so much jazz, so little time *

Alan Barnes Octet, Esbjorn Svensson Memorial, Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra @ Southbank Centre, this week

The London Jazz Festival is, in my view, a fine and noble thing: ten days of gigs all over London--many of them free--featuring top class jazz musicians of many creeds and various hues (Scandinavians in particular seem to feature heavily this year).

I'm not done with it yet, but already I've managed to fit in a) an authoritative and sensitively presented appreciation of the work of Swedish groundbreakers E.S.T. whose pianist and main composer, Esbjorn Svensson, so tragically died last year, and b) one of the best gigs I've been to in the last twelve months courtesy of saxophonist, bandleader and part-time stand-up comedian, Alan Barnes.

E.S.T. has been a name I've known for a couple of years although I never got to hear their music and sadly will never now see them live. Better late than never I'm sure but my Amazon shopping list gets another hammering as a result. This is what they're good at...



On Monday I went on something of a crash course on the music of Duke Ellington. Firstly an interesting talk presented by Radio 3's Alyn Shipton featuring Alan Barnes and Tony Faulkner. Faulkner has taken various tunes from Ellington's huge repertoire--mainly scored for big band--and arranged them for octet. Performing approximately three hours' worth of them this evening were Barnes and some of the greatest jazz players I have ever heard. Step forward in particular Tony Coe and Andy Panayi, masters respectively of the clarinet and flute.

* with apologies to John Fordham

strangers in the night

Blue Nile @ Somerset House, 13th July

Almost everything you hear or read about the Blue Nile refers to their legendary low profile (four albums in, what is it now, twenty-four years?) so it seems sensible not to pass up the opportunity to catch them out in public for a change. It's strange that they play live so rarely because Paul Buchanan--songwriter, singer, and all round good guy--seems to be having such a great time. He's determined that the band will play on until the venue organisers blow the curfew whistle. Problem is they haven't practised that many songs, so the third encore is a repeat of "Tinseltown in the Rain". No-one has a big problem with that though.

There's probably not a venue more suited to Blue Nile's wistful music than Somerset House as the sun goes down and the floodlights fire up (thanks to sbisson for his/her photo) and we get selections from all four of those albums, a new song--"Runaround Girl"--and an old one--"Strangers in the Night", "shoo-be-doo-be-doo"'s and all.

See you in five years then lads...

A couple of youtube curiosities:
- 2006 interview with PB on Ireland's TV3 channel
- Chris Botti and Paul Buchanan sing (a rather pixelated) version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

but this is what we came for...

where's hoops?

High Llamas at Whitechapel Art Gallery, 4th July

I think the High Llamas are my favourite band currently recording/performing. (Thankfully rumours of their live demise appear to have be exaggerated.) As far as I'm concerned I'm not sure that anyone can match Sean O'Hagan's gift for quirky melody and harmony. And he's a great arranger too. (Although maybe those lyrics could be a little less obscure eh Sean? What's that again about the House of Leaf and Lime?)

Anyway, the Llamas' "annual London gig" didn't disappoint. Talk about intimate venues though. I calculate that the six band members and their instruments/gear (Sean himself had three guitars and a banjo) took up approximately 1/3 of the room at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The Albert Hall this ain't.

And great to hear old favourites "Nomads" and "Checking In and Checking Out" for the first time in ages. No sign of Hoops Hooley though...

Stuff:

junkmedia interview with Sean

vallejonocturno interview with Sean

"The Musical Painting" (collaboration between Sean O'Hagan and Jean-Pierre Muller)

There's not much on youtube from the Llamas. But here are a couple of interesting curiosities:

- "My First Motion Picture" by Padraig Trehy with music by Sean

- a High Llamas cover of the Smiths' "Frankly Mr Shankly", and

- "Bach Ze" is a good illustration of those unpredictable melodies and harmonies. Great stuff:

blue bleezing blind drunk

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset @ The Shaw Theatre, 12th May

..."Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk" and, indeed, other Northumbrian ditties, beer-related and otherwise. I always find it interesting that as well as performing, folk singers like Rachel Unthank also spend a lot of their time seeking out new songs, not just to widen their repertoires but also to preserve small but important parts of regional musical history. Many of the songs on her award-winning "The Bairns" album, of which all the tracks get an airing tonight, were ones she actually learned from her mother and father who are also folk singers.

The most obvious family connection tonight is with sister Becky with whom Rachel shares the lion's part of the singing duties. Interestingly, the voices of the two siblings are quite different in character: Rachel's is strong and pure and her Geordie accent is as pronounced in her singing as in her speech, Becky's is more fragile but at its best haunting and bell-like, nowhere more so than in her glorious rendition of Robert Wyatt's "Sea Song". I think this is a great song: the words are fantastic, it's got a wonderful soaring melody and the piano and accordion arrangement in the Unthanks' version really does it justice. And that voice...

Hear for yourself:
- "Sea Song" Becky vox

Also...
- "Sea Song" Robert Wyatt's original version
- What wikipedia has to say about Northumbrian music
- Guardian interview with R.U.

numbers up (part 2)

Danny & The Champions Of The World, Magic Numbers, Indigo Moss @ The Windmill, 14th Dec.

Once more the Windmill comes up with the goods. Not bad for a fiver, it's those Magic Numbers people again...

After sitting two rows from the back of the Festival Hall a couple of weeks ago, it makes a change to be little more than an arm's length from the band this time. In fact, drummer Sean Gannon is a no-show but we still get a lively run through some of their well-known tracks (if I remember right: "Long Legs", "Love's A Game", "Take A Chance" and "Love Me Like You") as well as the more obscure "Tonight" (which they sang with the Smoke Fairies at the RFH). Quite a big deal to see a major act in such an intimate venue.

Two other (good) bands for my money:

- Indigo Moss, who I heard a few months ago performing on the Queen Elizabeth Hall roof. Lively country/rockabilly tunes, all fiddle, banjo and harmonica, is their stock in trade but one song in particular took my ear, the much more downbeat "Swimming". Shades of Natalie Merchant, I think. Definitely gets the nod as this week's "best song ever".

- Bringing up the rear, Danny & The Champions Of The World were worth hearing too: quite impressive visually, with their face-painted eight-strong line-up, and with some interesting instrumentation (trumpet, violin, sitar). "Time Out" puts them in the "psychedelic pop folkies" pigeon hole and that's probably fair enough. I thought the singing of the main man--"Danny" presumably--had a bit of early Neil Young to it.

No doubt about the real stars of the evening though...

more than the notes...

Imagined Village @ Royal Festival Hall / Edwyn Collins @ Arts Theatre, 27th and 25th Nov.

Billy Bragg's recent book, "The Progressive Patriot", discusses the idea of English identity in the multicultural 21st century and the Imagined Village are an attempt to draw on several elements to arrive at a shared expression of this identity, notably the "traditional" folk background of Martin and Eliza Carthy, Bragg's own Clash sensibilities and the non-western origins of various "world music" musicians (Sheila Chandra, Johnny Kalsi of the Dhol Foundation, Sheema Mukherjee of Transglobal Underground). In recent press interviews and in the pre-concert talk tonight, Bragg and group leader Simon Emmerson (late of Afro-Celt Sound System) are at pains to deny that they are out to trample over long-established folk traditions with a more electro/beat-based style. The presence of the Carthys--two members of "folk royalty"--as well as young members of the Copper Family offer some reassurance in this regard. Plenty of ideas to take on board, but the music was good too. Highlight for me was Benjamin Zephaniah's video'd take on "Tam Lin".

A couple of nights earlier, Edwyn Collins gave us an impressive run through a mix of Orange Juice classics and numbers from his solo career, impressive particularly since this was about much more than hearing the music. What an achievement for him to have got this far only a couple of years after two brain haemorrhages left him almost completely paralysed. It's difficult for those of us watching and listening to appreciate what it means to him to be back performing again. This Times Review of the gig says it quite eloquently.

I.V. Lynx:
Review of I.V.s in Liverpool earlier in the tour
Guardian review of "The Progressive Patriot"
Wikipedia on "Tam Lin"
Back in the day: Simon Emmerson when he had hair, and a different surname

E.C. Lynx:
allmusic.com waxes lyrical about the OJ's
Edwyn is back / "I was dead -- and I was resurrected"
"The Orange Juice and Postcard Records Website". Yay.
Back in the day: YouTube video vaults

live stuff: john chilton's feetwarmers at ray's jazz shop, 23/4/07

One of the great things about London is the amount of great music you can come across completely by accident, and not just buskers or up-and-coming musicians at the beginning of their careers, but also established artists who have a long history in the business. Passing by Foyle's bookshop on the way home from work, and going upstairs to the excellent Ray's Jazz shop and cafe, I stumbled into a Monday evening get-together of the (mainly) over-60s London jazz community. Jazz historian and trumpeter John Chilton was in the shop to sign copies of his new book ("Hot Jazz, Warm Feet") and he and his fellow Feetwarmers (that gravelly-voiced singer in the purple suit, yellow fedora and eye-patch can only be George Melly) were playing a few numbers beforehand. 81-year-old Melly's voice has probably seen better days but there was some fine playing from the band, particularly clarinettist Wally Fawkes (a.k.a. cartoonist Trog!). An unexpected pleasure...