Manchester Jazz Festival Website Now Live

Red hot off the Wordpress! - full details on the 15th festival, the biggest to date. Loads of extra goodies including an interview by me with Mike Walker. Go there now:

http://www.manchesterjazz.com

Manchester Jazz Festival Announces The Full 2010 Line Up

As some readers of this blog will know, I'm involved with the annual Manchester Jazz Festival that's coming up very soon now. Our lovely team have just put out a press release, so I thought it'd be handy to include it here. The fest is gonna be a goodun:

Manchester Jazz Festival (mjf), celebrates its 15th anniversary with the biggest festival to date, Fri 23 - Sat 31 July 2010

Over 80 bands will play across 8 city centre venues, at all times of the day and night - indoors and out! mjf is all about trying something new - and this year it's easier than ever to discover a world of new music, unlike any other on the jazz festival circuit.

2010 includes musical firsts from Britain and abroad, including the mjf originals commission Surroundings, a new antiphonal suite for jazz orchestra composed by Manchester trumpeter Neil Yates. International debuts come from Spanish pianist Baldo Martinez and Franco-German duo Daniel Erdmann and Frances Le Bras. Other highlights include jazz 'supergroup' Simcock/Walker/Swallow/Nussbaum, featuring Salford-born guitarist Mike Walker, and Phil Bancroft's multi-media Home - Small as the World which features one musician's contribution beamed directly by wi-fi from his Manchester home.

As you’d expect, Band on the Wall, Manchester’s legendary live music venue, is one of mjf’s main venues, with performances from the Indo-Jazz fusions of ex-Mancunian clarinettist Arun Ghosh, to the city’s most revered DJ, Mr Scruff. Even ’80s icon Kid Creole makes a comeback! Also at the venue, the BBC’s flagship jazz radio programme Jazz on 3 will broadcast live from the festival on Monday 26 July.

A multitude of jazz vocalists, all with their own personal approach to jazz, feature in the line up: Terri Shaltiel has the blues, Rodina an Irish lilt, Monika Lidke her Polish folk songs, Alice Zawadzki her Jewish folk songs and An Jacobs her French chanson.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is music for the jazz aficionado too: mjf champions artists who are crossing the boundaries and pushing the music to new limits: The Golden Age of Steam features an unusual line up of bass clarinet, organ and drums, and their soundworld – nothing to do with trains! – evokes swirling soundscapes and contemporary classical music. Jim Hart studied an unusual instrument - the vibraphone - at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester; now he’s one of the UK’s leading exponents and he’s joined forces with Ralph Alessi, the innovative New York-based trumpeter, for his gig to launch the festival on 23 July.

A whole day is also devoted to the energetic and vital rhythms of Afro-Caribbean music. From 2.00pm on Sunday 25 July, take part in special percussion and dance workshops in the Festival Pavilion in Albert Square, and at 8.00pm catch the double bill featuring two of the north west’s foremost ensembles of this genre: Diáspora, a young 11-piece band with dynamic orchestrations, and Mojito, with authentic Cuban vocalists and a lively percussion section. All you need to add is the rum and the cigar…

mjf introduces continues in the afternoons with 6 new young artists from Greater Manchester launching their careers at the Festival Pavilion in Albert Square. New to the festival this year is a series of afternoon tea events in the award winning French restaurant at the Grade II-listed Midland Hotel.

Steve Mead, mjf’s Artistic Director, says: “There’s an incredible amount of wonderful music in this year’s festival – and so much for free. Not only that, but such a wide mixture of sounds and styles, from twice BBC Jazz Award-winner and singer/songwriter Liane Carroll, bringing her relaxed pop and blues influences into the mix, to the most challenging of artists at the cutting-edge of jazz, like Stuart McCallum (Cinematic Orchestra) and the punky Trio VD. mjf guarantees you a memorable time, whatever your taste.”

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http://www.manchesterjazz.com

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Heading South West South North in Vienna

Simcock Walker Swallow Nussbaum, Porgy and Bess Jazz Club, Vienna, Austria. Sunday June 6th 2010

Last month I was lucky enough to catch the 'Simcock Walker Swallow Nussbaum' group in Vienna at the Porgy and Bess Jazz and Music Club (seemingly implying jazz isn't music?) . Once out of the Vienna sunshine and down deep in the basement of the club two floors underground, it seemed surprisingly unstrange to be bumping into a few familiar faces.

The set opened with guitarist Mike Walker's warm and welcoming 'Clockmaker', further enhancing the homely feel. The legendary Steve Swallow on electric bass went straight in for a solo, feet apart to anchor himself to the ground while leaning forward, his fingers wrapping the fretboard where the neck joins the body to project flowing and melodic lines.

Pianist Gwilym Simcock is rapidly gaining an enviable reputation, and on the basis of tonight's performance, it's not hard to see why. His tune, 'You Won't Be Around To See It' grooved with a satisfying angularity that really dug in when both Walker and Simcock laid some punchy and aggressive lines over the top.

The band delivered the incendiary bop of Walker's 'Laughlines' at hyper-real speed, leaving the audience almost literally gasping for breath. The precision, pace and power of the complex tune head and the improvisations from Walker and Simcock had to be heard to be believed on this one, with all members playing out of their skins.

It was over to bluesy street for a fine take on 'Hey Pretty Baby' written by drummer Adam Nussbaum, a tune based on a simple blues riff in homage to legends such as Howlin' Wolf. Walker overlaid the sound with some fade-in textures before biting in hard with piercing overdriven string bends and feedback sustained harmonic headslices. Walker has a masterful ability to coax the guitar and amplifier to find the feedback sweetspot seemingly with ease. Simcock responded with a side-swiping almost Bach-like figure before taking the harmony down a delightfully airy dorian avenue. Nussbaum all the while cruised the deep groove, always resonating sympathetically to the group's ebb and flow. His dynamic range and sensitivity seems to extend beyond human hearing.

The evening concluded with the Steve Swallow favourite, 'Ladies in Mercedes'. Simcock led us in with some muted piano string percussion before Swallow treated us to a liquid gold flowing solo. A warm ending to a great jazz evening in the capital of classical music.

I grabbed Mike for an interview about the tour while I was on his advanced Jazz Guitar Master Class Retreat in Andalucia, Spain last week (highly recommended!). I'll be posting that in a few days.

Simcock Walker Swallow Nussbaum will be on tour again very soon and will be playing at the Royal Northern College of Music on the 27th July as part of the Manchester Jazz Festival. One not to miss me thinks.

Astral Week Days

Alice Zawadski & The Sky Project, Beats and Pieces Big Band, and The Rapley/Chatterton Quartet. West Didsbury Club, Manchester, 20th May 2010

There was a great buzz to be felt last night over in West Didsbury at the local Conservative club for a swiftly organised coalition of wide ranging jazz party members.

The Rapley/Chatterton Quartet opened the debate on this barmy night with a relaxed and well measured take on Wayne Shorter’s ‘Witch hunt’. Some smart and virtuoistic playing exuded from Mathas Picard on the keys, especially evident on the solo intro to Kenny Wheeler’s ‘My Old Man’. Chatterton delivered some thoughtful flugalhorn lines on this track too, with just the right touch of endearing vulnerability. Harrison Wood's double bass came through crisply on the intro to ‘Blue in Green’, Rapley’s tenor sounding especially sweet over this great tune.

The 15 piece Beats and Pieces Big Band kicked up the volume and energy levels straight off with ‘Bake’, a fast driving tune with a distinctly funky flavour. Sam Healey on alto sax matched the pace aplenty with a precise and intense solo, one of many highlights in the set. Whether intended or not, there’s a definite Starsky and Hutch seventies'ness to the band sound, as Ben Cotterill, conductor and arranger of all pieces and composer of most, indicated other reviewers have picked up on. This can only be a good reference for my part. ‘Yaffwa’ opened with an engaging repeating figure, expertly played by the tight and Corea’ish Patrick Hurley on the keys, Fin Panter on drums underpinning things with a tasty latino-funk groove. ‘Toan’ had a stompy Tom Waits/Polar Bear quality ending in a gorgeous cacophonic collective improv. Sam Andreae on tenor was particularly bracing on the following Radiohead triptych. All through, the arrangements were precise and coherent, with just the right amount of complexity, dynamics and space. The band were sounding bang-on tight as well, the overall effect clearly catching the audience’s attention. This was the first date of the band's tour, so make sure you catch 'em while they're hot.

I was intrigued to hear what the Alice Zawadski Big Sky Project would be about, as we don’t get many vocalists coming along on the jazz scene. Top stuff it was, Zawadski having very much a sound and feel of her own on top of all the craft and vocabulary of a classic jazz vocalist. Scat vocal improvising is a definite danger zone as far as I’m concerned, but Zawadaski more than got away with it on the opening ‘Austin Flowers’, accompanied by some punchy wah-wah sax improv from the twitchily intense Phil Meadows. Their take on Mike Walker’s ‘Wallenda’s Last Stand’ was somewhat tentative, and I’m still not sure if the character of the tune suits a big band arrangement. 'Cat’ was the highlight of the set for me, a Zawadski penned track about ‘drug-fuelled sex and spiritual possession’. The sparse bass and unexpectedly twisted vocal intro was really quite disturbing, this being followed by some comfort zone classic swing to let us down, only to be disrupted by a psychedelia-tinged free improvisation. Towards the end of set the band delivered a pensive and genuinely quite moving version of Neil Yates’ ‘Chance Melody’. Zawadski sounded quite beautiful here, conveying the lyrical sentiment in an entirely convincing way, with Graham South’s tender flugalhorn lines matching the moment perfectly. With the Sky Project being a new entity, there are things that need working on, and I’m not sure the set as a whole works just yet, especially when compared to the well-honed Beats and Pieces. There is real promise here though, so I hope Alice and the band keep the thing moving forward. Some more cats please.

Fun Fun Fun Till Her Daddy Takes the Locrian #2 Triads Away

Following the latest lesson with my guitar tutor and good mate, Mike Walker, I've being doing a lot of practice using the triads from the harmonised scale of locrian natural 2 and the altered scale. These are actually modes of the same scale, the melodic minor being the usual parent scale mentioned. I don't really know quite why, but I seemed befriend the locrian nat 2 scale before I quite knew what it really sounded like. It's quite an ambivalent mysterious one, apparently used by Debussy in 'La Mer' and on the soundtrack to Hitchcock's film, 'Rebecca'.

Anyways, it's been a great month or two, as I'm starting to see how you can improvise using chords and chord fragments. This used to seem like it was impossibly difficult, but I can see now how this is a great way in.

Swiss Precision Engineering

Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, Band on the Wall, Manchester, 9th March 2010

Mike Chadwick, promoter of the Band on the Wall introduced 'Nik Bärtsch's Ronin', saying he was well chuffed to get the band to Manchester for their first gig in the city, and we were too. T'was another grand night.

They call it 'zen funk', and I guess that's about right. I'm thinking the even meter lines of Steve Reich and Philip Glass sitting on a cool groove, so I reckon that's about the same kinda thing. If you're into your modes, think lots of dorian with a dash of melodic minor. Andi Pupato's especially esoteric percussion set-up was an impressive sight, and he made great use of the range of sounds, all seasoned with some tasteful reverb. The other worldly Nik Bärtsch looked suitably zen-real, swaying slowly back and forth as he tapped out the spatial piano patterns, sitting behind a carefully placed fluorescent water bottle. Björn Meyer on the six string electric bass was really something else kicking out his complex lines, but always with a great sense of feel and groove. Kaspar Rast's gorgeous lazy feel on drums meshed nicely with the bass, counterposing the tight piano structures and thus giving rise to Ronin's distinctive sound. Sha on bass/contrabass clarinet was perhaps a little on the quiet side to my ears to make a decent judgement of his input, but when I could hear him in the quieter bits, it added a useful layer of harmonic meat to Bärtsch's lines.

The subtle fluorescent green strip lighting effects were really quite engaging in a gentle sort of way. It's quite refreshing to see a bit of effort going into the presentation here, something you don't usually get on a 'jazz' gig. The sound also was really impressive again tonight. The deep bass thud from one of the drum percussion instruments really took your breath away, possibly being a shade too much for me, but it highlighted the power of the great sound system the Band on the Wall has to shift some air.

Top night. Nice one Mike C.

It Cuts Both Ways

Fencing For Losers, Studio Theatre, The Lowry, Manchester. 30th January 2010

This is the first review of a play here on the Ring Modulator, but we do like a few excursions from time to time. Having never reviewed a play before, I hadn't really thought about how it's different to reviewing music. For starters, it doesn't seem on to be scribbling on a notepad during the performance. There's also the issue of plot spoilers, so I'll try not to give too much away.

Suffice to say 'Fencing for Losers' was a really engaging play with a great story. On the surface it's a variation on posh girl meets rough bloke. In this case a successful PR woman from Cheshire, Susan, is running a fencing evening class to which unemployed Salford rough diamond, Danny shows up. Rob Johnson's excellent script calls for precise and crisp articulation of the dialogue to deliver its rhythmic punch, and actors Szilvi Naray-Davey and Phil Briggs don't let it down. Naray-Davey conveyed the complexity of Susan's haughtiness expertly, revealing the layers of repressed vulnerability with a well paced slow burn. Briggs got Danny's threatening swagger bang on, the cutting wit of his one-liners pitched with a biting Salford accent. The bantering between the characters cleverly drew out their hypocrisies and prejudices, eventually pushing Susan to reveal a raw truth. This leads to a proposition from Danny, the moral ambivalence of which makes us wonder where this is all going.

The simple staging met the shifts of mood from lightness to darkness very effectively, and there were some great soundtrack choices too, especially the Andrews and Jules version of 'Mad World', always perfect for those melancholic moments.

The play's on again tonight, so get yourself down for that last show of this run at The Lowry. More info on further shows from this great local theatre company on the Ignition Stage website.

Podcast Yer Xmas

Inspired by guitarist Mike Outram's 'Electric Campfire' blogpost, '19 great books about music, musicians, artists and the creative process', I thought I'd share a couple of links to some great audio and video resources that I've been looking at recently:

There's the Georgia State University 'History of Jazz' podcast available via ITunes U. It's best to search for 'history of jazz' in ITunes for that one, but you can go to the RSS feed directly. I've listened to a few of these now and they're a great free resource.

There's also the Yale University 'Listening to Music' course that also available as a podcast via ITunes U or via the Yale website. It's a classical music course, so not a jazz thing, but very useful nonetheless.

Ade

Some Other Time

Some Other Country, Band on the Wall, Manchester, 17th December 2009

We were treated to a bit of a one-off at the recently re-opened Band on the Wall last week in the form of a re-grouping of 'Some Other Country', a Manchester fusion band from the 1990s. The band are the stuff of myth and legend for those who weren't around to see them back in the day, the only documented references being from a passing mention on guitarist Mike Walker's website and in a wikipedia piece.

Well, what a great start, for this listener at least. The band opened up with a loosely improvised version of Miles' 'Shh/Peaceful', Roy Powell on keys dropping the distinctive chord sequence in to hook the tune down. It's great to hear this kind of vibe. If only we got more of it. A lovely piece of echo loop backed Rhodes introspection from Powell seduced us into 'Heavy Bastard' before Steve Gilbert on drums and Gary Culshaw on electric bass nailed a thick and tasty deep groove tight to the floor. Walker skanked, scratched and shimmied before laying some thick and creamy Boogied Bergundy 335 guitar on us. Feedback sustain guitar was the order of the day, Walker coaxing and stroking the sympathetic overtones with great deftness.

The last tune of the first set was another chunk of fusion-tastic goodness. The smouldering groove supplied by Gilbert was pure delight, providing a counterfoil to Walker's gnarling knitted lines. The Metheny-like lightness of the melody section gave Culshaw a chance to add some period flanged bass.

The sonorities of the Eno-style ambient synthesiser and guitar feedback shots on 'Fortune Cookie' wouldn't have been amiss on a prog rock album, though the raw piquancy of a few sharp ll and major 7 notes from Walker reminded us of just where we were. The track then opened out, and Walker provided enough feedback sustain delights to keep a Hendrix fan going through the dark winter nights.

The fast groove of the Powell penned 'Mump Beak' closed the set, complete with its keyboard stabs and clipped guitar riffing. Once again Walker turned the thermostat up a few degrees with an intense angular overdriven sortie. Powell retorted with some caustic synth lines, Gilbert and Culshaw all the while keeping the fire stoked in the engine room. Some sustained applause brought the band back for a reprise to end a touching and really quite heart-warming evening. It's really great to see this truly historic Manchester venue open again. The sound tonight was bang on, and there was such a lovely vibe in the house. Hats off and lets have some more please.

A photo of Some Other Country from back in the day:

The Ecstatic Kaleidophone

Tortoise + Cluster, Royal Festival Hall, London Jazz Festival, Sunday 22nd November 2009

Well what a treat and a half this inspired bit of programming from the jazz festival looked to be, and sure enough it didn't disappoint. I've been a big fan of both of these bands for a good few years. I was a krautrocker in my teens (and still am), so I've been up for a bit of Cluster since then. I picked up on Tortoise from my London days and have seen them three or four times, but not for a few years. I was actually quite surprised to see them playing such a big venue as the Festival Hall.

Via the wonders of Spotify I'd been able to check out Cluster's first record in over a decade, 'Qua' before the gig. Whilst Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius aren't exactly breaking new ground here, it is a fine record. With a combined age of over 140, there's a certain regal charm to their presence on the stage, but somehow the music they produced tonight didn't quite seem to grab me. Given the sound Cluster make, I'm certain its lack of impact wasn't helped by the low volume and constant distraction of having people walking past going in and out. The Festival Hall wouldn't allow this for classical concerts and most of the other jazz concerts, and I think the same respect should have been given to Cluster. Tortoise shuffled onto the stage to join them for last ten minutes which was a nice respectful touch.

The mutual respect was returned after the break when Cluster joined Tortoise for a short ambient jam before the set started proper. With our ambience quotas boosted, it was time for a kick, and Tortoise did the job with an incendiary version of 'High Class Slim Came Floatin' In' from their new record, 'Beacons of Ancestorship'. It's all there in this track, the twin drum driving groove, the square-on-the-beat arpeggiations, all topped off with a gorgeously fat moog lead line. Two changes of tempo, and we're into a surging Stereolab metronomic powerhouse ending much reminiscent of the anthemic 'French Disco'.

The centre stage twin drumming is a key part of the Tortoise sound, and one they make work so well. Drum duties are shared more or less equally by John McEntire, Dan Bitney and John Herndon, with the deep groove pulse being at the heart of many of the tracks. It works brilliantly on everything from the packing case thrash of 'Northern Something' to the narcotic shambling haze of 'Monica', the latter tune being mesmerically phenomenal tonight. Doug McCombs keeps the bass backbone true and Jeff Parker fills in with guitar sheen, overdrive bite and metrical synth lines in varying mystical proportions. This is no fixed configuration however, with all players sharing rhythm, lead, harmony and textural tasks to cook up the timbral alchemy. They make the punk clatter of 'Yinxianghechengqi' sit side by side with the mournful latino twang reverb of 'The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One'. The cymbal splashy fast shuffle groove of 'TNT' was, as usual, messianic, and 'The Suspension Bridge At Iguazú Falls' a marimba-vibraphonic delight. At times this felt like an illicit kaleidophonic ecstasy.

They encored with a mature and graceful take on the majestic 'I Set My Face To The Hillside' that oozed pure solar coziness, following up with a punchy quarter/triplet fooling 'Charteroak Foundation' to conclude a dream-like evening. Quite brilliant stuff. Truly a dream come true.

'Monica' live in Barcelona: