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EFG London Jazz Festival, Day Two, Saturday 17th November 2018.

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by Ian Mann

November 29, 2018

Ian Mann on the music of New York's Jamie Baum Septet + and Chicago's Marquis Hill Blacktet.

EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL
Day Two, Saturday 17th November 2018


The first Saturday of the Festival proved to be a strange day for me, one that didn’t turn out to be quite what I expected.

My wife had celebrated her 60th birthday in the week leading up to the Festival and our hosts, both family members, had invited the numerous other branches of the family to London for a surprise party. Relatives converged on the capital from all corners of the UK, Cardiff, Cambridge, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester and my wife was taken completely by surprise. She had a wonderful day with her family that she will never forget.

It all came as a surprise to me too, I’d been kept out of the loop to prevent any spilling of the proverbial beans. It did however affect my Festival plans. I had intended to cover the Daylight Music event featuring Sigbjorn Apeland and others at Union Chapel before moving on to the NYJO Jazz Jam at The Vortex and perhaps catching something of the Italian Jazz Showcase at the Barbican Freestage. All this was shelved due to the unforeseen events but as I hadn’t actually arranged press tickets for these events I was able to change my plans with a clear conscience, I was going to pay the five pound admission charges at the Chapel and the Vortex and the Barbican event was, of course, free. However I still felt that I should honour my commitments to the two ticketed events that I had arranged to cover in the evening. Having somehow managed to remain sober I abandoned the revellers to their evening meal and made my way to Kings Place for;

JAMIE BAUM SEPTET +, HALL TWO, KINGS PLACE

Jamie Baum is a New York based flautist and composer and a substantial presence on that city’s jazz scene. She’s a musician that I have been aware of for a number of years having at some point received one of her earlier albums, the 2013 Septet + release “In This Life” as I recall. I was impressed with what I heard but somehow the album slipped through the net as regards reviews, mainly due to this site’s concentration on UK jazz.

My apologies to Jamie for that but I have continued to keep an eye on her career, regularly passing on the contents of her newsletters to the Jazzmann readership and including her gigs in our listings.
When a rare UK live appearance was announced at EFG LJF I therefore felt duty bound to check it out, both for myself and for Jamie.

The Kings Place date was part of a short European tour (now completed) in support of Baum’s latest album “Bridges” featuring her eight piece ensemble Septet +. The group that Baum brought to London was essentially the same as that on the album with the flautist joined by Amir Elsaffar (trumpet, flugelhorn, voice), Sam Sadigursky (alto sax, clarinet), Chris Komer (french horn), Brad Shepik (guitar), Zack Lober (bass) and Jeff Hirshfield (drums, percussion). The only change was the piano chair where the album’s John Escreet was replaced by the excellent Luis Perdomo. Escreet was to turn up later at the Festival as part of drummer Antonio Sanchez’s Migration band, but more on that in a subsequent feature.

First formed in 1999 Baum’s now expanded septet has been her primary vehicle for composition and there have been regular fluctuations in personnel over the years with many of New York’s leading musicians passing through the band’s ranks. The latest album, “Bridges”, reflects Baum’s growing fascination with world music and global rhythms and the links, or bridges, between musical cultures. The current version of the band is adept at navigating the complexities of Baum’s writing and the emphasis tonight was on composition rather than out and out improvisation, although several of tonight’s performances differed significantly to the recorded versions.

The majority of tonight’s material was sourced from “Bridges” but the group began with an older piece, “Nusrat” from the “In This Life” album. Baum has long been an admirer of the late, great Pakistani Qawwali vocalist Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-97) and her piece is a transcription of one of Khan’s vocal melodies. The first thing that struck me about tonight’s performance was the fascinating but highly effective blend of horns with the combination of flute, trumpet, alto sax and french horn surely unique in the realm of jazz. The complex melody lines resulted in a sound that reminded me of an exotic updating of bebop with solos coming from Elsaffar on trumpet, Baum on flute, Komer on french horn and Sadigursky on high register alto sax.

Turning to the “Bridges” repertoire “Joyful Lament” was based upon another Khan melody and represented something of a feature for guitarist Shepik. Drums, bass clarinet and guitar introduced the piece before Shepik took flight with a guitar solo that combined great fluency with a strong rock influence as he headed for the heavens with a breathtaking, sustain heavy solo. The recorded version includes a konnakol introduction by guest musician Navin Chettri.

Baum cast her global net further with “From The Well”, the opening tack of the “Bridges” album. Here the influence was the maqam of Jewish and Middle Eastern music with Baum taking the first solo on flute. The excellent Elsaffar then demonstrated his mastery of the form with an authentically Middle Eastern sounding solo on trumpet that became increasingly forceful and garrulous as the tune progressed.

Unaccompanied piano introduced “Song Without Words”, dedicated to the memory of Baum’s late father Seymour James Baum. Perdomo’s low end pianistic rumblings then underpinned Elsaffar’s vocals, his singing inspired by “Kol Nidre”, an Aramaic dedication played or recited in the Jewish synagogue before the beginning of the evening service on every Yom Kippur. I wasn’t aware of all this until I read the album liner notes, but at the time I noted that the music had a spiritual and meditative quality about it, this enhanced by a further passage of solo piano, more beautiful vocalising from Elsaffar and the warm, woody tones of Sadigursky’s bass clarinet and Baum’s flute.

The first set concluded with “While We Are Here”, another tune from the “In This Life” album with Perdomo’s piano arpeggios underpinning mellifluous horn melodies with solos coming from Baum on flute and Perdomo on piano, the piece steadily gaining momentum as it progressed courtesy of Lober’s insistent bass grooves and Hirshfield’s crisp drumming, with the latter’s cymbal work particularly impressive.

The group stuck to the “In This Life” repertoire at the start of the second set with “The Game”, another piece inspired by by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan that embraced strong melodies and driving rhythms with Shepik taking the first solo on guitar. He was followed by the leader on alto flute who entered into a series of lively exchanges with Elsaffar on trumpet.

It was back to the “Bridges” album for the rest of the programme beginning with “There Are No Words”, a reflective but delightfully melodic piece featuring solos from Lober on double bass, Baum on flute and Perdomo at the piano.

The centre piece of the “Bridges” album is the three part suite “Honoring Nepal; The Shiva Suite”.
Baum’s fascination with South East Asian music has led to her visiting Nepal many times and performing at the Kathmandu Jazz Festival in 2003 and 2009. Having played with local musicians and having formed lasting friendships in the country she was emotionally devastated by the terrible earthquake that caused widespread destruction in Nepal in 2015. Commissioned by the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York City the Suite is her response to those events and is centred around the complex character of the Hindu deity Shiva, the God of Destruction among several other contradictory attributes. The suite was first performed at a benefit concert for the earthquake victims at the Poisson Rouge Jazz Club in New York City.

Although performed tonight as a single entity the Suite is divided into three distinct parts, “The Earthquake”, “Renewal” and “Contemplation” and it was fascinating to follow its progress in live performance. Lober’s playing of a singing bowl helped to set the scene, the ethereal sounds subsequently joined by sparse piano chording and the subtle textures created by flute, trumpet, french horn and bass clarinet. A dialogue between Shepik on guitar and Hirshfield at the drums then ushered in the violence of “The Earthquake” with its wilfully dissonant ensemble passages. “Renewal” then featured Sadigursky’s melodic alto sax solo, this followed by a series of exchanges with the leader’s flute. Singing bowl and piano ushered in the gentler “Contemplation” with french horn and bass clarinet then intertwining above the soft patter of hand / brushed drums. Perdomo then entered into dialogue with Lober’s melodic bass before embarking on a flowingly expansive piano solo, this followed by a fluent excursion from Komer on french horn as the music ultimately became more celebratory in tone.

The last tune of the night was the final one from “Bridges”. Baum wrote “Ucross Me” at the Ucross Artist Colony in Wyoming and the piece addresses the crossing of boundaries and the connecting of influences, themes that inform the “Bridges” album as a whole. Exhibiting a minimalist influence with its piano arpeggios, gently needling guitar and pecked, contrapuntal horn lines this was an oddly compulsive piece that eventually adopted a more forceful, straightforward rhythmic drive that framed instrumental set pieces such as the dialogue between Lober’s bass and Elsaffar’s trumpet, with the latter subsequently embarking on a more conventional solo. This was then followed by Shepik’s spiralling inventions on guitar.

Overall I was impressed with Baum’s writing and by the playing of the members of the ensemble. Rich in terms of colour and texture and with consistent rhythmic interest Baum’s music has much to offer and the “Bridges” album reveals fresh delights with each subsequent listen. There were occasions when tonight’s performance seemed a little too formal and overly academic (much of “Bridges” was written for a Guggenheim Fellowship) but Baum’s interest in global musical culture has found her assembling a fascinating amalgam of influences into a unique and personal soundworld, made accessible by a select group of hand picked musicians.

I treated myself to a copy of “Bridges” during the interval and was sorry that I couldn’t hang around after the show to speak with Jamie. Instead I had to dash off to Ronnie Scott’s to catch my third American band of the Festival, trumpeter Marquis Hill and his Blacktet.

MARQUIS HILL BLACKTET, RONNIE SCOTT’S JAZZ CLUB

There was some doubt as to whether this show actually came under the EFG LJF umbrella and I’m therefore indebted to Ronnie’s Marketing Manager Emma Raczkowski for arranging my ticket for this event.

This late night show was the second of the evening by the Blacktet and saw the Chicago born Hill leading a stellar five piece band dubbed the Blacktet and featuring Braxton Cook on alto sax, Joel Ross on vibraphone, Jeremiah Hunt on acoustic and electric bass and Jonathan Pinson at the drums. Initially I was a little disappointed that rising drum star Makaya McCraven wasn’t behind the kit as had been suggested but that was soon forgotten as I was quickly blown away by the percussive skills of Pinson, who fills the drum chair on Hill’s latest album “Modern Flows Vol.2”.

I first became aware of Hill’s playing when he appeared as part of bassist Marcus Miller’s band at an excellent performance at Birmingham Town Hall in October 2015. I was hugely impressed with Hill’s contribution and jumped at the chance of seeing him leading his own project.

At a sold out Ronnie’s Hill and his colleagues took to the stage to the sampled sounds of “Modern Flows II Intro”, the opening track on the new album featuring the voice and words of poet, DJ and MC Brandon Alexander Williams. The album embraces elements of hip hop, funk, soul and r & b, with Hill adopting the point of view that all Afro-American music stems from the same source. Like his one time boss Miller he’s a versatile musician who drifts seamlessly between musical genres.

But make no mistake, tonight’s was emphatically a jazz performance with the members of the Blacktet relishing in free-wheeling improvisation as they tackled Hill’s material with gusto. As Williams’ voice played Ross and Pinson entered into dialogue, the drummer setting up a hip hop style groove that quickly mutated into something more conventionally jazzy as Williams’ voice faded away and the twin horns of Hill and Cook steered the music into more orthodox bebop territory with Cook taking the first solo on alto, followed by Hill on trumpet, the two also entering into a series of fiery exchanges. Ross followed them with a highly percussive two mallet vibraphone solo, channelling the spirit of Lionel Hampton for the 21st century. With Hunt’s bass fulfilling an anchoring role Ross then renewed his dialogue with Pinson, their dazzling exchanges sometimes reminiscent of the equally brilliant interplay between Jim Hart and Dave Smith in the UK’s own Cloudmakers Trio.

It was Pinson that introduced the next piece with a passage of unaccompanied drumming that incorporated martial rhythms and led to a complex, boppish head from the horns with Hill shading off into a strident, bop flavoured solo. As Cook took over on alto Hill, a former drummer, clapped out a rhythm that wouldn’t have disgraced a flamenco ‘palmas’ specialist as he combined with the vibrant Pinson. Still wielding two mallets the impressive Ross took up the baton on vibes, his solo followed by a feature for bassist Hunt before the two horns coalesced again for a unison restatement of the head.

Thus far tune titles had been unannounced but Hill now spoke to introduce “Prayer For The People” which was introduced by a passage of unaccompanied bass from Hunt prior to a bravura solo from Hill that included Dizzy Gillespie-like trumpet pyrotechnics. Cook, previously seen at EFG LJF with trumpeter Christian Scott’s band, was equally impressive, as was the razor sharp playing of the whole ensemble. The recorded version of this tune, on “Modern Flows Vol. II” features the words of Chicago poetess M’Reld Green and tackles the subject of social injustice in black neighbourhoods, but tonight it effectively transmitted its message as an inspired instrumental performance.

From the same album “Herstory” also features Green, but again convinced as an instrumental with the irrepressible Ross displaying his four mallet technique as he soloed over Pinson’s solid drum grooves. Meanwhile Hill’s solo on Harmon muted trumpet evoked that classic Miles Davis sound, with Cook’s alto sometimes doubling the melody.

No further tune announcements were forthcoming but the sparks continued to fly with the soulful grooves of the next piece fuelling another impressive trumpet solo from the leader. But as impressive as Hill and Cook were, the only two musicians that I’d heard previously, it was the fresh discoveries Ross and Pinson that excited me most. Pinson is a playful but highly musical drummer and his scintillating exchanges with Ross in the, vibes trio, format were among the most thrilling moments of the set. Whether soloing with two mallets or four Ross was consistently impressive and is set to release his album début as a leader in 2019, an event that should be well worth looking out for. Meanwhile Pinson displayed the kind of chops that have made him such an in demand sideman, with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter heading an impressive list of former employers.

This performance by the Chicago based Blacktet was a tribute to the high standard of jazz musicianship in the Windy City and was easily the match of the two New York based bands I’d already seen. Indeed this was probably the pick of the bunch thus far, a hugely exciting show that featured some exceptional soloing allied to a strong group dynamic and underpinned by a highly relevant political agenda.

The only regret was that there wasn’t more of it, the set lasting just an hour and with no encore forthcoming despite the excited reaction of the crowd.

 

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