Photograph of Bill Frisell at the 2018 Cheltenham Jazz Festival by Tim Dickeson.

EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL
First Sunday, November 18th 2018

JONNY MANSFIELD’S ELFTET, 606 JAZZ CLUB, CHELSEA

A welcome return visit for me to the 606, the basement jazz club in Chelsea founded by flautist and Steve Rubie. My thanks to Steve and to the club’s marketing manager Laura Thorne for arranging my tickets.

The 606 is a musician owned establishment with proprietor Steve Rubie combining his career as a restaurateur and club owner with that of a professional jazz flautist. The club’s name comes from its original address in the Kings Road but it is has been located in the basement of its current premises in Lots Road since 1988, a former industrial building close to the old Lots Road power station.

The “Six” has always had a policy of booking British or UK based musicians almost exclusively, even visiting Americans perform with a British rhythm section. The club also has close ties with the Royal Academy of Music and is keen to support young up and coming jazz musicians such as today’s band, the eleven piece Elftet led by vibraphonist and composer Jonny Mansfield.

Also a talented drummer Mansfield was the winner of the 2018 Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize, an award that will help to finance Elftet’s début album which will be released during 2019 on the Edition record label.

I’d previously witnessed Mansfield performing as the drummer with the Jam Experiment quintet at a performance at The Hive in Shrewsbury in June 2017. More recently guest Jazzmann contributor Trevor Bannister reviewed a performance by Elftet at the Progress Theatre in Reading, speaking very highly of the band. Trevor’s words encouraged me to check Elftet out for myself and I approached today’s show with a good deal of expectation. Fortunately I was not to be disappointed.

First there was the matter of food, the 606 has established a good reputation for the quality of its dining and my wife and I enjoyed a well prepared Sunday lunch before settling back to enjoy the music of Mansfield and his colleagues.

My last visit to the “Six” was in November 2016 when I enjoyed a performance by the seventeen piece Patchwork Jazz Orchestra, an aggregation comprised of numerous Academy alumni. Some of those musicians were also present in today’s line up which featured;

Jonny Mansfield vibes & leader, James Davison trumpet & flugelhorn, Rory Ingham trombone, Tom Smith alto saxophone, Sam Rapley tenor saxophone & bass clarinet, Dom Ingham violin & vocals, Ella Hohnen Ford vocals & flute, Laura Armstrong cello, Oliver Mason guitar, Will Harris bass guitar, Boz Martin-Jones drums.

Mansfield is an ambitious composer whose pieces embrace a variety of musical styles as well as drawing inspiration from poetry and literature. In this sense his music is very much in the tradition of British jazz composers such as Michael Garrick, Mike Westbrook and Kenny Wheeler. But the youthfulness and vitality of his ensemble helps to give his music a very contemporary twist.

With so much other music happening around town during the Festival it was decided that Elftet would play one long set with no interval. The majority of the pieces had also been played at Reading and as I write this it’s fascinating to compare my impressions of the music with Trevor’s.

Both performances began with “Sailing”, a highly evocative piece of writing despite Mansfield’s admission that he has never set foot in a sailing vessel. Here jazz, folk and classical influences merged with the poetry of the lyrics, coolly delivered by Hohnen Ford and speaking of “sailors on the sea” and of “the gift of song and poetry”. The first instrumental solo came from Rory Ingham, also of the Jam Experiment group,  on rousing trombone. He was followed by Rapley, who began on bass clarinet but switched to tenor sax to deliver a similarly powerful solo. The piece ended with Hohnen Ford leading the band in a chorus with the audience encouraged to clap along.

“For You” calmed things down a little with its attractive, gentle melodies, with solos coming from Smith on alto, Harris on melodic five string electric bass and Davison on velvet toned flugelhorn.

Mansfield was commissioned to write new music for a performance by Elftet at the 2018 Marsden Jazz Festival in West Yorkshire. The new material, collectively gathered under the title “On Marsden Moor” included settings of poems by the acclaimed poet and academic Simon Armitage. Among these was “About His Person”, the words a list of items found on the body of a (presumably) dead person. Armitage’s lines were sung emotively by Hohnen Ford with the dark, woody timbres of Rapley’s bass clarinet and Armstrong’s cello adding to the sense of melancholy and with Davison featuring as a soloist on mournful sounding flugelhorn.

“Silhouette” commenced with a free jazz style intro instigated by Harris at the bass and featuring Hohnen Ford’s wordless vocalising. Harris’ staccato bass riffs then fuelled a guitar solo from Mason as the piece began to gather momentum with the eleven piece ensemble delivering a convincingly authentic big band sound. Mansfield had hitherto been content to remain part of the ensemble but now his dialogue with Harris led to a barnstorming four mallet vibes solo. Interestingly I later learnt that, like me, Mansfield had been at Ronnie Scott’s the night before checking out the young US vibes rising star Joel Ross performing as part of the Marquis Hill Blacktet. The experience certainly seemed to have inspired Mansfield. Tom Smith, a composer and bandleader in his own right, then rounded off the solos on alto sax.

Written in praise of that humble insect the ladybird “Wings” was gently atmospheric, developing from the fragile shimmering of Mansfield’s unaccompanied vibes intro and featuring subtle violin and cello textures allied to cool wordless vocals. The first solo came from Rapley on bass clarinet, followed by a second outing for Mansfield’s vibes before the music took a more celebratory and anthemic turn with Mason’s closing guitar solo.

As at Reading Elftet closed things out with the epic “Tim Smoth’s Big Day Out”, named in honour of alto saxophonist Tom Smith. Behind the jokey title lay an ambitious, sprawling, multi-faceted composition comprised of many different sections and featuring all the members of the band. Today’s performance lasted for nearly forty minutes and reminded me of the prog rock epics of my 1970s youth that used to fill up the whole of one side of an album – think “Supper’s Ready (Genesis), “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers (Van Der Graaf Generator) and “Nine Feet Underground” (Caravan), and maybe even Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” at a pinch. What these pieces had in common were distinct individual sections,  often not written contemporaneously, that were subsequently skilfully knitted together to create a convincing whole.
Mansfield’s piece had this kind of feel as it built from a solo four mallet vibes intro, the ringing overtones combining beautifully with Armstrong’s cello textures. Hohnen Ford’s lyrics and singing had something of a Norma Winstone like quality about them and she was also joined by the voice of Dom Ingham who both sang and played violin on this piece. The four horns combined effectively as part of the ensemble but the performance was also distinguished by a dizzying series of instrumental solos and set pieces. First up was a guitar solo from Mason followed by a duet between Mansfield and Harris and then a tenor solo from Rapley with only Martin-Jones’ drums for company. Rory Ingham’s rumbustious trombone solo reminded this listener of Gary Valente’s work with Carla Bley (praise indeed) while Tom Smith delivered an unaccompanied alto feature that pushed the instrument to its limits and included an astonishing demonstration of circular breathing. And still there was more, the twin voices returned to reprise the initial vocal theme with its beach, sea and sky imagery while further instrumental solos came from Harris on bass, Davison on flugel and Dom Ingham on violin. A passage of scat vocalising from Hohnen Ford then cleared the way for a final climactic drum feature from Martin-Jones. This had been a real musical roller coaster ride and both band and audience were drained after this. Deserved as it might have been an encore was never going to be forthcoming.

Once again I had thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the 606 and can only re-iterate that the venue is an excellent place to enjoy high quality food and highly accomplished British jazz. My thanks to Jonny Mansfield for speaking with me afterwards and to Steve Rubie and his team for their excellent hospitality.

The Elftet album, which I understand will include guest performances by saxophonist Chris Potter, organist Kit Downes and flautist Gareth Lockrane, will be eagerly awaited and should represent one of the major jazz events of 2019.

BILL FRISELL SOLO, CADOGAN HALL

One of the highlights of the 2018 Cheltenham Jazz Festival was the duo performance at the Town Hall featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and double bassist Thomas Morgan playing music from their 2017 ECM recording “Small Town”.

That was a wonderfully intimate performance but Frisell has now decided to take things a stage further. His latest album “Music IS”, released on Okeh Records, is a solo recording, the third such of Frisell’s long and productive career.

This renewed fondness for solo performance saw Frisell take to a sparsely furnished stage at Cadogan Hall to a huge welcome. Tall, shy and shambling the bespectacled Frisell seemed almost embarrassed at the warmth of the reception. He’s a musician who prefers to let his playing do the talking so he elected to say nothing to the adoring crowd and instead sat down, picked up his customised Fender Telecaster and began to play.

As at Cheltenham this was virtually an unbroken performance and one that was almost certainly largely improvised.

Born in Baltimore in 1951 Frisell has created a unique guitar style that draws on elements of jazz, rock, ambient and Americana. Frisell’s sound, with its distinctive guitar ‘twang’ is instantly identifiable, making him one of the most recognisable instrumentalists around. Indeed it’s routine for myself and other commentators to regularly refer to the playing of other guitarists as being “Frisell-like”. His style is so distinctive that it has turned into an adjective.

Besides an electric and acoustic guitar, a modest amp and an array of foot pedals the stage was also home to a collection of small, soft toy animals, an indication of Frisell’s amiable eccentricity. Not entirely solo then, Bill.

As Frisell played those folk and country influences quickly became apparent as song like melodies punctuated the guitarist’s jazzier ramblings, it was almost as if we were eavesdropping on a man having a conversation with himself.

Using the top strings of his instrument to generate bass lines Frisell deployed his array of foot pedals to good effect, live looping motifs and phrases and improvising new melodies over the top. At times he created something of a carousel/music box effect, at others a backwards drone muddied the ambient waters, yet everything seemed natural and organic, the ideas flowing seamlessly, each development sounding unforced and perfectly logical.

Frisell has always had a fondness for interpreting familiar material, gently subverting pop songs and folk material but with his deep seated love for his sources always apparent. As at Cheltenham familiar tunes periodically hove into view, notably the Bond theme from “Goldfinger”, which he performed with Morgan at Cheltenham and which appears on the “Small Town” album. Again the guitarist gave the bombastic Bond theme tune the classic Frisell treatment, transforming it into something melancholy, mysterious and beautiful, something emphasised by his subtle improvisations around the theme and judicious use of looping and layering effects.

“Goldfinger” segued delightfully into Burt Bacharach’s “What The World Needs Now” which exhibited similar qualities, but Frisell, perhaps sensing that his audience was getting too comfortable, now roughened the edges with some heavier, rock influenced electric guitar playing that made effective use of sustain and fuzz effects. As this long solo recital built to a climax it transpired that this most reluctant of guitar heroes was actually giving his adoring public the big finish.

The inevitable encore saw Frisell return to pick up the as yet unused acoustic guitar to perform a delightfully poignant version of The Beatles tune “In My Life” subtly seguing into John Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance”.

At the end of this Frisell put down his guitar, stood up and clasped his hands as if in prayer, shyly acknowledging the cheers of the crowd, many of whom had got to their feet.

An hour and a half of solo guitar is a lot to ask of an audience but Frisell’s following were thoroughly absorbed by this immaculately intimate performance. You could literally hear a pin drop.
If pushed I’d probably sat that I preferred the Cheltenham performance with Morgan when Frisell had another musician to bounce ideas off. Nevertheless this was a superb performance that demonstrated his seemingly effortless command of the solo guitar format.

ALINA BZHEZHINSKA - ‘AFRO-HARPING’, TOULOUSE LAUTREC JAZZ CLUB, KENNINGTON

A rare visit to London’s deep south for this performance by jazz harpist Alina Bzhezhinska at the Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club in Kennington.

Tonight represented my first visit to Toulouse Lautrec although I have been publicising events at the venue for a number of years and enjoyed regular email and Facebook contact with its enterprising proprietor Nolan Regent. It was good to meet Nolan at last and it was also nice to experience a performance space that had previously only existed in my imagination.

Based in a building that I surmise to have been a pub in a former existence the Toulouse Lautrec is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. The ground floor of the venue houses the Brasserie Toulouse Lautrec which serves authentic French cuisine and has established a good reputation for the quality of its food. The first floor houses a piano bar that recreates the cabaret atmosphere of 1920s/30s Paris.

The Jazz Club itself is situated on the second, or top, floor and I was immediately impressed by its authentic jazz club ambience, definitely a match for the 606, the Pizza, Spice of Life, Vortex and Ronnie’s. Somehow I’d always imagined that the venue was primarily an eating place with the jazz primarily deployed as background music. How wrong can you be? Although tapas style bar snacks were served, very different from the main restaurant menu, this was a genuine, serious jazz club with a relaxed, informal atmosphere and a listening audience. Tonight the room was absolutely rammed and stiflingly hot but I still thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to Toulouse Lautrec and would like to take the opportunity of returning again in subsequent years.

The size of the crowd was a tribute Bzhezhinska, a musician and composer who has made a big impression on the UK jazz scene with her album “Inspiration” (Ubuntu Music, 2018), her tribute to the lives and music of John and Alice Coltrane. My review of the “Inspiration” album can be read here;
http://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/alina-bzhezhinska-inspiration/

The “Inspiration” band, featuring saxophonist Tony Kofi was due to play at the Spice of Life later in the week but tonight we were to enjoy the music of Bzhezhinska’s latest project, inspired by the “Afro Harping” album by that other great jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby (1932-86).

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of “Afro-Harping” and many of tonight’s selections were sourced from that record. Along the way Bzhezhinska told us something of Ashby’s life story and her struggles as a young, black, female jazz musician playing an unfamiliar instrument in a male dominated musical environment and in an America going through the social upheavals of the 1960s with issues such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War on the political agenda. Besides her jazz output the prolific Ashby also worked as a pop session musician and recorded extensively with Bill Withers and with the Motown record label.

The band that Bzhezhinska had enlisted for this project included Christian Vaughan (keyboards, musical director), Gareth Lockrane (flutes), Julie Walkington (double bass) and Joel Prime, the only survivor from the “Inspiration” band, on drums and percussion.

They commenced with “Soul Vibrations”, the opening track from the “Afro-Harping” album with Vaughan adopting an organ sound on his Yamaha keyboard as Bzhezhinska took the first solo of the night on harp. Initially the leader was a little too low in the mix but careful repositioning of the microphones around her instrument brought about a substantial improvement as the set progressed. “Microphones always represent a challenge” explained the harpist.

From the same album “Games” brought a Latin-esque feel to the music, something encouraged by Prime’s colourful percussion as Bzhezhinska, Lockrane and Vaughan, now deploying an electric piano or ‘Rhodes’ sound, impressed with their solos.

The ballad “My One And Only Love” was introduced by an unaccompanied passage from the leader which demonstrated her command of the harp and its sonic possibilities. Ashby worked regularly with the flautist Frank Wess, hence the presence of the excellent Lockrane on a variety of flutes. It was the flautist that took the next solo, followed by Bzhezhinska, whose harp playing sounded almost pianistic at times, this quality mirrored by Vaughan’s subsequent solo with the keyboard player now adopting an acoustic piano sound.

Returning to the repertoire of the “Afro-Harping” album “Action Line” had something of the feel of a TV theme about it with Bzhezhinska taking the first solo accompanied by the exotic patter of Prime’s percussion. Lockrane featured on piccolo while Vaughan deployed string synth sounds (much of “Afro-Harping” features an orchestra directed by Richard Evans) before switching to an electric piano setting for his solo. The Australian born Prime, who impressed throughout, then rounded things off with an exuberant percussive flourish.

Also from the “Afro-Harping” album came “Lonely Girl”, the second piece to feature a solo harp intro, Bzhezhinska joined first by double bass and then percussion. Ashby’s background in commercial music ensured that she always wrote strong melodies, something emphasised by Lockrane’s breezy theme statement and subsequent solo as he shared the features with harp and electric piano. Like Bill Frisell earlier in the day Ashby’s style was so distinctive that record producers would often ask other harp players to recreate “that Ashby Sound”.

Besides her work as a musician Ashby was also a political activist who was heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement. She and her husband John Ashby also founded a radical black theatre group in her native Detroit. The title of her piece “Life Has It’s Trials” reflected both her personal circumstances and the turbulence of the times and featured solos from Bzhezhinska on harp and Lockrane on flute.

A lengthy first set concluded with “Secret Love”, a piece that Ashby recorded for a standards album. The performance included features for Walkington and Prime alongside solos from Lockrane, Bzhezhinska and Vaughan.

During the interval I noted the presence of Tony Kofi in the club, offering his support for his colleague’s new project, something that was good to see.

The first piece of the second half was unannounced but got the proceedings off to a lively start with Lockrane on flute, Vaughan on electric piano and Prime at the drums the featured soloists.

“Afro-Harping” includes a cover of Freddie Hubbard’s charming tune “Little Sunflower” which saw Lockrane delivering the familiar melody on alto (I think) flute – this man had more flutes on stage than you could shake the proverbial stick at. He’d also led his Big Band at the Spice of Life earlier in the day, let’s hope he had Monday off! Solos her came from Bzhezhinska and Lockrane.

The album also features Andre and Dory Previn’s theme from “Valley Of The Dolls”, a feature here for the leader who demonstrated the almost orchestral capabilities of the harp, a quality that also distinguishes the “Inspiration” album.

Next came another film theme, Luis Bonfa’s “Black Orpheus”. Ashby was particularly adept at arranging popular tunes but this was a Bzhezhinska adaptation in the Ashby style featuring an unaccompanied harp intro and with features for Prime on hand drums, Lockrane on alto flute and Vaughan on acoustic piano.

In many cases Ashby’s arrangements had been transcribed by Vaughan, who essentially acted as Bzhezhinska’s MD for this project. A case in point was “Come Live With Me” from the “Afro-Harping” album, played as an ensemble piece with buoyant bass and drum grooves underpinning a strong melody.

The quintet completed their programme with the final track from “Afro-Harping”, an arrangement of the Bacharach/David song “The Look Of Love” with Lockrane featuring on both flute and piccolo and sharing the solos with Bzhezhinska on harp and Vaughan on electric piano.

The quintet remained on stage to play a deserved, but unannounced encore, with a vibrant bass and drum groove fuelling solos from all five members of this highly accomplished band.

This had been a lengthy, value for money performance packed with excellent playing and a fascinating collection of tunes. The presentation by Bzhezhinska mixed charm and wit with interesting and informative details about Ashby’s life and music. Next year’s Ashby inspired recording will be awaited with much interest.

I’ve wanted to see Bzhezhinska play since being hugely impressed with “Inspiration” and I’m pleased to report that she and her excellent band didn’t disappoint. This wasn’t one of the high profile EFG LJF shows but it proved to be something of a personal Festival highlight.

My thanks to Alina and Nolan for speaking with me after the show. Like Steve Rubie at the “Six” Nolan was running around manning the mixing desk, helping out behind the bar, looking after the band and the guest list etc. etc.

Sure they’re running a business, but club owners such as Nolan and Steve are some of the great unsung heroes of British jazz, providing places for top quality jazz musicians such as Elftet and the Bzhezhinska group to play in. Well done, gentlemen, and thanks too to all the musicians who helped to make this first Sunday of the Festival such a memorable day.

 

blog comments powered by Disqus