Photograph of Dionne Bennett (Slowly Rolling Camera) by Tim Dickeson.

EFG London Jazz Festival 2016

Day Eight, Friday 18th November 2016

ELCHIN SHIRINOV TRIO, PIZZA EXPRESS JAZZ CLUB, SOHO

Friday lunchtime found me back at the Pizza to witness two delightful sets of music from the young pianist and composer Elchin Shirinov and his trio. Originally from Azerbaijan Shirinov is now based in London where he leads a trio featuring the English drummer Dave Hamblett and the Italian born bassist Andrea Di Biase.

Shirinov is influenced not only by the American jazz tradition but also the folk music of his native land. The trio’s recently released eponymous début album features a mix of Shirinov originals plus a selection of traditional folk songs and tunes by Azerbaijani composers. The album has won the approval of Brad Mehldau, one of Shirinov’s many influences.

Shirinov’s trio has toured internationally and has played at many prestigious festivals and he has performed with many leading musicians from both sides of the Atlantic including bassists Ben Street and Linley Marthe and drummers Jeff Ballard and Eric Harland. Shirinov’s full biography can be found at http://www.elchinshirinov.com

Today’s show did not begin well with the start delayed due to an organisational error that saw the event originally being advertised as being at The Pheasantry in Chelsea, another venue run by the Pizza Express chain. It was decided to give audience members who had turned up at the wrong venue time to come across town but inevitably some decided not to undertake the journey. By the time the music began there was a respectably sized crowd in but the attendance was nowhere near as much as it had been for events earlier in the week, including the trio led by Danish pianist Soren Bebe. This was a shame for Shirinov and his colleagues whose music definitely deserved a larger audience. It may have been that British vibraphonist Ralph Wylde was the beneficiary, his band Mosaic were performing a free show at the Cadogan Hall, not too far from the Pheasantry, and some fans may have opted for that instead. 

However those of us at the Pizza were delighted by the Shirinov trio’s performance which began with “Not That One”, a tune that mixed beguiling folk motifs with more complex rhythmic figures with Shirinov’s left hand working overtime. The tune proved to be a re-working of a folk melody that Shirinov had learned as a child and which had been used as the theme tune for a comedy programme on Azerbaijani TV.

Shirinov informed us that this current trio had been together for two years and that this was the first time that he had played at the Pizza, despite visiting the venue previously as a fan. Di Biase’s bass introduced the Shirinov original “Muse” which saw the pianist soloing in feverish fashion, combining a classically honed lightness of touch with a true improviser’s imagination. Di Biase also impressed on this piece with the kind of articulate bass soloing that some have likened to the late, great Scott La Faro.

Di Biase was also to the fore on the Shirinov original “Waiting” with its strong melody, dynamic contrasts and folk and classical flourishes. The next piece was named for Shirinov’s home town in Azerbaijan and the trio rounded off an excellent set with the lively “Chica Chica” with its mix of different meters plus a rousing drum feature from the impressive Hamblett. 

A shorter second set placed a greater emphasis on folk material with the opening piece seguing from an abstract opening featuring arco bass, mallet rumbles and cymbal shimmers into a more groove orientated arrangement of an Azerbaijani folk tune with a title meaning “Blossom Flower”. This included some inventive soloing from the leader plus a further drum feature from Hamblett underpinned by Shirinov’s insistent piano arpeggios.

Another folk song, with a title translating as “I’m A Mother”, embraced a variety of meters, tempos and colours with Shirinov’s left hand again playing a pivotal role and with features for piano and double bass.

The final piece featured this tight, well integrated trio at their most energetic with features for all three musicians. I suspect that this may have been Shirinov’s arrangement of the Azerbaijani folk song “Durna”.

Ironically I’d seen both Hamblett and Di Biase perform live before but never Shirinov himself. I was hugely impressed by him and he represents an exciting new jazz discovery as far as I’m concerned. The album sounds superb in the home listening environment and is destined for a good deal of airtime in the Jazzmann household. The mix of original and traditional material works extremely well with Shirinov and his colleagues applying a convincing contemporary touch to the folk melodies.

I’ll leave the last word to American bassist Larry Grenadier who offers his endorsement on the album cover alongside band-mates Brad Mehldau and Jeff Ballard;
“Elchin Shirinov has developed a sound and approach all his own. His writing and piano playing echo another time yet resonate with a modernity that is striking. He really pulls a sound out of the piano making possible a whole pallet of sonic colour. It is music worth exploring deeply”.

Quite, I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Thanks to Elchin and Andrea for speaking with me afterwards. This is a trio that I’d very much like to see again and I’d urge anyone likely to be reading this to keep an eye open for the highly talented Elchin Shirinov. 

DENYS BAPTISTE & TOMORROW’S WARRIORS – THE LATE TRANE, RAY’S JAZZ AT FOYLE’S

Tonight’s early evening show at Foyle’s was part of the monthly Jazz Salon series, a joint initiative between Foyles and youth jazz organisation Tomorrow’s Warriors. These events combine talk and music in an examination of jazz culture and its implications with guest speakers and musicians augmenting the Jazz Salon house band led by bassist Gary Crosby.

This evening’s event was hosted by journalist and broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre and featured guest saxophonist Denys Baptise talking about, and playing, the latter day music of John Coltrane who died of liver cancer in 1967 aged just forty.

Although mainly discussing the period 1963-67 Le Gendre and Baptiste also charted Coltrane’s earlier development as documented on the labels Prestige, Atlantic and Blue Note and such classic albums as “Blue Train” and “Giant Steps”. The latter saw Coltrane exploring complex chord sequences but his move to the Impulse! label saw him experimenting with modal jazz, plus Indian and African elements as he used simpler structures to find “freedom within the space”. Among the examples quoted as representing this were the composition “Impressions” which was constructed around just two chords and the famous thirty five minute version of “My Favourite Things” which featured the refrain only once.

Coltrane’s spirituality and personality were discussed and Le Gendre and Baptiste also speculated as to whether Coltrane would have embraced electric jazz, or ‘fusion’ as it later came to be known. On a lighter note both men remembered first hearing Coltrane on LPs borrowed from their local libraries, an almost alien concept to younger audiences in this digital age. Baptiste also recalled that he had found the music difficult at first and had to work hard to get into it. 

Baptiste offered musical illustrations of these points in the company of a stellar quartet featuring Crosby on bass plus pianist Nikki Yeoh and drummer Rod Youngs.  Baptiste began on soprano saxophone, an instrument that Coltrane embraced in his later years, for a version of “Living Space”, a piece that Baptiste described as a ‘meditation’. The piece began in impressionistic fashion with breathy soprano, the interior scraping of piano strings and the rumble of mallets and rustle of shakers. Yeoh was cast in the role of Alice Coltrane for the opening solo with Baptiste switching to tenor for his own extended feature in an absorbing interpretation of Coltrane’s ‘spiritual jazz’ style.

“Dusk Dawn” was introduced by Crosby’s bass and featured Baptiste digging in on tenor and probing deeply powered by the relentless drive of Youngs’  powerful, Elvin Jones style drums and Crosby’s grounding bass with Yeoh filling in any gaps. The pianist’s own torrential solo channelled the spirit of McCoy Tyner with its left hand rumbles and wilful dissonance. Meanwhile Crosby’s unaccompanied bass feature saw a reduction in volume, but not in intensity.

Again, as on some of the other nights, I had to leave early to get across town for another event. Again I was reluctant leave this mix of stimulating conversation and absorbing, hugely enjoyable music – but needs must.

The event had started late, for the third time this week I think. These early evening shows are great value for money and an important part of the Festival programme but 2017 does need to see a tightening up on the timing. A prompt start is essential given the tightness of the Festival schedule - it wasn’t just journalists like myself who were having to dash off to other things.

ODDARRANG / SLOWLY ROLLING CAMERA, RICH MIX

This Edition Records double bill featured two of the most adventurous acts on the label. The Finnish instrumental quintet and the British nu jazz/soul act Slowly Rolling Camera both make extensive use of electronics in their music and this standing gig in the club environment of Rich Mix represented the perfect venue for both bands.

Oddarrang, led by drummer and composer Olavi Louhivuori released their début album “Music Illustrated” on the Finnish Texicalli label back in 2006. There then followed something of a hiatus as Louhivuori toured the world as part of Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko’s ‘Dark Eyes’ quintet, the context in which I first heard the drummer’s playing. Others with whom Louhivuori has collaborated include his countrymen Alexi Tuomarila (piano) and Verneri Pohjola (trumpet)  plus Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen.

In 2011 Oddarrang returned with “Cathedral”, their second album for Texicalli and a recording that attracted the attention of Edition label boss Dave Stapleton. The band moved to Edition for the release of the excellent “In Cinema” in 2013 and followed this with the recent “Agartha” (2016).

I was particularly looking forward to witnessing Oddarrang performing live at last after frustratingly being robbed of the opportunity of seeing their show at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff in 2013 due to the illness of my late father. Friends that attended subsequently told me that I’d missed something very special.

Oddarrang’s line up has remained constant throughout the band’s career and includes Lasse Sikara on guitar, Lasse Lindgren on bass and keyboards, Ilmari Pohjola on trombone and keyboards and Osmo Ikonen on cello and vocals. Tonight there was at least one change in the line up with a female cellist/vocalist replacing Ikonen who is also an in demand classical musician. I didn’t catch the young lady’s (presumably Finnish) name, and probably couldn’t have spelt it anyway,  but I was told that she is Louhivuori’s cousin.

The stage was a jumble of wires, pedals, effects units and other electronic devices with the 2016 edition of Oddarrang placing an even greater emphasis on electronic sounds and textures than before. These elements, allied to an already unconventional instrumental line up featuring the unusual combination of cello and trombone ensures that Oddarrang’s sound is very much ‘sui generis’ with the adjective ‘post rock’ routinely being used to describe their music with comparisons to the Icelandic band Sigur Ros already fairly frequent. I’d also compare them with the Norwegian outfit Jaga Jazzist and with the British band Polar Bear led by Sebastian Rochford. For me Louhivuori is very much the Finnish equivalent to Rochford, a gifted drummer/composer leading a unique band with an other worldly sound that is very much the product of the leader’s personality and highly individual musical vision.

It’s no co-incidence that Oddarrang’s oeuvre includes albums with titles such as “Music Illustrated” and “In Cinema”, there’s a strong pictorial and filmic quality to their work with its wide-screen instrumental washes and epic themes. Tonight there was an added abrasive quality thanks to the sometimes harsh electronic textures that permeated the band’s music during the course of four lengthy largely instrumental sequences of music presumably comprised of material from “Agartha” but also containing tunes from the “In Cinema” repertoire.

This was music that evolved constantly, deploying a combination of rock rhythms, heavy grooves, ambient electronica and grandiose anthemic passages incorporating acoustic and electronic instruments plus the effective use of soaring wordless vocals. It was a combination that even provoked bouts of spontaneous dancing in the club environment of Rich Mix.

The use of the human voice among the many electronic elements is a particularly distinctive characteristic of Oddarrang’s music and helps to bring a welcome warmth to their sometimes chilly and forbidding musical soundscapes. The cellist even sang what sounded like English language lyrics on one particularly song like passage. Elsewhere she and her colleagues were screaming fit to bust at the climax of the epic slow-burner “The Sage”, a piece I recognised from the “In Cinema” album.  With several of the group’s members playing keyboards in addition to their regular instruments the sound palette was particularly broad and was further widened by the deployment of voices, including that of Louhivuori himself.

The sounds ranged from wispy guitar impressionism and alternately ambient and abrasive synth   textures through deep cello and trombone sonorities, monstrous bass grooves and full on rock guitar soloing, all of them guided by the drums Louhivuori who sat smiling in paternalistic fashion behind his kit, obviously delighted with the sounds that his colleagues were creating. I’d surmise that Oddarrang’s live shows probably place a greater emphasis on improvisation than the albums.

I very much enjoyed Oddarrang’s performance even though the extensive use of synths and other electronica meant that it was substantially different to what I’d been expecting. Oddarrang created a unique group identity as far back as their début album but its one that is still evolving as they continue to push at and blur the musical boundaries with their kaleidoscopic music.

Louhivuori has also worked with pianist/keyboard player Dave Stapleton, co-founder of Edition Records and co-leader, with vocalist and lyricist Dionne Bennett, of Slowly Rolling Camera. Stapleton studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and following graduation made a substantial impact on the South Wales jazz scene and beyond with his punchy jazz quintet DSQ. Something of a musical polymath Stapleton also experimented with free improvisation plus a rather more formal jazz/classical crossover project as well as founding the hugely successful Edition, now one of the UK’s most respected record labels.

The eponymous début album by Slowly Rolling Camera (SRC) revealed yet another side to Stapleton’s talent, that of songwriter, as he and Bennett collaborated to deliver a collection of songs that borrowed from jazz, soul and electronica, sounding a little like a jazzier version of trip-hop pioneers Portishead. The core of the band also includes drummer Elliot Bennett and sound artist Deri Roberts on electronics. For live work the group expands to a septet with the addition of Ben Waghorn (tenor & soprano saxes), Stuart McCallum (guitar) and Aidan Thorne (electric bass), all of whom make guest contributions to the band’s albums including the recently released “All Things”.

I witnessed an enjoyable performance by SRC at the Arena Theatre in Wolverhampton in May 2014 but the band’s music worked even better in this club setting where listeners could react physically to the tight grooves, immersive electronics and the soulful vocals of the tall, charismatic Dionne Bennett. Evidence of the breadth of the group’s appeal was demonstrated by the youthfulness of some members of the audience (and no, I don’t think they were music students) this wasn’t a typical jazz crowd by any stretch of the imagination.

This was a set to get absorbed in and dance to so I once more immersed myself in the music and the moment rather than taking copious notes. The bulk of the material was sourced from the recently released “All Things” although the band also dipped into the archives with the songs “Protagonist” and “Two Roads” from their début album and “Into The Shadow”, the title track of their 2015 EP.

Despite her outgoing on stage personality Dionne Bennett’s lyrics, mostly charting the vicissitudes of human relationships, are more introspective and add an agreeably dark and intelligent edge to the band’s music, reinforcing those comparisons with Portishead and Massive Attack. 

Although Dionne Bennett, with her striking looks and powerful voice, was the band’s focal point the instrumentalists also acquitted themselves well as they brought a jazz honed skill and precision to the music. There were no conventional jazz solos as such but there were some dazzling instrumental moments from Stapleton, McCallum and Waghorn. SRC are a highly cohesive unit with all of the musicians long term associates of co-leader Stapleton. Elliot Bennett’s powerful rock beats and hip hop grooves, underscored by Thorne’s electric bass, gave the music an impressive momentum as Roberts combined effectively with Stapleton’s keyboards to give the band an authentically gritty and glitchy urban edge. A light show, almost unheard of at what was nominally a jazz gig, also added greatly to the atmosphere and the band even took to the stage to the sound of the sampled voice of Dee Dee Bridgewater intoning the words “Slowly Rolling Camera”. Recorded at a festival in Poland the sample also graces the group’s latest album.

“All Things” sees the group moving further away from their jazz roots and adopting a harder, more urban edge on songs such as “High Praise”, “The Fix” , “Oblivion” and the haunting title track, featuring the Bridgewater sample, that closed the show. 

This was a hugely impressive performance from SRC, one that got an excellent reception from an appreciative, excited and animated crowd. The seven piece version of the group has developed into a formidable live act and it’s likely that they gathered many new fans here. Their exciting performance certainly justified their decision to go on second. I must admit that in the home listening environment I’d probably find more enjoyment in Oddarrang’s distinctive and essentially instrumental music, but live performance is a very different matter as SRC demonstrated brilliantly here. On the evidence of this show and with the right amount of exposure an increasing degree of mainstream success is a distinct possibility. They are certainly a band I’d be more than happy to see again and to recommend to non jazz listeners, particularly if playing in a club environment such as this.

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