Photograph of Django Bates (Loose Tubes) by Tim Dickeson.

Friday at Brecon Jazz, 08/08/2014.

The 2014 Brecon Jazz Festival was the third to be held under the stewardship of the Cardiff based media group, Orchard. During Orchard’s tenure the festival has regained something of the atmosphere, vibrancy and “buzz” of its early years, qualities that were somewhat lost following the move to an edge of town tented site during the years 2009-11 when Hay Festivals operated the festival franchise.

Incredibly 2014 represented the thirtieth anniversary of the much loved institution that is Brecon Jazz and as either fan or reviewer I’ve been lucky enough to attend twenty seven festivals during that time. This year saw Orchard responding to popular demand and re-instating the Captain’s Walk as an outside venue (the rest of the year it’s a rather unprepossessing car park), the relaxed atmosphere capturing something of the spirit of the much missed Stroller programme which ran from 1984 up until the financial collapse of the original Brecon Jazz back in 2008. A daily pass costing ?25.00 entitled jazz fans to witness four performances each day (each lasting around ninety minutes). Saturday’s schedule featured performances by the Brecon Jazz institution that is Mike Harries’ Root Doctors plus sets from Dennis Rollins’ Velocity Trio, brass band Imperial Kikiristan and the youthful, rip roaring Beats & Pieces Big Band from Manchester. Sunday featured James Clark’s Lonely Hearts Rugby Clwb featuring students from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff,  the Ollie Howell Quintet, Township Comets and Rhythms Of The City. Like the old Stroller programme there was a wide variety of music , including some out and out “party” acts , truly something for everybody. I dipped in and out of the Captain’s Walk programme and thoroughly enjoyed what I saw, and despite some atrocious weather on the Sunday it certainly rekindled elements of the old “Stroller” spirit ? but more on all that later.

This year’s concert venues were Brecon Cathedral, Christ’s College Memorial Hall, The Market Hall, The Guildhall and Theatr Brycheiniog. With music being performed simultaneously at the varied venues the usual tricky festival choices had to be made. Friday night saw me unashamedly opting for two of my favourite jazz acts, the Michael Wollny Trio at Brecon Cathedral and Loose Tubes in the Market Hall. I’d seen both groups give brilliant performances at the 2014 Cheltenham Jazz Festival but as I didn’t cover Wollny’s performance ( I attended that gig as a “punter”) and with the prospect of this being the last ever Loose Tubes show I had no hesitation about choosing to see both of them again.

MICHAEL WOLLNY TRIO

The German pianist and composer Michael Wollny was recently the subject of an extensive (and well received) Jazzmann feature in which I posited that the youthful looking thirty something from Frankfurt is the most important European jazz pianist since the late Esbjorn Svensson. Wollny’s appearances at Cheltenham and Brecon have only served to strengthen this argument, the atmosphere of Brecon Cathedral being particularly appropriate to the air of “Gothic” that surrounds much of Wollny’s work. He brings a strong “Germanic” sense to the jazz tradition, something rooted in his love of German classical music and German literature, this allied to a penchant for horror movies and film noir.

Wollny appeared at Brecon with his regular working trio featuring Berlin based drummer Eric Schaefer and Swiss born bassist Christian Weber, the same line up that appeared at Cheltenham. 
Wollny and Schaefer worked together for many years as part of the trio (em) alongside bassist and composer Eva Kruse, this line up releasing five acclaimed albums on ACT Records. When Kruse left the group following the birth of her second child Wollny enlisted the services of American bassist Tim Lefebvre who appeared on the album “Weltentraum”, credited to the Michael Wollny Trio, his latest release and the pianist’s most commercially successful album to date.

Tonight’s performance concentrated on the “Weltentraum” material, with Weber fully attuned to the music and proving to be a more than able replacement for Lefebvre. The programme also included three classic items from the (em), repertoire, all of them coming from the pen of Eric Schaefer.

The title of “Weltentraum” translates approximately as “we search the dreamworlds” and the record is a concept album of sorts, a collection of pieces that Wollny regards as “standards”. However this is no tired retread of hoary old jazz standards, these are Wollny’s very personal “standards” and the collection includes classical items, songs from the German lied and kunstlied traditions, plus pop and rock songs from artists as diverse as Flaming Lips and Pink.
With the first piece that Wollny selected being an interpretation of Alban Berg’s “Nacht” a secondary “night” theme occurs throughout the album but with Wollny placing a strong emphasis on melody the album has proved to be one of his most accessible to date despite the apparent darkness of its theme.   

Both the album and tonight’s performance began with the Berg piece, Wollny quickly demonstrating his prodigious, classically honed technique as Schaefer conjured an impressive range of sounds from a kit augmented by an eye-catching array of small cymbals and gongs. Schaefer is a busy drummer who can be immensely powerful when required but with his diverse array of percussive implements he is also a painter in sound. Weber, meanwhile, has become fully integrated into the trio and represents a flexible and highly musical presence on the double bass.

The bleak lyricism of “Nacht” segued into Schaefer’s “Phlegma Phighter”, a perennially popular item from the (em) repertoire which saw the trio upping the energy levels. Driven by its composers hard hitting drum grooves the piece incorporated pounding piano riffs, a free jazz episode incorporating interior piano scrapings and arco bass, audacious time signature changes and Wollny swarming all over the piano, hammering the hell out of it and performing grandiose keyboard sweeps. Among contemporary jazz pianists only Neil Cowley submits the instrument to such violence. Wollny can do everything, from the almost impossibly quiet and lyrical to the full on, and then some.

As I’ve previously observed (em) always had something of an indie rock mentality about them and Wollny’s choice of Flaming Lips’ “Be Free, A Way” draws from that world, beginning here with rumbling low end piano and unorthodox arco bass, Weber bowing first vertically and then below the bridge. Gradually the piece opened out to embrace the anthemic grooving that characterises the “Weltentraum” album cut.

“Rufe In Der Horchenden Nacht” by the German composer Paul Hindemith (1895 ? 1963) embraced both the night theme and Wollny’s love of 20th century classical music. It began with the eerie shimmering of Schaefer’s small gongs and included a dexterous but lyrical solo from Weber before exploding into a hard grooving, pounding finish that differed significantly from the recorded version.

The music of the early composer Guillaume de Machaut (1300-77) has been an increasingly fertile source of inspiration for jazz musicians. Schaefer’s arrangement of the composers “Lasse!” was anthemic but with a Gothic tinge as Wollny reached into the piano’s innards and Weber played cello- like arco bass. Weber makes far greater use of the bow than either Kruse or Lefebvre and this aspect of his abilities represents a welcome addition to the trio’s sound.
The Machaut piece was segued with Schaefer’s own “Gravite” from the third (em) album, a typically rhythmic composition with Weber using the body of his bass as auxiliary percussion and   Wollny dampening his piano strings, both musicians treating the tools of their trade as an entire instrument.

From “Weltentraum” Wollny’s arrangement of the traditional German folk tune “Muhlrad” began with an intriguing dialogue between Schaefer and Weber before opening up to accommodate Wollny’s own expansive solo in yet another example of Wollny taking seemingly arcane material and creating something unmistakeably his own ? and unmistakeably jazz ? out of it.

Finally we heard Wollny’s own composition “Engel”, a piece that, by Wollny’s own admission, borrows heavily from Gustav Mahler. The solo piano intro and later trio musings eventually mutated into the hypnotic grooves of Schaefer’s “Gorilla Biscuits”, another favourite from the (em) canon which included a stunning drum solo from its composer and an equally jaw dropping passage of solo piano from the prodigiously talented Wollny.

Although the gig was far from a sell out (perhaps because of the early 6.30 pm start)the audience reaction was vociferous enough for the trio to be tempted back on stage for a deserved encore. Wollny had proved to be a fluent English speaker throughout the course of the concert, introducing items in an informative and frequently humorous manner. The encore was the only piece he didn’t announce but it was brief, lyrical and song-like with Schaefer deploying brushes throughout. Kept simple and unashamedly beautiful it acted as the perfect palette cleanser after some of the darkness and complexity that had gone before. I’m fairly certain that it was the trio’s version of the Jon Brion / Charlie Kaufman song “Little Person” that appears on “Weltentraum”.

For me this performance confirmed Wollny’s status as the most important pianist in European jazz right now. Besides being a formidably talented technician he has developed a style and sensibility that is very much his own and which owes little to conventional American jazz sources. Like Django Reinhardt and Jan Garbarek before him he embraces his European heritage, and more specifically his German heritage, as well as reflecting the time and culture within which he lives. These were very personal “standards” performed by a leader and his trio at the very top of their game. A great start to the 2014 Brecon Jazz festival.

LOOSE TUBES

It was at the 1985 Brecon Jazz Festival that Loose Tubes played one of their first ever gigs outside London. It certainly helped to spread the word about this extraordinary twenty one strong collective of talented young jazz musicians and suddenly there was real buzz about the band. As part of the 80’s “jazz revival” (see also Jazz Warriors, Courtney Pine and Andy Sheppard) they seemed to be everywhere, even appearing on BBC2 TV documentaries and also improbably, but memorably, cropping up on the Wogan show. In 1987 (if memory serves) they returned to Brecon in triumph to play a triumphant show at the Market Hall.

I was lucky enough to see the band several times back in the day at Brecon, Birmingham and Cardiff and also made a point of checking out all the numerous radio and TV broadcasts. Around this time several members of the band also appeared at Brecon leading smaller groups under the umbrella of “Loose Tubes On The Loose”, I remember seeing bands led by Django Bates ( Human Chain), Iain Ballamy, and both of the Arguelles brothers, Julian and Steve.

Overloaded with talent Loose Tubes imploded in 1990 leaving a legacy of three superb studio albums (I’ve got them all on vinyl) that have never found their way on to CD, presumably thanks to the copyright wrangles that must have inevitably attached themselves to the demise of a twenty one strong democracy. However there ARE two brilliant live albums featuring performances of the group taped during a residency at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club during 1990 in the original group’s last days. Lovingly restored by Django Bates and released on his own Lost Marble Records “Dancing On Frith Street” and “Sad Afrika” contain no repeats and both volumes feature material that never found its way onto the vinyl. Both are highly recommended and Bates has a third collection scheduled for release in the near future.

I’ve followed the careers of the individual members ever since and seen musicians such as Bates, Ballamy, Julian and Steve Arguelles, Mark Lockheart, Chris Batchelor, Martin France, John Parricelli and others grow into some of the most respected jazz musicians and educators in the UK. The spirit of Loose Tubes has informed the F-ire and Loop Collectives and continues to inspire young jazz musicians such as trumpeter Laura Jurd and the band WorldService Project whose Match & Fuse project has reached out to similarly minded young jazz musicians all over Europe.
The presence of so many musicians in the audience, among them members of Kairos 4tet, was a testament to the influence of this extraordinary band

The announcement in early 2014 that Loose Tubes were to reform was the most joyous I’d heard in a long time. The group were scheduled to appear at the Cheltenham and Brecon jazz festivals and were also booked in for a week’s residency at Ronnie’s which, inevitably, sold out almost immediately. I was lucky enough to catch the band at Cheltenham and any fears that they would be unable to produce the anarchic spirit and free wheeling music of yesteryear were quickly dispelled as they produced the mother of all comebacks. But this Brecon show was even better, in a late night party slot unfettered by scheduling restraints, and in the place where a lot of it all began , there was a lot of nostalgia and a lot of goodwill in the air and the sense that this might really be the last Loose Tubes show ever was palpable, both band and audience were in the mood to make it a night to remember. 

Unavoidably there were a number of similarities to the Cheltenham set but this was by no means a carbon copy as the Tubes launched in to Bates’ “Yellow Hill” from the first vinyl album, Iain Ballamy stepping forward to take the first solo on soprano sax followed by John Parricelli on guitar.

World music (for want of a better term) of every stripe found its way into the Loose Tubes bubbling musical stew. The Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal was a significant influence as were the diaspora of South African musicians who came to the UK in the 1960s, exiled by the apartheid regime. Django Bates was once part of Zila, the band led by saxophonist Dudu Pukwana who also graced the Market Hall some time back in the 80s.
The tense political situation in South Africa inspired Bates’ “Sad Afrika” (which originally appeared on the second album “Delightful Precipice”), in reality a celebration of the indomitable spirit of those South African jazz emigres with its rousing opening vocal chorale and joyous tin whistle solo by Steve Buckley over Dave Powell’s astonishingly agile and perky tuba vamp.
The tune was segued with flautist Eddie Parker’s curiously titled “Exeter King Of Cities”, no doubt the result of some long forgotten commission but since immortalised on the “Sad Afrika” live album. The suitably celebratory ensemble passages were punctuated by a stunning keyboard solo from Bates, still one of the most inventive synthesiser manipulators around.

When first announcing their reunion the members of Loose Tubes made it clear that they didn’t want to become “their own tribute band”. Hence the Radio 3 commission for the group’s principal composers (Bates, Parker, trumpeter Chris Batchelor and absent founder member Steve Berry) to write new material for the reunion tour. The new pieces have proved to be well up to standard, as colourful and inventive as that which had gone before. Batchelor’s “Creeper” saw him conducting the band with soloing duties assigned to Julian Arguelles on baritone sax and Bates on keyboards.

Parker’s “Children’s Game” represented a lost gem from the third vinyl album “Open Letter”, relaxed and slyly funky in style, here with solos from Ballamy on soprano sax and Batchelor on muted trumpet.

A moving moment came when Bates read the words of Geoff Amos eulogising the late Jed Williams who effectively put Brecon Jazz Festival on the map and whose innovative programming gave Loose Tubes their Brecon chance as well as bringing some of the biggest international names in jazz to the town. From the first vinyl album Bates’ “Eden Express” was dedicated to Jed with the composer and tenor saxophonist Mark Lockheart the featured soloists.

Although not performing with the band former bassist and founding member Steve Berry’s newly commissioned Radio 3 piece “Smoke and Daffodils” was included in the set featuring an innovative solo trumpet intro from Noel Langley (check out his excellent new solo album “Edentide”) plus a later solo from Julian Arguelles on baritone.

Batchelor’s breezy African inspired “Village” tempted some dancers into the aisles as Julian Nicholas performed the solo honours on tenor saxophone. Parker and clarinettist Dai Pritchard could be seen dancing at the edge of the stage and a shorts wearing Django Bates jumped down and cavorted around in the space between the band and the front row of seats, a dubious bonus for the Friends of Brecon Jazz! 

Introducing his newly commissioned piece “Bright Smoke, Cold Fire” flautist Eddie Parker’s references to the current situation in Gaza were a reminder of the group’s political stance of old, they were vigorous anti-nuclear campaigners back in the 80’s and opposed the first Gulf War. The moodily simmering composition included solos from the composer on flute and Buckley on alto sax.

Also by Parker the vibrant “Last Word” represented a total contrast, the reggae based grooves getting the dancers to their feet once more and fuelling muscular but celebratory solos from Paul Taylor on trombone and Mark Lockheart on tenor.

Bates new piece “As I Was Saying” cleverly included quotes from his earlier compositions, taking “Sweet Williams” (from “Open Letter”) as its starting point .

Trumpeter John Eacott’s “Sunny” with its exuberantly shouted choruses has always been a live favourite and closed the show here with Parricelli switching to a very distinctive acoustic guitar and with MC Ashley Slater coming to the front of the stage to deliver a rasping trombone solo. Slater’s surreal, sometimes wryly amusing, sometimes just plain daft announcing style has long been a feature of Loose Tubes live performances, his mid Atlantic drawl (he was born in Canada) a marked contrast to the studied British eccentricities of most of the rest of the band. He was in fine form here, although his liberal use of the f word may have offended some listeners ? but not hard core Tubes listeners surely. A running joke tonight was the fact that we the listeners had paid for the newly commissioned work via our TV licences, “bring your licences to us after the show, we’ll sign them for you”, quipped Slater. 

There was a real feeling amongst the audience that this could be the last ever Loose Tubes gig, a suspicion that Slater’s on stage announcements seemed to confirm. With this in mind the standing ovation that greeted their collective exit after “Sunny” was predictable but inevitable. As the band filed back on stage Parker positioned himself behind the keyboards as Bates finally took up his tenor horn, he didn’t get the chance to play it at Cheltenham where scheduling constraints had prevented the band from playing a deserved encore.

Here we heard Batchelor’s “Arriving”, a New Orleans flavoured piece introduced by the composer on trumpet and which saw all the horn players “second lining” around the Market Hall, a happy reminder of Loose Tubes gigs past as the band members mingled with the dancing audience before eventually making their way back to the stage. I dare say this was meant to happen at Cheltenham too but was shelved due to lack of time. It brought back great memories for me and ended my first night at Brecon 2014 on an incredible high. 

Those memories plus the knowledge that this was the last time this was likely to happen ensured that this was my personal highlight of the festival weekend. Behind the Loose Tubes’s apparent anarchy and the turn on a dime collisions of musical styles there’s discipline and incredible technique, even after all these years I still marvel at how they do what they do. A triumph, the legend remains intact. 

On the way out a bucket collection was held in aid of the Jazz4Jed, a charitable trust set up in memory of Jed Williams for the benefit of jazz in Wales. I’m sure that people gave generously in support of the music. For further details of the trust and to make a donation please visit http://www.jazz4jed.co.uk

P.S. Thanks to Ray Dominguez for the comment below. He’s quite right, “Village” did come earlier on, I mistook it for another Barchelor composition, “Sticklebacks”. The encore was almost certainly “Arriving” and I’ve edited the above text accordingly, but I’m not going to comment on Mr. Slater’s ramblings!

 
   

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