Picture of Asaf Sirkis courtesy of : Gerry Walden/gwpics.com

Lichfield Real Ale Jazz & Blues Festival 2010

Sunday 27/06/2010

The abject failures of the England football team have had consequences that the players could never begin to imagine. The team’s failure to win their qualifying group resulted in them playing Germany and subsequently meeting their nemesis on Sunday afternoon. Anybody who had organised an event that day was on a hiding to nothing as a large proportion of the population hunkered down in front of the TV to watch what turned out to be a footballing humiliation. Numbers at Lichfield were significantly affected by the football with the Sunday audience significantly down on previous years. This was a shame as there had been a good turnout the previous day and the Sunday programme actually proved to be the stronger of the two in musical terms.

ASAF SIRKIS TRIO
Kicking off proceedings at noon were the Asaf Sirkis Trio, drummer Sirkis having stuck around after playing the previous day with Sarah Gillespie and Gilad Atzmon. Joining Sirkis were his regular trio colleagues Tassos Spiliotopoulos on guitar and Yaron Stavi on electric bass. The programme of Sirkis originals was mainly new material or drawn from the trio’s latest album “The Monk”(2008).

The trio opened with “Alone” which featured Spiliotopoulos’ thoughtful guitar playing and Stavi’s trademark singing electric bass, clearly influenced by the sound of Steve Swallow.

Sirkis’ brand of fusion is intelligent and largely free of bombast. As a drummer he’s a superb technician and heavily in demand on the UK scene working with Gillespie, Atzmon, Tim Garland, John Law and many others. He is also demonstrating an increasing maturity as a composer. Although as yet unrecorded (it should feature on the next album) “Letting Go” has been in the trio’s set lists for some time. It’s an episodic piece with a dramatic intro and makes good use of rock rhythms and Spiliotopoulos’ stratospheric guitar, strongly influenced by the playing of Allan Holdsworth.

Another new tune “The Lady Of The Lake” was more impressionistic and atmospheric with Spiliotopoulos utilising his effects tastefully and featuring a typically liquid solo from the excellent Stavi.

“The Life Itself” was drawn from “We Are Falling” the 2005 album by Sirkis group The Inner Noise featuring Steve Lodder on church organ and Mike Outram on guitar. The album has a “space” theme and this was encapsulated in Spiliotopoulos’s soaring “space” guitar underpinned by Stavi’s insistent bass pulse. For the first time Sirkis also allowed himself a feature, soloing colourfully above a sound-wash of guitar effects.

The first set closed with the lovely “Waltz For Rehovot”, a dedication to Sirkis’ home town in Israel and a feature for the wonderfully melodic bass playing of Stavi.

In many ways Sirkis drew the short straw, playing at noon before the bulk of the audience had arrived and again at 4.00 when most people were suffering in front of the telly. Those of us who persisted with the music were better entertained by a second set that expanded on the virtues of the first.

Highlights were “Ima”, a tender and atmospheric tribute to Sirkis’ mother and the closing “Dream”  which featured a lengthy and technically brilliant drum solo from Sirkis. The sauna like temperatures inside the marquee made this remarkable percussive tour de force even more extraordinary.

There’s no doubt that those who witnessed the trio’s two sets enjoyed them enormously and Sirkis seemed unaffected by the poor turn out proving to be an affable interlocutor between tunes. An enjoyable start to the day then, with some fine playing by three very talented musicians.

BACK DOOR TOO
It was a day for extraordinary bass players. Following the fluent Stavi was Colin Hodgkinson, leader of the trio Back Door Too.

Back in the 70’s when Jaco Pastorius was redefining the role of the electric bass in America Hodgkinson was doing much the same in Britain with the original Back Door alongside saxophonist Ron Aspery and drummer Tony Hicks. The Yorkshire based band fused jazz, funk and blues with Hodgkinson creating a new vocabulary for the bass guitar with his then revolutionary technique making extensive use of full chording. Championed by the late John Peel and the NME among others the group signed to Warner Brothers and achieved a level of mainstream success that seems quite remarkable now. 

The band folded after four albums in 1975 but regrouped for re-union tours in 1986 and 2003 at which point Hodgkinson started writing for the band again and an album was released entitled “Askin, The Way”. The tragic death of Ron Aspery at the end of the year saw the group bring in man mountain Rod Mason as a replacement. A huge personality and a band leader in his own right Mason has done a good job of filling the huge gap left by Aspery.

Hicks’ move to Australia and subsequent death in 2006 have seen drummer Paul Robinson come into the group. Robinson toured for many years with Nina Simone and has worked with some huge names across the jazz, pop and rock spectrum. I still remember his work with Jeff Clyne’s Turning Point with particular affection. As the Colin Hodgkinson Group the new trio recorded the album “Back Door Too” in 2007 the title quickly also becoming the group name. 

At Lichfield the group demonstrated their love of jazz, funk and particularly blues across the course of two entertaining sets with Mason switching between alto and curved soprano and sometimes manipulating his sound by the use of foot pedals to give a Garbarek style reverb. Hodgkinson’s technique doesn’t seem quite so revolutionary these days but he’s still a brilliant player, capable of an urgent funkiness at one end of the spectrum and a surprising lyricism at the other. His extraordinary technique, using the thumb like guitarists Wes Montgomery and Jim Mullen must surely be unique and grants him an astonishing agility on his instrument.

We also heard a good deal from Hodgkinson as a vocalist as the group tackled a number of classic blues songs, among them Leadbelly’s “TB Blues”, Jesse Fuller’s “San Francisco Bay Blues” and two Robert Johnson numbers “Steady Rollin, Man” and “Walkin’ Blues”, the latter a solo bass and voice feature for Hodgkinson. I think it’s fair to say that he’s a better bass player than singer but his voice is perfectly serviceable and adds an agreeably earthy edge to the band’s music.

Other highlights included a nod to Charlie Parker on “Bop That Bird” which featured Mason on alto and Robinson on a series of sparky drum breaks and an old favourite, “Human Bed” from the original Back Door’s 1972 d?but. “Paice Setter”, an infectious shuffle dedicated to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice was meant to be a feature for Robinson but was truncated, probably due to the extreme heat. 

Old troupers that they are this was the only band that thought to bring a change of clothes with them in the stifling conditions but there was a moment in the first set when I thought Mason was going to pass out. He’s a huge man and was clearly very uncomfortable in the heat. Back Door’s impact may have lessened with the passage of time but this was still a highly enjoyable couple of sets of good natured jazz, funk and blues well played by three highly talented musicians.

ZOE GILBY TRIO
I was pleasantly surprised by Newcastle based vocalist Zoe Gilby and her trio. I must confess that I wasn’t looking forward to hearing a bunch of standards sung by yet another identikit female singer.

However Gilby and her supremely skilled accompanists breathed new life into the most familiar of material. The Geordie songstress has a sensual, bluesy voice and is an engaging stage performer who articulates well between songs. Her arrangements are highly original and in bass player Andy Champion (also her life partner) and guitarist Mark Williams she has two supremely skilled accompanists.

Gilby is at home in any context from a bass/vocal duo with Champion through to trio, quintet and even octet. Her 2007 album “Now That I Am Real” finds her fronting an eight piece band led by drummer Tony Faulkner in a series of sassy, almost big band arrangements. It’s a good example of her versatility and great fun.

Taday in the more intimate setting of a trio Gilby was equally convincing. She began in bluesy fashion with “No More Blues” which featured an excellent solo from the always classy Williams. His lush chording and elegant runs were a constant delight over the course of both sets.

Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” demonstrated Gilby’s scatting skills and introduced Champion as a soloist. He’s worked with American luminaries such as Bob Mintzer and proved to be a superb accompanist and a fluent soloist, sometimes making good use of the bow, unusual in a vocal trio context.

Champion played arco on a beautiful version of Leon Russell’s 70’s ballad “A Song For You”, an unusual but inspired choice.

Gilby and her colleagues have a strong sense of musical fun and exhibited this over the rest of the set. A jaunty “Lullaby Of Birdland” featured more scatting and another fine Williams solo. “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me” was given an unusual rumba treatment and featured excellent solos from both instrumentalists.

Gilby has a particular fondness for the satirical songs of David Frishberg and was at her most flirtatious on “Peel Me A Grape”. She later chose another Frishberg tune, the hilarious but hugely pertinent “Forget About Living” to close her second set. 

Jobim’s “One Note Samba” was playfully delivered using the English lyric and “I’m Beginning To See The Light” was artfully bookended in a medley with “When Light Are Low.”

Gilby proved that she was up to date with popular developments by closing her first set with a thoroughly convincing version of Tom Waits’ “Way Down In The Hole”, taking her inspiration from the cover by the Blind Boys of Alabama.

The second set kicked off with the trio’s take on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” with Champion using the body of his bass as percussion.

“Time after Time” deployed cleverly syncopated vocal phrasing and an improvised vocal concerning the joys of Lichfield RAJB and the woes of England’s wretched performance.
“That Old Black Magic” and the Leiber and Stoller tune “Some Cats Know”( made famous by Peggy Lee on her “Mirrors” album) kept up the fun quotient but were punctuated by a moving version of Monk’s “Round Midnight”, the latter a duet for just voice and guitar. 

Gilby has listened to all the predictable jazz singing greats-Ella, Billie, Sarah etc-but her main source of inspiration is Carmen McRae as she demonstrated on “Once I Had A Secret Love”, cleverly singing the song in the styles of both Doris Day and Carmen McRae.

“Halfway To Heaven” was a blues packing a lascivious lyric and the set ended with the aforementioned Frishberg song. As in the first set all these items were punctuated by excellent solos and wonderfully apposite accompaniment from Champion and Williams.

Gilby is a highly accomplished and subtly original vocalist with a down to earth Geordie charm. Still relatively unknown outside her native North East this performance suggested that she deserves to gain national recognition. Due to the football the attendance was lower than she might have expected but those who heard her thoroughly enjoyed her performance. I hope she felt the long drive down was worth it.

LED BIB
The 2009 Mercury Music Prize nominees were yet another band to play to a smaller crowd than they might have expected. Their first set pitched them opposite the football and by the time of the second many people had headed for home. Not that this stopped the group producing two sets of inspired music that gave clear evidence that they are still developing musically and enjoying themselves hugely in the process.

London based American drummer founded the band some five years ago when all were members of the jazz course at Middlesex University. The line up remains unchanged to this day and features a twin alto sax frontline of Pete Grogan and Chris Williams with Toby McLaren on keyboards, Liran Donin on bass and Holub at the drums. The bulk of the group’s material is by Holub although Williams and McLaren also write. To date the group have released three studio albums “Arboretum”, “Sizewell Tea” and the Mercury nominated “Sensible Shoes” plus a cut price live album that is available at gigs and via the band’s website.

Led Bib are often compared to Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear etc. and they play at a high, almost rock, volume level and have acquired a young, non jazz following- not that there were many of those around today. It could be very different when they play the Mostly Jazz Festival in Birmingham next week.

Today Led Bib’s first set comprised entirely of new Holub composed material and the quality of the tunes suggests that the new album, due for release early next year will be yet another gem. Holub’s writing continues to mature, his new tunes are still full of killer hooks and riffs but there is also an increased narrative quality which was particularly apparent on “Hollow Ponds” which saw Mclaren switch to acoustic piano.

This is not to say that Led Bib have lost any of their trademark intensity. Holub still drums like a whirlwind, Grogan and Williams’ saxes still scream and wail and McLaren and Donin, the latter appearing exclusively on electric bass today, have both acquired a whole host of new electronic gizmos. Grinning like mad scientists they sparred with each other from opposite sides of the stage. But away from the sonic bluster there are more reflective moments and an increasingly diverse dynamic range to the group’s music. This is the sound of a band maturing but never comprising and their music remains among the most vital and interesting of the so called “punk jazz” groups.

For the record the rest of the first set comprised of “Moth Dilemma”, “Woodblock” “Engine Room” and “Walnuts”. Led Bib are not the kind of band to lend themselves to solo by solo descriptions. Their music is too densely knit and chameleon like for that. But look out for these tunes on the next album, you heard about them here first.

The group’s second set easily matched the excitement and intensity of the first with a few familiar items from “Sensible Shoes” being included, among them “Sweet Chilli”, “Early Morning” and “Yes,Again” which were played back to back.  New material comprised of “Power Walking”, “Shapes & Sizes” and “Horses For Courses”, these three tunes opening the set, plus the closing “Winter”.

Led Bib had played in Prague the night before, flown into Heathrow and driven straight up to Lichfield. That night they were going back to London. It’s a schedule that would make the footballers blanch and unlike their counterparts Led Bib delivered. Their full on approach probably ensured that they weren’t everybody’s favourite item but for me they were the highlight of the weekend and I’m already looking forward to seeing them again next week. What I’ll find to say about them this time is anybody’s guess. Maybe I’ll just relax and enjoy the sound of a band having “serious fun.” 

I didn’t stick around for Alan Price as it was a long way back and I think I’d have found him a bit too mainstream after the mighty Led Bib.

On a day when most of the country was hugely disappointed I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Lichfield RAJB-and as I was driving I wasn’t even drinking. If the England players had put in the same degree of effort as the musicians here, many of whom sweated buckets in very challenging conditions and still delivered, we might still be in the World Cup.

The only bad part of the day was watching the so called “football highlights” when I got home.

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