A Grand Union Orchestra concert poses a distinct set of dilemmas for a reviewer, issues in some ways exacerbated when it comes to an in-concert film. How can the writer adequately convey the sheer, on-stage spectacle of a band comprising a twelve-piece horn section, six or more singers and a ten-piece rhythm section including kit drums, congas and tabla. And that does not include the cello, sitar, violin and Chines flute and harp? How can the reviewer communicate the joy and ecstasy and celebration of an orchestra where twenty-five nationalities and every continent are represented?

Telling readers that they will hear sounds from India and Bangla Desh, South and West Africa, the Caribbean and South America, China and big band jazz a-plenty can never explain just how seamlessly these musics are all integrated through the creative mind of leader, Tony Haynes. You have to listen and watch. This film is the next best thing to actually being present.

I am not the biggest fan of concert videos, jazz or any other music. All too often, there is just too little happening to sustain interest. I must make an exception here for Grand Union’s 40^th Anniversary Film recorded at the Hackney Empire. The film-makers – Àkàndá Productions – have done a remarkable job here in communicating the magic of this orchestra on stage. Thirty minutes into the film, “Song of the Four Seasons” offers a perfect illustration of that magic and of what Grand Union are or were and why that matters. Beginning with Chinese harp, the folk melody morphs into big band jazz with Ruijun Hu on Chinese flute duelling with Australian Louise Elliott on flute before Gerry Hunt’s guitar solo punctuated by big band horn riffs. It is one of those moments of perfect transcendence.

Existing fans of the orchestra will welcome Jonathan André’s trickster performance of GUO perennial “Can’t Chain Up Me Mind” and the wonderful Lucy Rahman’s showpiece “The Mother, The River”, a mother’s prayer for the safety of her sons during Bangla Desh’s war of independence. But perhaps the most powerful section comes with “Collateral Damage” and its dramatisation of the impact of conflict on innocent individuals and communities. It climaxes with an outpouring of solos over Basie-like big band riffs from Chris Biscoe, Byron Wallen, Claude Deppa and Tony Kofi. The show closes as ever with “Raise the Banner”. Recorded in May 2022 at the Hackney Empire, the 40^th Anniversary Film and its themes of war, displacement and imperialism acquire added resonance through more recent events in Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank. Music might not have the capacity to halt the crimes of the powerful but it can put a human face on the victims.

As an accompaniment to the concert film, Àkàndá Productions release Song of Many Tongues, a 30 minute backstage documentary about the orchestra. Featuring interviews with a small (inevitably) cross-section of the company, it offers valuable insights into the orchestra’s ethos and what made it such a vital force. What comes across most clearly is that this was a company of friends, driven by what united them rather than those aspects that might otherwise have divided. That it was led by the remarkable energy and vision of Tony Haynes is true but it was given flesh by its members.

This film tells Grand Union’s forty-plus year story and tells that there was never anything else like it. The orchestra celebrated jazz and the musics of the world and those who make it. Spend these 105 minutes in their company and maybe you’ll realise that a better world is possible.

The post Grand Union Orchestra first appeared on UK Jazz News.

It was fitting that this series of concerts celebrating Keith Tippett should be organised in Bristol, featuring many musicians from the city who had worked with the maestro over the years, along with guests from around the country. These six sets, each around 40 minutes, took place over a single day in October 2021.

They have now at last been released for us all to enjoy; in the old days this would have been a six-LP box set at a high price, so the asking price (£15 for download, £20 for a Blu-Ray disk of the whole thing on video) is a steal.

The first of the six sets sees Matthew Bourne paired with Glen Leach on two grand pianos. Bourne performed with Tippett in a two-piano feature from 2017-2019 including a show at London’s Union Chapel which turned out to be Keith’s last. There’s a good deal of working inside the piano, plucking and holding strings, with glorious bass rumbles and tense rippling before a sublime transcendent finish fades away.

The next set sees vocalists Julie Tippetts (Keith’s widow) and Maggie Nicols in another improvised duo. They start out in almost telepathic connection with notes, phrases, words, rhythms spilling out in a flow of mesmerising music. Nicols moves to the piano and adds another dimension. The performance spills into bickering noises and words, thumb piano rhythms tinkling away. When Julie Tippetts intones “He was a force to be reckoned with”, we know to whom she is referring. The audience applauds wildly – but the show isn’t over. Nicols says that she can’t do the splits any more (in her 70s) and then sees if she’s right or not. (You’ll have to get the Blu-Ray to find out.) Musical boxes (another Tippett favourite) appear before the performance fades into breathing.

Tippett’s 2011 suite From Granite To Wind is recreated by a strong septet including three saxophonists (Kevin Figes, Ben Waghorn and James Gardiner-Bateman) from the original recording. Bristol’s go-to pianist Jim Blomfield has the unenviable task of opening the piece with Tippett’s piano introduction and proves himself very much up to the task. The moment the swinging South African-inflected melody appears is total joy – worth the price of admission alone. Jake McMurchie (Get The Blessing) takes an extended tenor saxophone solo to great effect, while the engine-room of Al Swainger (double bass) and veteran Tony Orrell (drums) powers along with energy and verve.

Double Dreamtime has trumpeter Jim Dvorak leading a distinguished cast recalling the Dreamtime group with whom Keith Tippett was a key player from the 1980s onwards. The ‘double’ elements mean that each instrument is doubled as per their Double Trouble recording; the musicians coming in two by two in a nod to Tippett’s love of this format, most notably in his Ark unit. Original members Jim Le Baigue (drums) and Roberto Bellatella (bass), along with Paul Dunmall (saxophones) and Kevin G Davy (trumpet) and Mark Sanders (drums) from the Double band are joined by Harrison Smith (tenor sax), Paul Rogers (bass), and Alan Tomlinson & Richard Foote (trombones). A highlight of this set is Tippett’s tune Billy Goes To Town, a swaggering twelve bar blues with Dunmall and Smith seizing their moments.

The Paul Dunmall Quartet set inevitably brings back memories of Mujician, the improvising quartet led by Keith Tippett with Dunmall and Paul Rogers from the 1980s. Here Mark Sanders is on drums replacing original member Tony Levin whose death in 2011 brought down the curtain on the band, and Liam Noble is at the piano. Of course, the music produced by the four is of the highest quality; one section sees Dunmall on alto duelling with Rogers’ double bass, while Sanders lets rip with a terrific drum solo towards the end. These musicians are all masters in listening as well as playing, and they make space for each other seamlessly as the performance goes along.

The finale of the event sees the Celebration Orchestra, led by Kevin Figes and specially constituted for the occasion, play some of Keith Tippett’s large group music. Miles Levin joins on drums, another link to Tippett’s life and work. Keith’s own arrangement of Harry Miller’s tune Traumatic Experience opens the set, followed by part of Centipede’s Septober Energy with Julie Tippetts, daughter Inca and Maggie Nicols joining in for the vocal section. A Song and May Day both feature alto sax leads, with Figes and James Gardiner-Bateman stepping forward with confidence and sensitivity. The show closes with Dudu Pukwana’s tune MRA, arranged by Sean Bergin for the Dedication Orchestra – a fine display of all-in section playing to bring the event to a rousing finish.

This ambitious and successful tribute was put together by Kevin Figes along with an organising committee including Janinka Diverio, Ian Storrer and Nod Knowles. The sound quality of the recordings is excellent (bravo engineer Jonathan Scott) and to have it all on one video means that the visual and physical exchanges so key to this music are captured for us all to enjoy. This set is a worthy reminder of the maverick, hard-working and totally committed life that Keith Tippett led. His belief in the power of music, particularly improvised music, to transport audiences and transform the world was unshakeable. “Unite for every nation, unite for all of the lands, unite for liberation, unite for freedom of man”, he wrote for Centipede in 1969. Like so much of Tippett’s music this is still current and still vital.

The post ‘A Celebration of Keith Tippett’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The gorgeous black-and-white cinematography (Kent Persson) captures a time – between the death of Charlie Parker and the emergence of the ‘New Thing’ – when modern jazz (Monk, Miles, Mingus, Jazz Messengers, Rollins, etc.) was contemporaneous with James Dean movies, Elvis, Jailhouse Rock and 1940s standards re-vamped as pop.

The rehearsal scenes set in front of a proscenium arch stage (complete with painted rural backdrop) hint at the script’s origins in a play devised and toured by left-wing theatre ensemble Musikteatergruppen Oktober. Director Stellan Olsson opened out the production just enough to make an unforgettable cinematic experience, while retaining the intimacy of a small ensemble cast that acts and plays music with complete naturalness.

For a sequence in a rural hall, the fixed camera shows the band strike up in front of an empty floor that steadily fills up with dancing couples. At another venue, the camera slowly dollies back from a close view of the quintet while dancers move into view until they fill the frame, obscuring the musicians. A wedding is shot from the band’s point of view – we hear them but don’t see them until they take a break.

As with Jack Gelber’s The Connection, another play about jazz that was turned into a compelling black-and-white film (by director Shirley Clarke), the pleasure in Sven Klang’s Combo is in seeing the way the actors transition easily from talking to playing and singing and back again – their flawed personalities are conveyed as much by the way they play their instruments as their acting. The story quickly establishes the characters’ differing degrees of commitment to (and engagement with) music. 

Leader Sven Klang (Anders Granström) is a narcissistic bully with a superficially avuncular attitude towards his much younger bandmates. Ever-smiling, confident and mediocre, his sexual exploitation of Gunnel (Eva Remaeus), the teenage singer he ‘discovered’, drives the plot. Drummer Kennet (Henric Holmberg), who seems to ‘get’ jazz, has the long face and comic timing of a young Stan Laurel; pianist Rolf (Jan Lindell) has natural ability, but is a born lightweight; he likes playing music, he says, but he likes playing tennis, too.

The central character is saxophonist Lasse (Christer Boustedt), a genuinely gifted musician who has used his national service time in an army band to perfect his technique. Lasse’s hard-won but almost otherworldly ability to play genuine jazz inspires, scares and challenges the band members in different ways. His presence throws into sharp relief the difference between playing music because you must, and for any other reason. At the core of Sven Klang’s Combo is the time-honoured clash between life and art, and the sacrifices necessary to even consider becoming a serious artist, yet there’s also a simple, more universal story about being young and attempting to deal with the grown-up world.

The film’s coda, set in the 1970s, shows four of the quintet looking back at their time in the combo. In his introduction for the London Jazz Festival screening, curator and filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht spoke of the way jazz musicians see themselves reflected in the film’s characters, and compared the Swedish movie favourably to Hollywood biopics such as Young Man with a Horn and Clint Eastwood’s Bird, in which we have to suspend our disbelief that an A-list actor (Kirk Douglas, Forrest Whittaker) can play when their facial muscles prove they are miming to an off-screen recording of a real musician.

For me, the achievement of Sven Klang’s Combo is that actor / musician Boustedt is completely believable as the conflicted, charismatic and talented Lasse. The way he unpacks his alto, the conscientious way he performs and occasionally transcends the Combo’s hackneyed repertoire, the studied seriousness of an approach that makes it hard for him to conform and accept things as they are. A musical highlight is his unaccompanied cadenza at the end of ‘Over The Rainbow’; the others’ reactions create a nicely comic moment, yet it’s deeply touching. Lasse is not On The Road’s Dean Moriarty or Steely Dan’s ‘Deacon Blues’, but a more subtle kind of rebel, with a natural nonconformity that’s rooted in craft, self-discipline and an understanding of jazz that his fellow musicians will never have or even desire. For Lasse, that’s both his triumph and his tragedy. 

The post ‘Sven Klang’s Combo / Sven Klangs kvintett’ (1976) at Barbican Cinema 2 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

There are too many lines, and not enough circles, in life. Graphs, timelines, narrative arcs, they’re everywhere. A beginning and an end, with a compelling and dramatic series of ups and downs in between. Is that how real life is?

Tom Parsons’ evocative study of multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and composer Byron Wallen makes a good argument for experiencing life in circles. Jazz has a kind of continuity about it, cyclic forms that accumulate and mutate as they go. Parsons understands this, and his film has a sense of hovering around a central premise, often repeating itself but with that undercurrent of variation and accrued wisdom that the music itself relies on.

The film chronicles the formation, gestation and of “Indigo”, Wallen’s group with Tony Kofi, Larry Bartley and Tom Skinner. In doing so, however, the chronological passage of time seems to almost disappear, it gets slippery, we go backwards and forwards with no indication of when and where we are. In the opening shot, Byron says “Music essentially is created in the moment”, but the music behind him is from Indigo’s gig at The Crypt – straight away, we are looking at two different chronological points. Was the music created at the beginning of the band’s existence, or later on? Only when we reach the end of the film do we realise that the gig at Ronnies, a “reunion” of the group, is the point towards which everything is heading. And yet even that is in the past. It’s as if it’s still, somewhere, going on, and we, as musicians and listeners, drop in on it.

What is incredible is the sheer range and amount of footage here. There are some incredibly intimate shots, such as the photos and videos documenting Byron Wallen’s work with a group in Rabat, Morocco, and it’s not all music: some of the nicest moments are where he chats to some young kids…despite claiming that communication was often difficult, both musically and linguistically, the footage tells a different story. There’s also some film of him on stage at big gigs, including an excellently bizarre clip of him extending some kind of telescopic brass instrument. And there are some great shots of him playing various instruments: flutes, didgeridoo, the trumpet of course, in a garden somewhere, a vast array of gongs and the like in what might be a garage or a cellar. It’s an incorrigible thirst for musical knowledge, one that is reflected in the kind of depth of research that makes me wonder why I don’t also have a kora in my house.

This all forms a background as to how all this wide ranging experience guides the forming of a new group and its process of working. The fact that their music is often underscoring his descriptions of other influences brilliantly blurs the line between his own work and what he’s heard and studied before, as if we hear one melting into the other in real time.

To be honest, not everyone is a suitable subject for this treatment, but those who know Byron will attest to his charismatic and engaging way of speaking, which finds its perfect complement in the setting of what I assume is his workroom, a chaotic looking sprawl of stuff (“There was so much stuff!” says Tom, later in the film, about Byron’s house… “like a museum.”) It’s like an updated version of the cover to Thelonious Monk’s “Underground”…everything is there, waiting to be picked up, referred to.

The second half of the film is more devoted to Indigo itself, and everyone talks with a refreshing lack of inhibition about how the band worked together. There’s a sense from everyone that they knew the value of what they were doing and, as with many jazz groups, whilst it may not translate to appropriate recognition from the commercial world, still it’s invigorating to see people talking about musical touring life in an actual film. Camaraderie and music go hand in hand, and Tony Kofi’s assertion that “we all had each other’s backs” will ring true with anyone who’s experienced this kind of touring. Larry Bartley talks about their weekly practice sessions together, saying “there’s no way we could do that now”. One of the funniest moments for me was Tom Skinner remembering his introduction to jazz (“I used to read ‘Straight, No Chaser’ magazine”) that is then followed by a photograph of him doing just that, as if even then someone knew it would be needed for a documentary. Again, we don’t quite know where on the timeline these conversations are, but I started to enjoy that, placing both the action and the reminiscences in a kind of eternal present. “Coming back with this band, it feels like I’ve never gone away, the root is so deep” Byron says later.

Talking in split screens, often at the same time, about their lives since Indigo’s formation, music and storytelling seem to fuse, the counterpoint of voices against the music in the background feeling like the culmination of some kind of patient unfolding. Perhaps these are small steps, but they’re taken not with a need for progress, but with an acceptance of process. It left me feeling like I’d listened to, as much as watched, this engaging and intimate portrait.

SCREENiNGS: “Indigo” has just had its UK premiere at the Brecon Jazz Festival, and its European Premiere as an Official Selection at the On Art Dance and Music Film Festival in Warsaw. There are plans for a possible London premiere at the Coronet Cinema in December 2023.

The post ‘Indigo – Revelations In Small Steps’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

That’s quite something, a jazz festival with free admission for all. If Kai can do it, maybe there are other promoters who can too. I spoke to a number of people there who wouldn’t have previously considered going to a live jazz event and were delighted to be there, as well as seasoned jazz fans who attracted from all over the region. The setting certainly helps, and the weather too, but that’s all part of the magic.

Let’s not forget that Ms Hoffman is a fine singer too, and performed an excellent set supported by vibraphonist Roan Kearsey-Lawson and double bassist Simon Little, with the Jim Mullen’s Organ Trio’s Mike Gorman and drummer Matt Home, plus guest spots from Sarah Weller (momentarily liberated from the merch and raffle ticket stand) and the talented, 16-year old (!) singer Fraser O’Neill from KYJO. She’s the kind of singer who draws people in, and the crowd responded and appreciated her for her performance and her hard work.

The local theme continued with baritone saxophonist and flautist Paul Speare’s fusion based lineup of keyboardist and vocalist Hilary Cameron, bass guitarist Ollie Davie, drummer Jonathan Ward and guitarist Simon Golding who was sporting an extremely classy (and local) rig of Case JS Special and Cornford amplification. More enthusiastic response from the crowd.

Next came the Jim Mullen Organ Trio, with Mike Gorman and Matt Home returning, for a set by one our greatest guitar players performing hard bop grooves more commonly heard in dark nightclubs than bright sunshine, and sounding all the better for it.

They were followed by the Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio, the mighty trombonist with organist Liam Dunachie and drummer Pedro Segundo whose funky and explosive set had the end of the pier rocking.

As the late afternoon temperature cooled and the stage lights came on, the moment had arrived that many in the audience had been waiting for, with a huge welcoming roar for Clare Teal and her trio of pianist Jason Rebello, drummer Ed Richardson and returning double bassist Simon Little. Clare’s rapport with the audience is remarkable, they both know what to expect from each other and revel in each other’s company. What makes this band special is Rebello’s terrific arrangements that constantly take risks, and the high energy ensemble playing that challenges Clare to perform at her best which she absolutely did.

There was more music to come, but I had to leave with the beautiful sight of the sun setting behind the pier. People have since commented that the two final band son the pier were fabulous: the Indo-Cuban band Lokkhi Terra and New Orleans specialists The Coalminers. But there was so much more happening over the course of the festival with workshops for children, a swing party for families, a festival market, many more fine singers and musicians from South East Kent and beyond, the Kent Youth Jazz Orchestra…this was one hell of a festival and all props to Kai Hoffman for making it happen.

LINK: Eight hours of programming has been livestreamed. It is all HERE!

The post Herne Bay Jazz and Swing Festival 2023 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

When I was a kid in the seventies, there were only two jazz pianists. One was Art Tatum, the other, Oscar Peterson. It’s interesting that Tatum’s speed and dexterity were what urged Peterson on as a kid, a kind of gymnastic striving to be the best. But what is also interesting is that, comparing video footage of the two, they have one thing in common: the music seems to flow through them, unobstructed by the humans operating the instrument. Their faces are strangely unaffected, as if sitting back and watching this stuff come out with relaxed certainty. And it’s fast. Almost without exception, it’s fast. A hurdle to be cleared, a land speed record broken from the comfort of a piano stool. At one point, Peterson’s childhood teacher, the Hungarian pianist Paul De Marky, says: “I taught him technique….speedy fingers…’cos that’s what you need in jazz.” And in a way he was right, because that’s what you needed to get the approval of the television watching public, and the approval of the European Classical music world, who often seemed to assume that velocity was the only interesting thing about Black Music. (The seeds of the “Whiplash” phenomenon were sown early).

Because of all this, Oscar Peterson is sometimes frowned upon by those of us who might prefer to hack more tortuously through the twisted and gnarly woodland of American Popular Song. Still, he had something which, in my opinion, redeems him every time. He swung, and swung hard. And you can’t always do that just on your own. You need to be able to integrate with other musicians. In some ways, this virtuoso thing sells him short, and perhaps there could have been more evidence of his skills as an accompanist with Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald and Stan Getz among others. But it’s clear what the story is here, and in some ways, though not all, it’s what marks him out.

Throughout the film, archive interviews and present day commentaries alternate with fleet fingered footage. Running in parallel to this main narrative are performances and interviews featuring today’s generation of Peterson fans. There’s a sense that they somehow acknowledge the impossibility of reaching his heights, and for me the most engaging of these players don’t try and emulate him but play their own way and trust the influence to come through. Joe Sealy’s trio playing “C Jam Blues” has some harmonic ambiguity that Peterson would never sanction, and the “Love Ballad” sung by Measha Brueggergosman and Daniel Clarke Bouchard veers heavily into recital hall territory and so gives us an alternative view of the piece. It’s an interesting idea to show his influence on younger musicians whilst telling his story, but it’s also striking how similar the two worlds sound stylistically. Peterson is a towering and humbling influence over those who try to take him on.

He’s not, though, an easy subject. In some ways, the first part of the documentary struggles to find something to say about him: he was brilliant and practised extensively, then burst on to the New York scene and, via the revolutionary promotions of Norman Granz in large, classical auditoriums around the world, became immensely famous. At one point, animated jet planes zip around an imaginary globe, outlining the superhuman concert schedule of the band. The achievements of this man are sometimes overwhelming, like the music. There’s almost too little friction, he’s….too good, and everyone gets it.

At around 40 minutes in, the tone changes as we hear of Peterson’s experiences touring in the deep south of the United States. Despite the now ubiquitous nature of some of these images of racism, it’s impossible not to be shocked anew by them. Norman Granz having a gun stuck in his stomach in Dallas by a policeman who didn’t want him and Ella Fitzgerald to travel in the same cab, Quincy Jones describing the dummy hanging from the local church clock: these are tragic and disturbing images, and it’s at this point that we are reminded that Oscar Peterson’s life would never have been as charmed as we might imagine. Images of contemporary racism in the US hit home, and footage of his trio with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen playing his classic “Hymn To Freedom” shows him in more reflective mood, the three voices working together as one of the classic rhythm sections of all time. It’s almost too much of a weight for the film to hold, and the narrative shift back to the his continuing musical successes somehow makes the preceding episode all the more shocking.

Success, however, isn’t easy to handle, and the last half an hour reveals his struggles with the loneliness of the road and his punishing touring schedule. “If you go out and have one hell of a concert” he says at one point, “there’s a tingling, there’s an excitement….who do you tell?” The guilt of putting music ahead of everything else and the human cost of it all feels like it hovers, like racism, over a deep chasm that the story reluctantly backs away from. We learn, somewhat by chance almost, that Peterson had three failed marriages behind him (it’s notable none of these women appear in person or anecdotally elsewhere in the film: their consignment to anonymity is a little uncomfortable to say the least).

The final chapter of the story is taken up by Kelly Peterson, Oscar’s fourth and final wife, telling of his stroke in New York that was flagged up by him “missing notes” (again, we are reminded of his superhuman consistency) and his remarkable comeback despite a continuing problem with his left hand. But he didn’t slow down and neither does the music – a frenetic backdrop of “I Got Rhythm” by Stu Harrison takes us through the late life accolades at breakneck speed.

In a world of winners and losers, I think perhaps Michael Parkinson was right: Oscar Peterson was the best jazz pianist in the world and, like Tatum, some of that legacy was the resulting self-deprecation of almost everyone else in the world trying to play jazz. But Parkinson’s world was that of popular entertainment. I am reminded that at the tender age of seventeen, fellow Canadian Paul Bley stepped in for Peterson in the latter’s trio in Montreal. Bley aspired, later in his career, to be “the world’s slowest pianist”, which is a gift of bookended symmetry to me, looking for an ending. I guess there are no prizes for the World’s Slowest Hundred Metres, but that’s because no one is interested in anything other than the quickest way to the finishing line. Jazz isn’t like that, it never was, and even Oscar, wearing his speed on his sleeve, has more to him than trophies on his mantlepiece.

Oscar Peterson: Black + White is available on DVD & Download-to-Own from 30 January.

The post ‘Oscar Peterson – Black + White’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

For touring musicians, so much of this movie will resonate. The intense bond that develops between touring partners, the fun times, logistical issues, the loneliness that can come from the seemingly endless travelling and, of course, the music.

For fans of John Scofield it’s a reminder of what makes him a truly unique and vitally important musician; one who’s sole aim is to exchange ideas with other musicians and share those ideas with an audience.

Along the way we hear from many of John’s longtime friends and associates including Joe Lovano, Steve Swallow, Jon Cleary, Bill Evans and Dave Holland as well as fellow guitarists Mike Stern, Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell. The scenes with Lovano are especially touching as the two old friends chat and reminisce in a local café. Metheny’s comment that “there’s a truth in his playing” couldn’t sum up Scofield better.

All this is interspersed with footage of John’s quartet on trains, in cars, at rehearsal, soundcheck and in performance and, what a quartet! Bill Stewart (drums), Gerald Clayton (keys) and Vicente Archer (bass) represent yet another example of just what a great and generous bandleader Scofield is and always has been. That rare ability to surround himself with musicians that allow him complete freedom of expression whilst, at the same time, being a true band with each getting ample space to shine in their own right. As he says “It’s my band but, once we start to play, I’m just another member of the band.”

Scofield’s approach to bandleading reminds one of his former boss Miles Davis who consistently found new ways to frame his trumpet with handpicked combinations of musicians that kept him energised and inspired. Scofield has always done the same with that happy by-product of introducing new and exciting young jazz musicians to a wider audience.

John narrates the movie with the style and pace of an old sage around a campfire. He talks about everything from his early inspirations to the trials and tribulations of maintaining a 40-year career in a fast-changing world. He talks philosophically of music and his lifelong relationship with it. He talks of how Covid impacted him and those around him. He talks openly and honestly, just as he does when he plays his guitar.

He sounds animated when talking about his new quartet and he sounds sad when talking about the fact that many of the clubs he grew up in no longer exist. He’s keen to namecheck and give the spotlight to those around him that help and support him while on tour. One gets to end feeling as though they’ve had a private conversation with him in a quiet after hours bar.

The most striking element, however, is found in the musical passages which prove, yet again, that this 70-year-old Road Dog is playing better than ever. The John Scofield of today seems, more than ever, clearly and completely comfortable with his musical voice. A voice developed over many years that now displays a truly masterful quality. Those sinewy, snakelike post-bop lines laced with blues and full of surprise make Scofield one of the most instantly recognisable jazz voices in history. Inside Scofield is a vital addition to his story and an important document for those of us that want to get to know the maestro a little better.

Public screenings are currently planned for Dortmund (German premiere)and Portland, Oregon. DETAILS.

The post ‘Inside Scofield’ (film by Joerg Steineck) first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Documentaries about jazz musicians are typically about figures from history long after they have died. Occasionally, rarely, they are about existing elder statesmen.Hargrove stands alone in the genre: as a documentary which was originally conceived as one about a young vibrant musician, but completed as a testament to a lost player. It is tragic, in the sense that it is a documentary in memoriam, shaped not by intention but by circumstance; it is current, in the sense that it is full of interviews with contemporary musicians holding memories still raw; and it is unusual, in the sense it focuses on a younger generation of musicians from the world of jazz and beyond, and is mediated through documentary film-maker and friend Eliane Henri, making her directorial debut with this film. Hargrove combines all these things with a pinch of straightforward mythology-building, industry intrigue, and a humorous lilt even when dealing with growing hardship.

To many musicians, Roy Hargrove’s jazz career had peaked before most kids had graduated from their paper round. As a prodigious trumpet player in Texas attracting the attention of the visiting Wynton Marsalis, he was on his first European tour at 17 with Herbie Hancock. The early part of the film is heavy with attestations of genius from talking heads, interspersed with grainy clips of a young Roy on stage in high school or at junior jazz festivals, and generally appearing exceptionally accomplished. What is clear from the archive footage, and from Hargrove proudly bragging about the perfect scores he used to receive in these competitions, is that he knew he was good.

Part of the early unique appeal of Hargrove was that, not only was he good, but he had style. In his early 20s he dragged jazz from a world of suits and boots to sneakers and sunglasses, oversized Ts and bright jackets. Combining a hard bop sound with a modern attitude, Ralph Moore described him as both a “throwback and a throw forward, at the same time”. That modern attitude extended to who he played with, and what he played. While other jazz musicians kept their distance from the growing popularity of R&B and hip hop, Roy jumped into the heart of it and the mark he left on Questlove, Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) and childhood friend (and film executive producer) Erykah Badu was evident in the way they spoke of his influence on their recordings and musical careers.

One of the clear threads throughout the film is how much Hargrove loves playing music. There are stories from the 90s of his prodigious work ethic, and recent footage of him guiding jam sessions in the early hours at Smalls, NYC. The bulk of the new material in the film is structured around his 2018 European Summer tour, and he talks about being rained off from an outdoor show in Sète, France, and instead taking the band and turning up to a local club in town and playing an impromptu set there. There is the way he talks about playing, a musician’s signature, and the mystical magic of the ride cymbal’. 

It is when his love for playing begins to collide with his health, that it becomes clear the intensity of focus on music can be a blessing and a curse. In Italy and France, Hargrove looks and sounds tired, and while he loves playing the intensity of travel is getting to him. “They pay you for getting there, the music part is easy”. His health, while visible in the recent footage of him, only seeps into the film’s narrative slowly, carefully drip fed by Henri. First, he shrugs it off – he is too busy touring to deal with physical trifles – how could he take six months off from playing? Then there is the mention of how it first manifested, back pain and bathroom breaks, but he just pushed through and had to make the gig. When he collapses on tour and his band insists on taking him to hospital against his manager’s intentions, it occurs to the viewer that perhaps his prioritization of playing over health was more than just his decision.

This is where the villain of the piece is introduced. Larry “Ragman” Clothier – Hargrove’s long-time manager – looms over the interviews and film in a complicated. He is convincingly presented as a nasty figure who fires band members and controls Hargrove’s schedule and finances against his will, as a modern-day planter running a forced labour camp and working his musicians to death. Yet he is also described as a respected advisor and surrogate father, and the source of Hargrove’s early career promotion, professionalization, and stratospheric success. When it deals with Clothier and his legacy, the film switches from Hargrove documentary to something more, exploring power imbalances and issues of consent. The imbalance of power indelibly marks the film, with Henri explaining after the film that, due to Clothier’s unwillingness to license any of Hargrove’s music, this is a rare jazz documentary which features Hargrove playing only the compositions of other musicians but not his own.

At first glance, then, Hargrove appears as a conventionally filmed piece – close-focus stage shots, greenroom fly on the wall recordings, and an endless series of talking heads. What is unusual are the less staged moments: arguments with Clothier, footage of the director hanging out with her friend, and the incessant questions from Hargrove of whether they were done filming him already. Beyond Roy Hargrove’s music and story, it is this unfiltered access to the person which makes Hargrove an interesting addition to the jazz documentary canon. Long recordings of him reciting James Brown’s lyrics of ‘Prisoner of Love’ as if it was poetry, or grumpily insisting that he doesn’t want to look at any more grave stones because “They’re all dead people; I don’t want nothing to do with that”.

The soul of the film – and the impression of Roy Hargrove that I will keep front and centre – lies in one evening walk in Perugia. Hargrove ambles down the street, suited, as the camera back pedals in front of him. He sings aloud, slowly shuffling and joking with gawking passers-by. Walking is visibly hard for him, and he stops and smokes, surveying the street and gathering his energy. Right now, he is preoccupied with the best ice-cream he has ever had, and getting some trainers from the hip hop shop. Hargrove is light and silly and is killing time, and he is funny and charming.

The purest joy we see from him in the whole film is when Henri agrees to buy him some shoes for 80 euros. He’s labouring through kidney disease and dialysis but still wants to look the part. He is a jazz genius who needs to borrow cash off his film maker. He just wants to try the best ice cream in the world again…and then, looking forward to his gig that night he closes it: “how you guys doing? Ok? You can stop filming now’. In that moment it is clear that Henri has made a film which is about much more than the story of a musician, it is about the pieces of a man.

(*) The original review received a comment from Aida Brandes-Hargrove and Kamala Hargrove representing the Hargrove estate – READ HERE

The post ‘Hargrove’ documentary set for London premiere first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Award-winning editor and filmmaker Cath Longbottom’s film of Howard Riley is a delight. Just thirty minutes in length, it succeeds in capturing something of the essence of this remarkable musician and conveying what it is that makes his work so special. One could talk for hours about his wonderfully sensitive, pianistic touch at the keyboard or of how his improvisations continually surprise and yet somehow sound so complete and coherent. To listen to Howard Riley is to be drawn into his sound world and he is no less eloquent in conversation.

Some years ago I was asked to review The Complete Short Stories 1998-2010 (NoBusiness Records 2011), a six CD boxset of his solo improvisations. The prospect of listening to and assessing so vast a collection might seem daunting. In Riley’s case, it was a labour of love. I listened to the set pretty much straight through. It was like one of those rare books that you could not put down and, when finally forced to do so, you resent being dragged out of that world of the imagination.

As well as insightful interviews with Riley himself, the film features extracts from a concert with fellow pianist and friend, Keith Tippett at the Pizza Express in 2016 and a trio performance at the Vortex with bassist Barry Guy and drummer Lucas Niggli. These snippets leave one wanting more but that is a sign of a good film.

At one point in the film, Riley talks about the session with Guy and Niggli, almost offering a summation of his art of surprise,

“We ran through the pieces this afternoon but always on the understanding that if something develops you went along with it. My pieces are written like that. You can take them fairly straight or you can distort them a little. So, we were distorting quite a lot tonight, when we got into it.”

The London premiere of “Howard Riley – Cheerfully Beyond Category” at the Vortex on Sunday, 4^th September will also feature a separate film of Riley and Tippett’s 2016 concert. Both pianists played brief sets separately and then in duo at the end. Longbottom’s second film is of their duo.  I was present that night and reviewing the gig for All About Jazz. It was an evening of contrasts but also of a meeting of minds. As I wrote at the time,

“If Tippett builds from the foundations upwards, the sense with Riley is more forensic. He works from the outside of each idea, exploring ever deeper, peeling back layer after layer, drawing out every possible nuance of his songs. Inevitably, there are blues to be revealed in all their primal glory and Ellington and Monk, too. But all has been absorbed. He closes with “Round Midnight,” a performance so beautifully weighted and measured to make grown men cry into their Peroni.”

Sadly, Keith Tippett is no longer with us – another example of God taking the best from us, while the Devil fails to hold his end up. Thankfully, Howard – despite suffering from Parkinson’s Disease – is still here and playing, a triumph of the will in itself. Cath Longbottom’s twin films do more than preserve the music of two titans of improvised music and jazz, though that would be achievement enough. She reveals both Riley the man and Riley the musician. He is quietly spoken, reflective and totally immersed in his art but, unusually, amongst musicians capable of talking about it elegantly and eloquently. That comment, of course, applies with equal force to a Howard Riley performance.

CD RELEASE

As well as these two films, NoBusiness Records have released Journal Four, a CD of the full concert. All in all, this is an embarrassment of riches for fans of Riley – and Tippett. I will simply say that the music is a tour de force and the duo set – 45 minutes in length – a masterclass of empathic music-making. If there is also an undoubted sadness in watching and hearing these two musicians together – Keith Tippett, so engaged and present in the moment – it is a powerful reminder of the healing power of this music.  Copies of Howard Riley/Keith Tippett Journal Four will be available at the screening of “Howard Riley – Cheerfully Beyond Category”. 

NOTE: The London Premiere of Howard Riley – Cheerfully Beyond Category will be at the Vortex on Sunday 4 September – booking link below. The full programme for the event is:

• 3.15pm – Documentary film screening “Howard Riley – Cheerfully beyond category”
• 3.45pm – Q&A with director Cath Longbottom
• 4.20pm – Concert film – “A Conversation Between Two Pianos” (film of 2016 concert, see text of film review. )

RELATED REVIEWS:

• Geoff Winston’s interview with both Howard Riley and Keith Tippett prior to their 2016 concert
• Geoff Winston’s LJN review of the 2016 Riley/Tippett Concert
• Geoff Winston’s LJN review of Riley/Guy/ Niggli in 2017
• Duncan Heining’s review of f the 2016 Riley/Tippett Concert
• Duncan Heining’s extended review/essay of the 2013 album Live with Repertoire

The post ‘Howard Riley – Cheerfully Beyond Category’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

To many musicians, Roy Hargrove’s jazz career had peaked before most kids had graduated from their paper round. As a prodigious trumpet player in Texas attracting the attention of the visiting Wynton Marsalis, he was on his first European tour at 17 with Herbie Hancock. The early part of the film is heavy with attestations of genius from talking heads, interspersed with grainy clips of a young Roy on stage in high school or at junior jazz festivals, and generally appearing exceptionally accomplished. What is clear from the archive footage, and from Hargrove proudly bragging about the perfect scores he used to receive in these competitions, is that he knew he was good.

Part of the early unique appeal of Hargrove was that, not only was he good, but he had style. In his early 20s he dragged jazz from a world of suits and boots to sneakers and sunglasses, oversized Ts and bright jackets. Combining a hard bop sound with a modern attitude, Ralph Moore described him as both a “throwback and a throw forward, at the same time”. That modern attitude extended to who he played with, and what he played. While other jazz musicians kept their distance from the growing popularity of R&B and hip hop, Roy jumped into the heart of it and the mark he left on Questlove, Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) and childhood friend (and film executive producer) Erykah Badu was evident in the way they spoke of his influence on their recordings and musical careers.

One of the clear threads throughout the film is how much Hargrove loves playing music. There are stories from the 90s of his prodigious work ethic, and recent footage of him guiding jam sessions in the early hours at Smalls, NYC. The bulk of the new material in the film is structured around his 2018 European Summer tour, and he talks about being rained off from an outdoor show in Sète, France, and instead taking the band and turning up to a local club in town and playing an impromptu set there. There is the way he talks about playing, a musician’s signature, and the mystical magic of the ride cymbal’. 

It is when his love for playing begins to collide with his health, that it becomes clear the intensity of focus on music can be a blessing and a curse. In Italy and France, Hargrove looks and sounds tired, and while he loves playing the intensity of travel is getting to him. “They pay you for getting there, the music part is easy”. His health, while visible in the recent footage of him, only seeps into the film’s narrative slowly, carefully drip fed by Henri. First, he shrugs it off – he is too busy touring to deal with physical trifles – how could he take six months off from playing? Then there is the mention of how it first manifested, back pain and bathroom breaks, but he just pushed through and had to make the gig. When he collapses on tour and his band insists on taking him to hospital against his manager’s intentions, it occurs to the viewer that perhaps his prioritization of playing over health was more than just his decision.

This is where the villain of the piece is introduced. Larry “Ragman” Clothier – Hargrove’s long-time manager – looms over the interviews and film in a complicated. He is convincingly presented as a nasty figure who fires band members and controls Hargrove’s schedule and finances against his will, as a modern-day planter running a forced labour camp and working his musicians to death. Yet he is also described as a respected advisor and surrogate father, and the source of Hargrove’s early career promotion, professionalization, and stratospheric success. When it deals with Clothier and his legacy, the film switches from Hargrove documentary to something more, exploring power imbalances and issues of consent. The imbalance of power indelibly marks the film, with Henri explaining after the film that, due to Clothier’s unwillingness to license any of Hargrove’s music, this is a rare jazz documentary which features Hargrove playing only the compositions of other musicians but not his own.

At first glance, then, Hargrove appears as a conventionally filmed piece – close-focus stage shots, greenroom fly on the wall recordings, and an endless series of talking heads. What is unusual are the less staged moments: arguments with Clothier, footage of the director hanging out with her friend, and the incessant questions from Hargrove of whether they were done filming him already. Beyond Roy Hargrove’s music and story, it is this unfiltered access to the person which makes Hargrove an interesting addition to the jazz documentary canon. Long recordings of him reciting James Brown’s lyrics of ‘Prisoner of Love’ as if it was poetry, or grumpily insisting that he doesn’t want to look at any more grave stones because “They’re all dead people; I don’t want nothing to do with that”.

The soul of the film – and the impression of Roy Hargrove that I will keep front and centre – lies in one evening walk in Perugia. Hargrove ambles down the street, suited, as the camera back pedals in front of him. He sings aloud, slowly shuffling and joking with gawking passers-by. Walking is visibly hard for him, and he stops and smokes, surveying the street and gathering his energy. Right now, he is preoccupied with the best ice-cream he has ever had, and getting some trainers from the hip hop shop. Hargrove is light and silly and is killing time, and he is funny and charming.

The purest joy we see from him in the whole film is when Henri agrees to buy him some shoes for 80 euros. He’s labouring through kidney disease and dialysis but still wants to look the part. He is a jazz genius who needs to borrow cash off his film maker. He just wants to try the best ice cream in the world again…and then, looking forward to his gig that night he closes it: “how you guys doing? Ok? You can stop filming now’. In that moment it is clear that Henri has made a film which is about much more than the story of a musician, it is about the pieces of a man.

The post ‘Hargrove – The man, his trumpet, and the music that kept him alive’ (Documentary directed by Eliane Henri) first appeared on UK Jazz News.