62nd JAZZ à JUAN
Juan-les-Pins, France, July 2023

Juan-les-Pins, the home of this historic long- running festival is a village on the Côte d’Azur whose population in the summer is swelled by an influx of holiday makers and tourists. Jazz à Juan needs to attract some of these visitors, as well as people from the nearest local centres of population, Nice and Cannes, to help fill the 2800 seater Pinède Gould arena. It seeks to do this by being a hybrid festival that mixes jazz and big names from other genres. This year’s programme ran from the 10th to the 21st of July with a rest day on 17th July. Unfortunately some of the dates clashed with the Nice Jazz Festival which ran from 18th to 21st July, which meant some difficult choices had to be made.

As is usual at Jazz à Juan there were two acts a night (with one exception when there were three) on the Pinède Gould stage with its stunning backdrop of the Mediterranean. I went to six of the eleven nights but on some nights had to leave well before the end of the second act to catch the last train back to Nice where I was based.

11 JULY

MATTHIS PASCAUD AND HUGH COLTMAN “NIGHT TRIPPIN”

This collaboration between guitarist Pascaud and singer Coltman was a trip into the legacy of New Orleans’ “ Night Tripper” Dr John (1941-2019). Pascaud is “a young guitar prodigy” according to the festival programme. The same source described Coltman as “the most French of English crooners”. He’s better known in France than in the UK and his biography includes fronting a rock band ( The Hoax), recording an album of Nat King Cole songs, winning a French Jazz award and time spent in New
Orleans . The one time I’d seen him he’d performed a set that comprised jazz standards and his own songs.

I was able talk briefly with Coltman after the sound check and he confirmed the set would be entirely numbers associated with Dr John, “It’ll be based on his first two or three albums when he was really psychedelic.”

Pascaud, Coltman and band (bass guitar, drums, percussion, sax/bass clarinet) came on stage to the sound of Dr John’s voice coming eerily over the PA. The set was about an hour and nine or ten numbers long. Not knowing Dr John’s music I could not tell the extent to which they were reproducing or were reinterpreting his music, so tried to forget the Dr John aspect and listen to the performance as just a set of music.

Coltman and Pascaud played in number of styles: New Orleans swamp blues , jazz, R n’ B, rock and funk. Different songs stressed different styles in what was a very well
constructed set with plenty of changes in mood and dynamics to sustain attention. Added to this most of the lyrics were saying something thought provoking.

Pascaud deserves his rising star of the guitar reputation, impressing with a range of styles from soulful blues to dirty swamp blues to all out rock, and with enough musicality to avoid repeating himself even in an extended solo.

Coltman was a charismatic front man, no doubt drawing on his rock band experience but avoiding a bombastic display. His attractive rich baritone voice had a good range with a gravelly edge (not dissimilar to a young Nick Cave?) and was easy to listen to but was not just an easy listening voice. Praise too for the sax player who doubled for one number on bass clarinet and whose name I didn’t catch. He played a couple of blistering sax solos and with the aid of effects pedals at one point had me thinking that a Hammond organ had been smuggled on stage mid set.

A couple of songs stood out, and not just because they were ones I recognised. Coltman’s voice was very expressive and he used it’s full range in what was a minimalist version of ‘Mama Roux’, with himself on acoustic guitar and little else by way of accompaniment.

Also, I very much liked how ‘Right Place Wrong Time’ was played, with swamp rock and an Afro Cuban percussion sound.

This was not a concert for the jazz purist but was very well done and very enjoyable. If one of Pascaud and Coltman’s aims was to encourage people to seek out the music Dr. John they succeeded in doing so with me.

JOE BONAMASSA

The need to catch the train back to Nice meant I only heard the first two numbers of three time Grammy nominated and multiple chart topping blues-rock guitarist and singer songwriter Bonamassa’s set. Dressed in black and wearing his trade mark wrap around shades he made a striking figure, striding across the same stage on which B. B King, withwhom Bonamassa started his career, had played.

The two songs for which Bonamassa sang as well played seemed similar in style. But I could have missed something because I was overwhelmed by the volume. He and his band were too loud for me even though I was standing almost at the exit to the arena in readiness for the dash to the station, and I have to admit to being relieved when I had to leave to catch a train.

 

12 JULY

DELUXE

Deluxe are a well known French band who according to the programme have toured around the world including the UK. They are a pop band whose performance was as much
about theatrical kitsch as about the music. There were dramatic held poses, an excursion off the stage into the midst of the audience, something about an emblematic moustache and a scene in which the lead singer ‘ran through’ the band’s saxophonist with a sword, which was rather unfair as his occasional solos were one of the better elements of their music.

They had their name in lights hoisted above the stage which might be thought somewhat egotistical, but they were very good at communicating excitement and getting the audience going. This was a band for which either you suspended your critical faculties, plunged into the midst of their enthusiastic audience and went with the flow, or retired to the bar.

JACOB COLLIER

Jacob Collier’s illuminated initials replaced Deluxe’s name in lights above the stage. But then the singer, composer, multi instrumentalist and multi talented Collier has earned the right to have his initials up there as he does have four Grammys, one for each of his first four albums, and he’s only 28 years old.

Collier has described his sound as a “great big mixture” of music that takes in jazz, classical, folk, rock’n'roll, trap, rap and soul. “I love all music,” he says. “It’s one massive language.” (Jacob Collier: The Grammy winner making music in his childhood bedroom- BBC News). Also he brought with him a growing reputation for dynamic live performances in which he involves the audience more than is usual.

He starts by running onto the stage, and instantly gets the crowd to follow him in singing scales in order to warm up their voices. This turns out to be preparation for him to later shape the audience into a four part harmonic choir which sang beautifully.

Nearly all the songs in the set were Collier compositions and he was in fine voice delivering them. The first four songs went by very quickly with Collier rushing from piano to keys, to guitars, and to percussion. For ‘The Sun is in your eyes’ he slowed a little accompanying himself on an acoustic tenor guitar, while for his cover of ‘Can’t help falling in love’, made famous by Elvis, he became his own choir by multi-tracking and layering his voice very effectively.

He returned frequently to the piano and he was an impressive pianist. At one point his enthusiasm almost resulted in playing himself off the piano stool. Singers and instrumentalists Bryn Bliska, Emily Elbert and Alita Moses and the rest of his band gave him good support.

Jazz was a modest presence in the gig but to quibble about this is would be to miss the main point that the very talented Collier’s music is indeed a “great big mixture”, and on the evidence of this concert also a great big adventure.

His boundless energy, his songs and music certainly were a crowd pleasing mixture. The younger than usual Juan audience was eating out of his hand even before his and his band’s version of Queen’s ‘Somebody to love’ brought them all to their feet.

The encore was a Collier composition ‘Sleeping on my dreams’. But Jacob Collier must feel he is not sleeping on his dreams but living them.

 

13 JULY

LIZZ WRIGHT

Lizz Wright is known for her velvety rich voice which blends jazz, gospel and blues. In the early stages of her career she was often compared with Norah Jones because of her phrasing, and coincidently shortly after this concert was due at Jazz in Marciac on the same night as Norah Jones.

But Lizz Wright now is very much Lizz Wright. Her last studio album ’ Grace’ 2017 marked a return by Wright, who was born in Hairira in Georgia, to her southern roots, and was widely praised. As was her ‘Holding Space’, 2022 release of a live recording of a concert she did in Berlin in 2018 and which was the first album put out on her own label.

All this had me looking forward to hearing her for the first time especially as the musicians she had with her were the same as on much praised live recording from Berlin.

Wright came on to a funky jazz-rock intro from her band who were already on stage. Collectively they were ‘on it’ from the start with Wright’s voice soaring and with high octane solos from Bobby Sparks on keys and Ben Zwerin on bass guitar. She told the audience the band were “my musical family,” and the close bond between her and the four musicians was not only was transparent in how they sounded but in how the band were grouped in a tight semi circle around and not spread out across the stage.

She and the band were soon into a stirring version of the gospel classic,‘Walk with me Lord’ which she recorded on her debut album ‘Salt’ 2003, that featured a powerful rolling keyboard solo from Sparks and Wright hitting the high notes in an ecstatic ensemble passage before the quieter reflective conclusion.

Wright’s own enigmatic soul ballad ‘Chasing Strange’ featured some lovely acoustic guitar from Marvin Sewell. ‘Stop’ saw Wright’s vocal being complemented by a Latin pulse and a drifting guitar solo from Sewell. The band was at full tilt and at high volume for the cover of Neil Young’s ‘Old Man’ with Sewell impressing again this time with some terrific rock guitar, and Wright’s voice cutting through and soaring above the band.

Wright was back in gospel jazz mode for Candi Stanton’s ‘Sweet Feeling’ with Ivan Edwards contributing a powerful drum solo. An uplifting version of ‘Seems I’m never tired of loving you’ followed. Written by Carolyn Franklin, Aretha’s younger sister, and most often associated with Nina Simone, it was another soulful synthesis of gospel and jazz, and also perhaps of spiritual and carnal love.

Arguably a theme emerged across the set. Many of the songs that were about aspects of love also seemed to be about a search for meaning and companionship. The last song in the set ‘Grace’, about forgiveness and redemption and sustaining oneself, had the line ‘Life won’t take your song from you’ which was a good summary of the message of the journey Wright and her excellent fellow musicians had taken us on.

If Wright had been searching for meaning and companionship in music it seems that she has found it with this quartet. She and her group’s heartfelt performance was spell binding and was a triumphant return to Jazz à Juan for her after a seventeen year gap. Surely it won’t be another seventeen years before she’s back.

LUDOVICO EINAUDI

This was another instance when I had to leave to get back to Nice when the headliner on the night had only just got going. What I heard were two slow middle of the road ‘tinkly’ piano pieces that created a vaguely meditative atmosphere.

I don’t know how his set developed but reports I got the next day suggested it sharply divided opinion. One jazz writer who was there for the full concert described the music as “empty” and suggested that I would have fallen asleep if I had stayed and wondered why the organisers had invited Einaudi. On the other hand friends of friends who also had been in the audience were said to have enjoyed Einaudi very much.

 

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