Photograph of Maciej Sikala Quartet sourced from the Jazz Cafe POSK website http://www.jazzcafeposk.org

EFG London Jazz Festival 2016

Day One, Friday 11th November 2016

It has become something of a tradition to commence my annual Festival coverage with a few ‘thank yous’, so here goes. First of all to our long standing hosts Paul and Richard, without their generous offer of free accommodation I wouldn’t be able to even contemplate covering the Festival at all.
Also, as ever, many, many thanks to the always courteous and efficient Sally Reeves for the provision of press tickets for myself and my wife.

It’s always been my aim to see and report on as much music as possible, covering a wide range of jazz genres and an equally broad range of venues, from tiny clubs to prestigious concert halls. 2016 was no different and over the ten days of the Festival I was able to enjoy the music (and words) of nearly forty acts at locations right across the city, beginning with;

-isq, CENTRAL BAR, ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL, SOUTHBANK CENTRE

After travelling down to London in the morning and checking in to our accommodation during early afternoon our first musical port of call was the Freestage at the Central Bar in the Royal Festival Hall complex.

Every Friday at 5.30 pm the RFH hosts a free ‘commuter jazz’ performance in the Central Bar area under the series title “The Friday Tonic”. Tonight’s event was brought under the EFG London Jazz Festival umbrella and featured the talents of the quartet -isq fronted by the Anglo-Italian vocalist, songwriter and lyricist Irene Serra.

Formed in 2012 -isq have maintained a stable line up with Serra joined by bassist Richard Sadler, pianist John Crawford and drummer Chris Nickolls. The group’s eponymous début album appeared in 2013 and was followed by “Too” in 2015.

-isq specialise in original songs, mainly written by Serra and Sadler, and their music incorporates elements of jazz, folk and pop. Serra is an assured and confident vocalist, well enunciated and highly technically adept. She is an effective and glamorous focus for the band and her lyrics are both intelligent and highly personalised, largely dealing in relationship matters but pleasingly free from cliché and over sentimentality.

The singer is well supported by a highly cohesive band that plays with a relaxed tightness honed over four years as a semi-regular working unit. Sadler, once of the Neil Cowley Trio, is the backbone of the group, providing a solid foundation but also acting as a highly effective bass soloist with a big, resonant tone allied to an impressive dexterity and a highly developed melodic sensibility.

Sadler shared the instrumental soloing responsibilities with Crawford, a highly versatile pianist with a thorough knowledge of jazz, Latin and world music styles. Meanwhile Nickolls, a similarly versatile musician who also performs with a number of other groups, provided subtly propulsive drumming, helping to form a highly effective unit in conjunction with his instrumental colleagues.

Amidst the hubbub in the foyer space in the RFH it was difficult to pick up on the lyrical content of the songs and even hearing the tune announcements was problematical. Among the songs performed were “Pictures On My Mind” from the group’s début album and a new arrangement of “Purple Rain”, a tribute to Prince that rather ironically came on the day that Leonard Cohen’s death was announced. Despite the distractions today’s show was an impressive and thoroughly enjoyable performance that was well received by a large congregation of listeners.

Today was the first time that I’d seen -isq perform since February 2013 when they played one of the last jazz concerts to be staged at the Edge Arts Centre in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. For a fuller account of the -isq live experience please visit   http://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/isq-the-edge-arts-centre-much-wenlock-shropshire-01-02-2013/

Looking forward -isq are due to release their third full length album in 2017 with a number of singles scheduled in the meantime. This is a group with the potential to reach beyond the usual jazz constituency, a quality emphasised by the impressive pop session credentials of the individual members.

My thanks to Irene Serra and John Crawford for speaking with me during the interval. I intend to take a look at John’s latest solo album “Times and Tides” once my Festival coverage is completed.

Expect to hear a lot more from the talented -isq in 2017.

MACIEJ SIKALA QUARTET, JAZZ CAFE POSK

Tonight was my first visit to Jazz Café POSK which is situated in the basement at the Polish Cultural Institute in Hammersmith. Naturally the venue places a strong emphasis on the music of Polish born musicians but not exclusively so, POSK is also a staunch supporter of British jazz.

I’ve been in fairly regular email and Facebook contact with Peter Kaczmarski who co-ordinates the jazz programme at POSK and it was good for both of us to put a face to the name. Peter and his staff were very friendly and welcoming and I immediately felt at home in this spacious and comfortable venue. Peter informed me that the performance area has recently been extended thanks to the acquisition of the basement space of the former bookshop next door and that the Institute itself, which acts as a focus for the Polish community right across London, also has 300 seat theatre plus a restaurant serving mainly Polish food upstairs. It’s an impressive operation.

Meanwhile the jazz venue, which is staffed by volunteers, sits audiences cabaret style and offers a limited but good value menu. However the primary emphasis is not on food - this is not a supper club like Ronnie Scott’s, Pizza Express or even the 606,- but on the music. POSK is a great place to listen to jazz. The bar is situated at the rear of the club up a short but broad flight of steps and the venue even provides cushions for people to sit on the stairs at busy events, a nice touch. I was also impressed by the décor of the club, particularly the set of framed posters from the Museum Jazz Festival and other jazz events in Poland, all of them highly artistic and excellent examples of contemporary graphic design. But the biggest plus of all is the presence of the club’s own grand piano, an instrument put to excellent use tonight by Frank Harrison.

For their first event of the EFG London Jazz Festival POSK had invited the saxophonist Maciej Sikala over from Poland to play with a stellar quartet of London based musicians. The result was a truly international ‘supergroup’ with Sikala joined by British pianist Harrison, Russian bassist Yuri Golubev and Israeli drummer Asaf Sirkis. It was heartening to witness such a spirit of international co-operation post Trump and post Brexit, particularly in the light of the vile racist graffiti, now thankfully removed,  that was sprayed onto the doors of the PCI on the day following the EU referendum result.

Sikala is a highly respected figure on the Polish jazz scene, a prolific sideman who has appeared on more than fifty albums as well as recording five as a leader. He has worked with Polish jazz superstar Leszek Modzder and also with leading Americans such as saxophonists Dave Liebman and Billy Harper, pianist David Kikoski and trumpeters Eddie Henderson and Lester Bowie. Sikala has also collaborated with our own late, great Kenny Wheeler. 

Tonight’s programme could perhaps be best described as ‘modern mainstream’ as the quartet played a selection of Sikala’s tunes interspersed with a number of jazz standards. Sikala’s own writing was very much ‘in the tradition’ and rooted in mainstream and bebop virtues. Specialising on tenor sax it was immediately apparent that the leader was possessed of a big, but warm, tone and that he was an assured and highly fluent soloist. Ironically I was more familiar with the playing of the three sidemen than I was with that of Sikala having seen all of them perform many times in a variety of different contexts. Indeed it was interesting to hear the three of them in a far more straight-ahead context than usual.

Sikala immediately set his stall out with a marathon solo on his own composition “Like Joe”, which I took to be a dedication to Joe Henderson, although this wasn’t actually stated. The leader played with great imagination and authority and he was matched by the feverish inventiveness of Harrison and the stunning virtuosity of Golubev as they took their solos. Many of the pieces were played in the orthodox head/solos/head pattern but with playing of this quality the format never became wearing.

It was the first time that this actual quartet had played together despite the fact that Harrison, Golubev and Sirkis had all worked together before in various combinations. Frantic stage whispering presaged the rendition of Sikala’s tune “Platino” but with sight readers and improvisers of this quality the success of the performance was never in question with Sikala and Golubev again impressing as soloists. A bass feature by the brilliant Yuri Golubev is never, ever boring.

The quartet then undertook a searching examination of the Bill Evans tune “Very Early” with solos for tenor, piano and bass developing organically out of Sikala’s opening theme statement.

Sikala’s original “Little Suzanna”, dedicated to his youngest daughter, was a genuine ballad and included some of the composer’s warmest, most tender playing. There were also delightful contributions from Golubev and Harrison that featured both at their most melodic and lyrical.

The first set concluded with another family dedication, the celebratory and uplifting “Thanks Daddy”, Sikala’s homage to his father, also a musician, who first introduced the young Maciej to jazz. The boppish theme led first to a sparkling, Latin tinged solo from Harrison as Sirkis dropped percussive ‘bombs’ around him. Sikala himself then dug in on tenor before Sirkis finally slipped the leash completely with an explosive drum feature that energised the audience and sent everybody into the break feeling very happy.

The second half commenced with the appropriately titled Sikala original “Autumn Gifts” which saw the tenor man demonstrating a mellow strength on both his theme statement and his later solo. Once again there were also absorbing solo contributions from both Golubev and Harrison.

The quartet flirted with modality on a version of Jerry Bergonzi’s composition “Loud Zee”. The Boston MA based Bergonzi is an acclaimed educator and has had a profound influence on many other saxophone players. He’s certainly one of Sikala’s favourites and the Pole served his mentor’s tune well with some fiery and impassioned tenor soloing either side of the contributions by Harrison and Golubev.

An adventurous exploration of the standard “Body And Soul” included solos from Harrison, Sikala and Golubev plus a series of brushed drum breaks from Sirkis. The piece concluded with an absorbing unaccompanied tenor sax cadenza from Sikala.

Golubev’s bass ushered in another standard, “You Don’t Know What Love Is”, during which both Sikala and Harrison featured prominently.

Sikala handled the announcing duties in halting, heavily accented English and his efforts were warmly appreciated by the audience. However I missed the title of the final piece, another original I believe, which saw the saxophonist moving into Coltrane-esque territory as he soloed powerfully with just Sirkis’ drums for company at one juncture. If Sirkis was playing the role of Elvin Jones then it was left to Harrison to play the part of McCoy Tyner with a dazzling, mercurial piano solo. 

The deserved encore was a version of Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way” with Golubev opening the soloing followed by Sikala and Harrison and with the saxophonist and pianist also trading fours with drummer Sirkis. A great way to end an evening of superior straight ahead jazz.

A number of the pieces played tonight appear on the quartet album that Sikala was selling at the gig, namely “Very Early”, “Thanks Daddy”, “Like Joe” and “Loud Zee”. The album was recorded at a session for Polish radio in 2011 and features an excellent band of Sikala’s fellow countrymen with Michal Wierba on piano, Mikolaj Budniak on double bass and Sebastian Kuchczynski at the drums. I treated myself to a copy and can reveal that it’s a hugely enjoyable album in its own right as well as a great souvenir if my inaugural visit to Jazz Café POSK.

Interestingly the other album that Sikala had with him was a recording of saxophone and church organ duets which featured the saxophonist playing both tenor and soprano and which suggested a more experimental side to his musical persona.

Sikala and his all star quartet were given a great reception by a sizeable audience and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to POSK. However Peter Kaczmarski did tell me that the club sometimes has a problem attracting large enough crowds, a difficulty that I thought only affected provincial jazz clubs; I certainly didn’t expect there to be problem getting the proverbial ‘bums on seats’ in London. However speaking to jazz fans in Central London later in the Festival week it turned out that very few had found their way out to POSK, but it’s hardly as if its location is remote, the venue is a two minute walk (if that) from Ravenscourt Park tube on the District Line. So come on London jazz fans, support the good people at Jazz Café POSK, it’s a great place to listen to music, and eminently affordable with it. I certainly hope to be able to return again around the same time next year.     

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