on this fledgling blog, and I mentioned before that I’ve had difficulty really getting right into Lol Coxhill… Watching this “residency” fortnight-after-fortnight, I think it’s all come together; I’ve finally fallen, completely, under Coxhill’s manifest genius… Although I still haven’t bought any of his records…

» Continue Reading

I’m just so buzzing right now. Tim Berne was absolutely fantastic tonight (last night); this (Tuesday) was the final day in a three-night residency at the Vortex, organised essentially—I think—to coincide with the release of the new Big Satan live recording Livein Cognito. This long weekend he’s been playing, I gather, in various mash-ups and combinations of his regular touring groups; tonight he was with Tom Rainey (drums), Marc Ducret (guitar), and Drew Gress (bass)—as a quartet—which is essentially a union of his Paraphrase (no Ducret) and Big Satan (no Gress) groups.

I saw Big Satan, also at the Vortex, just under a year ago, and I can’t quite work out the difference between that and tonight; the dynamics were subtly different, I think… Was it just the addition of Gress? Were they playing more strictly tunes, before (or were the tunes just less obvious, tonight)? Every now and then Berne would let slip a fragment of familiar Science Friction-ish melody, but mostly it was two hour-long sets of swirling (what seemed like) pure improvisation.

On record, Berne never really gets to me; when it’s coming out of a pair of speakers in the corner of your bedroom, it over-plays the essentially quite minimalist, deconstructed melodies… and falls a bit flat. Live, it just bursts open; Tom Rainey’s awesome drumming, Berne’s screeching alto driving forward a pulsating, rhythmic maelstrom… Marc Ducret is an awesome presence, himself and his music, teasing sounds out of his guitar as if he’s at one with it… Drew Gress’ bass really pulled things together, filling that little space that’s slightly empty in what I’ve heard of pure Big Satan. What’s great is that everyone is playing together, there’s no obvious “internal dialogue”, no feeding off one another, in the the same way that John Coltrane’s classic quartet had no real “internal dialogue”; they all just play, together, instantly as one group. The brief solos were all fantastic (particularly Gress’, if I may say so), and they’re played to flow through the music; there’s no grandstanding, there’s no everyone-step-back-and-watch, it’s all just sublime… Wow, I think even Tom Rainey cracked a smile…

Just some thoughts on last night’s Bohman Brothers Present… at the London Battersea Arts Centre (March 21st; a slight delay in posting!).

Dominic Lash, Phil Wachsmann & Bruno Guastella
I saw Dominic Lash at Boat-Ting a few weeks ago and said I thought he was brilliant; he was still brilliant last night at The Bohman Brothers’ Present…. Last time I saw him, I said I knew nothing about him… Well, I still know nothing but after looking around on google, I discover he’s quite active with the Oxford Improvisers group (and, that such a thing as the Oxford Improvisers group actually exists). Anyway, he has some samples on his myspace page (along with a long list of upcoming gigs), plus some info on the Studio 282 site. I just really enjoyed his playing, it’s all really scratchy and dark and grimy… maybe… not dark and grimy… You probably know what I mean… Excellent… Again trying to persuade me that I really need to learn how to play bass.

Alongside Lash there was Phil Wachsmann, on violin. According to the brief biog on the European Free Improvisation Pages, Wachsmann is coming to free jazz very much from a classical background… That really shows, I think; he’s really delicate, quick on the strings, his lines are really tight… he just exudes the impression of a great accomplished master… I saw him once before, playing with Evan Parker’s Electro-acoustic ensemble, last November, and you know that anything associated with Evan Parker is going to be tight (in that Evan-Parker-tight kind of way)… The third part in the trio was Bruno Guastella, on cello. Because of the placement of bodies (and the fact that I was right at the back of the hall) I couldn’t really see what he was doing. I notice that he and Lash have a CD out, which might be quite interesting, tho I have no idea how to get hold of it.

» Continue Reading

I noticed that a few people have been accessing this site, from Google searches for The Bohman Brothers and their improv nights at Battersea Arts Centre? These things don’t always seem to be massively well advertised (at least, if you don’t live in London), so I’m passing on this flyer I picked up at the last one… You must go!! (Click for bigger) (Note this is completely informal and I have no connection to this event.)

Two groups at March’s Ashley-Wales-curated-improv-night Back In Your Town, at The Red Rose club, Finsbury Park. (Sorry, no decent pictures, again.)

Maurizio Ravalico & Isambard Khroustaliov
First up was the duo of Maurizio Ravalico (percussion) and Isambard Khroustaliov (laptop). Ravalico was really impressive. (He has a great website with some nice mp3’s, including a few with Khroustaliov…) He had three sort-of upright drums, on top of which he had various things like gongs/cymbals, singing bowls (??), marbles, etc, creating some very captivating pulsating, tumbling textures. Khroustaliov was providing some processed feedback, that helped to sustain these great waves of sound. Ravalico explained that the pieces weren’t entirely improvised; they had been ‘worked out’ somewhat before hand. But this is good; the music was essentially quite minimalist (probably the wrong word, really), but they were able to avoid any dead-air, and it was all really engaging.

The pair have recorded a CD together, plus there are the afore-mentioned mp3s. Check them out!

» Continue Reading

Back to the Bohman Brothers Present… at London’s Battersea Arts Centre.

Adam Bohman & Alan Wilkinson
Adam Bohman is a genius, scraping all sorts of mad funky sounds out of a table of found objects and constructed instruments composed of bent pieces of wire and the odd fork. He did a solo at the last BBP… I went to, but I liked it better here because I think he was being pushed more by the fiery influence of Alan Wilkinson on saxes (although that meant that there was none of Bohman’s great poetry and jokes). Wilkinson is great, just so loud and powerful. Bohman’s stuff was all miked up and amplified, so it was a perfect match; the guttural scraping, rasping sounds playing brilliantly against the honking lines of the sax. They played a relatively brisk single piece; Wilkinson wanted to play on, but Adam Bohman decided that they had to move onto the next act. However, later there was some sort of agreement that it sounded good enough to record (if so, it’d be excellent if I could hear some more…). I also bought the recently released Adam Bohman / Roger Smith Emanem CD Reality Fandango (which they were flogging on the front desk); I’ve currently only listened to the small 3-minute pieces, but it sounds pretty damn excellent so far…

» Continue Reading