Photograph of Nikol Bokova sourced from the EFG London Jazz Festival website;
https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/

EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL 2024

MONDAY 18/11/2024

GERMANA STELLA LA SORSA QUARTET, CADOGAN HALL FOYER

Germana Stella La Sorsa – vocals, electronics, Tom Ollendorff – guitar, Sam Leak – organ, Jay Davis – drums

This afternoon event was part of Cadogan Hall’s popular round about 2.30 series. Since I last visited LJF in 2019 the format of these events has changed, possibly initially as the result of Covid regulations. In the past the series was free of charge and with unlimited admission, people were free to come and go as they pleased. It was always difficult to find a seat, it could sometimes get uncomfortably crowded and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. In addition audiences were not always attentive.

In 2024 all that has changed. Admission is still free, but ticketed, although audiences members can secure a seat by paying the modest sum of five pounds. All this demands a certain level of commitment from the listener and the shows are now less crowded and the audiences more attentive. This event felt more like a formal concert and was all the more enjoyable as a result, nobody was treating the performance as background music. Although it precludes the chance of somebody making a spontaneous musical discovery I approve of the change; it marks a degree of respect for the performers, all of whom are highly accomplished professional musicians.

Although La Sorsa was a new name to me I was drawn to this event by the presence of three of the UK’s leading contemporary jazz instrumentalists, guitarist Tom Ollendorff, keyboard player Sam Leak, here playing a Viscount organ, and drummer Jay Davis. All have featured regularly on the Jazzmann web pages in various other contexts and collectively they constitute La Sorsa’s regular quartet and appear on her latest album “Primary Colours”, released in January 2024. Leak and Davis also appear on her debut, “Vapour” (2021), on which the guitar chair was filled by Nick Costley-White.

La Sorsa writes the majority of her songs but also covers interesting outside material, as exemplified by her version of Frank Zappa’s composition “Inca Roads”. She also treats the sound of her voice with a floor mounted effects unit, which helps to take the music into interesting and unexpected areas.

The majority of the pieces on the recent album are named after colours and the quartet began with “Black”, which saw La Sorsa utilising her voice as an instrument, her voice soaring above Ollendorff’s Metheny-like guitar and Leak’s organ washes.

“Yellow” proved to be an imaginative setting of the William Wordsworth poem “Daffodils” characterised by an airy melody and La Sorsa’s adventurous vocals. As the featured instrumental soloists Ollendorff and Leak continued to play important roles.

Dedicated to La Sorsa’s one year old son “Blue” was a tender ballad that featured a mix of Italian and English lyrics, with Ollendorff and Leak again featuring as instrumental soloists.

The first set concluded with the only jazz standard of the day, a typically adventurous arrangement of “If I Fall in Love”, which appears on the “Vapour” album. This saw La Sorsa introducing live looping techniques, looping and layering her vocals as Davis established a distinctive Latin-esque groove. Leak took the first solo on organ, followed by Ollendorff on guitar, before the number built to a peak as La Sorsa’s wordless vocals soared majestically above Davis’ increasingly powerful drumming.

La Sorsa’s experiments with electronics continued at the beginning of the second set as she manipulated her voice on the atmospheric introduction to “Red”, augmented by the sounds of Davis’ mallets on cymbals. Later the combination of wordless vocals followed by thoughtful lyrics reminded me of the singing of Norma Winstone, a possible influence. One passage featured the sound of voice and guitar only, while the instrumental solos were shared between Ollendorff and Leak. La Sorsa subsequently explained that this piece had been inspired by the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche.

“White” featured an extended unaccompanied guitar intro, with Ollendorff singing along to his own melodies. He was then joined by La Sorsa for an intimate duo performance that saw both Leak and Davis sitting out.

Recorded for the “Vapour” album La Sorsa’s stunning arrangement Of Frank Zappa’s “Inca Roads” was arguably the highlight of the set, her singing of the lyrics was followed by some extraordinary wordless ‘voice as instrument’ vocalising. Meanwhile Ollendorff’s spiralling guitar inventions were buoyed by wordless vocals and a cathedral like organ backdrop, building in intensity and fuelled by Davis’ increasingly dynamic drumming. Terrific stuff.

Finally we heard the title track from “Primary Colours”, an emotive song with an English lyric using colours as metaphor,  and with Leak excelling as the featured instrumental soloist.

Overall I was impressed with this performance from the charismatic La Sorsa and her all star band. My thanks to all four band members for speaking with me during the interval and after the show and to Germana for answering my questions about the set list. This adventurous and talented vocalist and songwriter is a name to watch.

NIKOL BOKOVA QUARTET, CRAZY COQS

Nikol Bokova – piano, David Doruzka – electric guitar, Martin Kocian – double bass, Michael Wierzgon – drums

A double bill of shows for me at Crazy Coqs tonight beginning with this show from the Czech pianist and composer Nikol Bokova and her quartet, followed by the British band Lydian Collective.

Initially I was going to plump for Marc Ribot at Cadogan Hall but Lydian Collective is a band that I’ve wanted to see for a long time so I decided to go for them and thus take the opportunity of seeing two shows instead of one. It meant taking a bit of a punt on the Bokova quartet but I liked what I heard on the video clip on the EFG LJF website so I decided to go for it. In addition to this I’ve always had something of a fondness for Czech jazz following a visit to Prague in 1994 when I visited the Reduta and Arta jazz clubs and bought loads of CDs by indigenous Czech musicians including pianist Emil Viklicky, saxophonists Stepan Markovic and Karel Ruzicka Jr., trumpeter Juraj Bartos and the now late guitarist Lubos Andrst.

The decision to choose the Bokova quartet proved to be an inspired one. Every jazz festival throws up an unexpected discovery and for me this time it was Bokova. The classically trained pianist is also an intelligent and imaginative composer who has released a total of six albums, including the solo piano set “Naked Pieces” (2022).

The majority of tonight’s set featured music sourced from her two most recent quartet albums “Elements” (2022) and “Expedition” (2023), both recorded with the same line up detailed above. Both albums have something of a space travel / sci-fi theme, which is reflected in the tune titles.

Tonight’s event was presented by EFG LJF in conjunction with the Made in Prague Festival. Introducing the show Bokova praised the co-operation between the two organisations, but couldn’t resist having a dig at the UK about the whole Brexit issue. Good for her.

And so to the music, which began with the arpeggiated piano intro to a tune called “Corner of The Room”, with Kocian and Wierzgon subsequently combining to establish an E.S.T. style groove. Bokova’s episodic writing style embraced flowing melodies, with Doruzka’s guitar subsequently coming to the fore for his first solo of the evening. The exchanging of ideas between piano and guitar was a source of fascination throughout the evening and this opening piece also included a piano / double bass duet, plus a passage of unaccompanied piano from the leader. An excellent start.

“Capable of Motion” from the “Elements” album offered another example of Bokova’s gift for composition with its melodic guitar motif and subsequent solo, with bassist Kocian also coming to the fore with an articulate double bass solo.

Next Bokova announced a segue of pieces from the “Expedition” album with the words “enjoy the ride with us”. It was certainly quite a journey as we enjoyed back to back renditions of the first two tracks on the album, “Expedition” itself and “Space Odyssey”.

“Expedition” introduced a more pronounced rock element, as evidenced by a shuffling E.S.T. style groove and Doruzka’s soaring, sustain heavy guitar solo.

The guitarist also made excellent use of his range of FX pedals on the atmospheric introduction to “Space Odyssey”, a typically episodic composition that embraced arpeggiated piano, keening guitar and a melodic bass motif. Bokova is adept at utilising both colour and texture and dynamic contrasts as compositional tools and her gift for melody was apparent throughout tonight’s performance.

Following the success of the “Naked Pieces” album Bokova announced that she will be recording a second solo piano album, to be titled “Feathers”, in 2015. We were to enjoy three items scheduled for the new album tonight, beginning with “Feather No. 5”, a short unaccompanied piano performance.

“Feather No. 6” then featured the full ensemble and included solos from Doruzka on guitar and Kocian on bass. This was a relatively brief performance, but one that demonstrated Bokova’s ability to cram a lot of musical information into a comparatively short space of time.

From the “Elements” album came “Shores of the Void”, a mini-epic embracing an extended solo piano intro, folkish melodies, rock rhythms, powerfully plucked bass and a soaring guitar solo from the excellent Doruzka.

Unaccompanied double bass introduced “Feather No.4”, essentially a piano trio performance that also featured the leader’s piano melodies and Wierzgon’s delicately brushed drums.

A return to the “Expedition” repertoire for “The Deep Range”, a Bokova composition based on the Chopin piece “The Ocean”.  Bur classical music wasn’t the only influence at work here, there was also a sturdy slice of rock, as encapsulated by Doruzka’s feedback drenched guitar solo.

From the same album “Sakamoto Temple Town” paid homage to the late Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023) and was introduced by a dialogue between Bokova at the piano and Wierzgon at the drums. Bokova’s melodic motifs owed an obvious debt to Japanese music while Doruzka’s guitar solo introduced a more discernible Western element.

Also from “Expedition” the short, urgent “Terrestrial Traveller” included pithy piano and guitar solos and saw Doruzka making effective use of slide guitar techniques.

Introduced by a dialogue between piano and double bass, and featuring Doruzka on guitar, the music of “Perseids”  was possessed of a suitably luminous quality.

A superb group performance concluded with “Layers of Reality”, a piece from the “Elements” together. Centred around a nagging piano phrase and featuring Wierzgon’s quirky percussion the piece subsequently introduced rock and even hip hop elements, with Doruzka’s guitar spiralling skywards, propelled by Wierzgon’s increasingly dynamic drumming.

Unsurprisingly the quartet received a terrific reception and despite another show being scheduled later on they were allowed to take a brief encore, another rock influenced piece that lasted slightly more than the promised two minutes and which included an excellent piano solo from the leader.

The Nikol Bokova Quartet really did represent an exciting new discovery. The E.S.T. and Pat Metheny influences became less apparent as the performance progressed and it quickly became apparent that Bokova is very much her own woman. As a composer she is influenced by jazz, rock, classical, folk music and more and her writing is consistently colourful and inventive. Her playing was superb throughout, as was that of her colleagues. This is a quartet that has been together for a long time and which has recorded frequently and they have clearly established an excellent rapport. Doruzka’s astute use of his range of effects also helps to bring a distinctiveness to the quartet’s sound.

Both the “Elements” and “Expedition” albums are released on the Soleil at Pluie record label co-founded by Bokova and visual / sound artist Jan Bok Vala. I treated myself to a copy of each and can confirm that both recordings stand up very well in the home listening environment and I have enjoyed listening to them as I write. “Expedition” also includes guest contributions from the Norwegian trumpeter Gunnar Halle.

My thanks are due to Nikola for speaking briefly with me after the show and to Crazy Coqs sound engineer Jeremy for giving me his copy of the set list, which has proved invaluable in the writing of this article. He did a great job with the sound too.

Look out for Nikol Bokova, she’s a major creative force on the European jazz scene.

LYDIAN COLLECTIVE, CRAZY COQS

Aaron Wheeler – piano, keyboards, kalimba, Dan Lee – electric &  acoustic guitars, mandolin, Ida Hollis – electric bass, Sophie Alloway – drums

Lydian Collective are a London based quartet who have amassed a huge following on YouTube and have released two full length albums “Adventure” (2018) and “Return” (2022). Given the size of their fan base it came as no surprise to find that this second show of the evening was sold out.

Led by pianist, keyboard player and composer Aaron Wheeler the LC’s broadly fusion-esque music is based on accessible melodies and strong grooves, a winning combination.

They opened their set with “Press Start”, a tune originally written by Wheeler for his solo project The Laszlo Project. This was a piece that managed to be both funky and melodic and with leader Wheeler adopting an electric piano sound on his keyboard solo. Tonight’s show featured the impressive talents of guitarist Dan Lee, who was standing in for founder member Todd Baker. Lee had already settled into the band following a series of European tour dates and his playing was excellent throughout.

Wheeler handled the announcements and told us that the title “Legend of Lumbar”, a track from the “Adventure” album, had been written around the time he had undergone a spinal operation, poor chap. The music combined funky, hard grooving passages with more reflective episodes. It included a liquidly melodic electric bass solo from Ida Hollis.

From the same album “Cascades” saw Wheeler moving to the venue’s grand piano, on which he played a flowingly lyrical solo. But in typical LC fashion the piece managed to include an uplifting funk episode too.

Wheeler remained at the piano for “Saintonge”, a composition named after a French village familiar to the leader that appears on the “Return” album. This was played in the piano trio format and included features for both Hollis and Alloway.

Wheeler writes the majority of the group’s material but the next piece, “Thirty One”, the opening track on the “Adventure” album, was written by absent guitarist Todd Baker. This featured the virtuoso acoustic guitar playing of Lee who dealt with the complexities of Baker’s writing with considerable aplomb. There was something of a prog rock feel to the piece and I was sometimes reminded of the music of Gordon Giltrap. Wheeler continued on acoustic piano and was the other featured soloist.

Lee was featured on yet another instrument, a guitar shaped mandolin, on “Mr. Sunshine”, an appropriately joyous piece with a catchy melodic hook and infectious groove. His solo was underscored by Wheeler’s soft focus synth as the leader moved back to electric keyboards.

From the band’s second album Wheeler’s composition “Out Of The Woods” was originally written for the Scottish composer and folk musician Lucie Treacher. Seamlessly combining folk and funk and electric and acoustic sounds this featured an incisive acoustic guitar solo from Lee and a solo on electric piano from Wheeler, with Hollis also enjoying a short cameo on electric bass. The recording also features the sound of violin, presumably played by Treacher.

The next piece was announced but was ushered in by the rhythm section, who established a languid funk groove that provided the momentum for solos from electric guitar and electric piano. However this was very much a feature for the all female rhythm team and both Hollis and Alloway impressed with substantial individual features.

It was a big night for Wheeler, whose parents were in the audience to hear him announce the new composition “Decimal”, the title a reference to both the 10th anniversary of the founding of the band and the tricky 5/5 time signature. This saw the composer returning to acoustic piano and sharing the solos with Lee’s electric guitar.

The aptly titled “November”, the closing track on “Adventure”, was a mellow piece that featured the sounds of acoustic piano, acoustic guitar and Alloway’s brushed drums, with Wheeler the featured soloist.

“Cartoon Hero”, originally written by Wheeler for a solo electronics project, introduced the sound of the kalimba, a type of African thumb piano. This was combined with the sound of electric keyboards as Wheeler delivered a searing synth solo. There was also feature for Hollis on electric bass and a dynamic drum solo from the always excellent Alloway.

The deserved encore, which I think was called “Rave Up”, saw Wheeler encouraging the audience to clap along as he conjured a range of deliciously filthy and funky sounds from his keyboards and Alloway laid down a driving rhythm. High octane solos came from Lee on guitar, making highly effective use of his wah wah pedal, and leader Wheeler on keyboards.

This high energy curtain call represented a great way to round off an excellent day of music and a terrific ‘double bill’ at Crazy Coqs, where the estimable Jeremy had provided an excellent sound mix for both of the evening’s bands.

I enjoyed all three acts that I saw today, but ultimately the nod goes to the Nikol Bokova Quartet. It’s always exciting to make a new musical discovery and this band really delivered. That’s not to take anything away from the other two acts, but I had a bit more of an idea of what to expect from them. It’s always satisfying when taking a bit of a gamble pays off.

 

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