Photograph of Elkie Brooks by Tim Dickeson

MONDAY AT CHELTENHAM JAZZ FESTIVAL, 02/052016.

IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE

It’s become something of a Cheltenham tradition for the final day of the festival to begin with something of a party in the Big Top featuring energetic, crowd pleasing bands who are able to get audiences to their feet and start the day with a bang. 2014 saw the London Afro-Beat Collective entertaining the crowd and in 2015 it was the turn of the excellent Hackney Colliery Band.

This year saw the Festival organisers turning again to the genre of Afro-Beat with Ibibio Sound Machine, an octet of London based musicians fronted by vocalist Eno Williams, London born of Nigerian heritage. Completing the line up were guitarist Alfred Bannerman, bass guitarist Leon Brichard, drummer Jose Joyette and percussionist Anselmo Netto plus a three man horn section consisting of Max Grunhard (alto sax), Tony Hayden (trombone) and Scott Baylis (trumpet). Hayden and Baylis both doubled on keyboards with synthesisers and electronics playing a substantial part in a group sound that embraced soul vocals, fat funk bass lines, rock influenced guitar and the African percussive exotica of the flamboyant Netto.

As a unit the Sound Machine were commendably tight and the colourfully clothed Williams proved to be a galvanising presence, an energetic front woman who was exhorting the crowd to get to their feet from the off. That she succeeded at one o’clock in the afternoon was a triumph both for her energy and persistence and for the near irresistible grooves generated by her highly competent band.

The bulk of the material came from their eponymous 2014 début album and included the single “The Talking Fish” which brought the crowd to its feet and augmented Williams’ strident vocal with a spectacular duel between drummer Joyette and percussionist Netto plus the first of a series of searing, rock influenced guitar solos by Bannerman. As Williams explained to the crowd the Sound Machine’s music is a blend of Nigerian and Western influences, filtered through a London perspective.

Let’s Dance, with the crowd doing exactly that, was notable for its energy and more excellent work from Netto on a mix of African and Latin percussion that included darbuka, congas and much more. There were occasions when the Sound Machine’s genre blending music reminded me a little of Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart, particularly when Brichard, who occasionally doubled on percussion, laid down a particularly heavy bass line.

The aptly named “Quiet Song” lowered the temperature briefly but still combined a hypnotic groove with a smouldering solo by Grunhard on alto sax. But Williams soon had the audience back on its feet again and singing along with the closing “Trans Dance” with its “The Pot’s On Fire” refrain.

Overall this was an enjoyable gig and nobody could fault Williams and the band for their energy and enthusiasm. But like the London Afro-Beat Collective this was probably the least successful gig of the day in purely musical terms. But there’s no doubt that Ibibio Sound Machine work hard to put on a show and their sound has also been enjoyed by audiences at the WOMAD, Glastonbury and Wilderness festivals.

There were occasions when I thought Williams was perhaps trying a bit too hard, but this was early afternoon and I suspect that audiences at Sound Machine gigs in a later time slot probably need a lot less cajoling to the get into the vibe. Also today’s audience was down on the last two years which meant that the band had to work that little bit harder.

Rather the like the LAC this isn’t music I’d necessarily want to listen to at home but it did get the day off to an invigorating start.

FRINGE SHOWCASE;
REMI HARRIS TRIO & THE BEN CIPOLLA BAND, THE JAZZ ARENA

Another Bank Holiday Monday afternoon tradition at Cheltenham is the Fringe Showcase which features the two most popular acts from the previous year’s Fringe. The event is supported by the charitable Oldham Foundation whose chairman John Oldham introduces the artists each year.

Guitarist Remi Harris proved to be a big hit at the 2014 Fringe, his set being enjoyed by Jamie Callum who featured Harris’ trio on his BBC Radio 2 programme.

Harris has also been a regular presence on the Jazzmann web pages. Originally from Bromyard, Herefordshire he’s something of a local hero as far as I’m concerned and it’s been a pleasure to watch his career develop over the course of the last six years from playing the back rooms of pubs to sell out performances at festivals, first Brecon and now Cheltenham. 

Still only twenty six Harris began his musical career as lead guitarist with the rock band Mars Bonfire but a growing fascination with Django Reinhardt and the sounds of gypsy jazz saw him undertake a radical change of direction and he rapidly began to forge an impressive reputation on the jazz circuit as a brilliant acoustic guitarist working out of the gypsy jazz tradition.

More recently Harris has diversified and allowed some of his earlier influences to return and his set is now an entertaining mix of various music styles but still with gypsy jazz at its heart.

The personnel of Harris’ trio has undergone a number of changes over the years but now appears to have stabilised with the experienced Birmingham musician Mike Green on double bass and the Australian born Caley Groves on rhythm guitar.

Harris’ stagecraft has improved immeasurably over the years too and he and the trio consistently deliver entertaining, enjoyable and informative sets that always leave audiences delighted. I’ve never seen Harris play a bad gig and although today’s performance was inevitably somewhat truncated due to the ‘double header’ nature of the event he and the trio were still rapturously received by a capacity crowd that was not necessarily previously familiar with his music.

Harris’ wide ranging approach was perhaps best encapsulated by the opening number, an arrangement of the Beatles song “Can’t Buy Me Love”, delivered gypsy jazz style by two acoustic guitars and double bass. This was segued with “Joseph, Joseph”, a gypsy jazz staple that was also a hit in vocal form for the Andrews Sisters.

As evidenced by the Beatles piece Harris is increasingly looking beyond the established gypsy jazz repertoire for inspiration as evidenced by the trio’s brilliant acoustic version of The Meters’ New Orleans funk classic “Cissy Strut” with its feature for the excellent Green on double bass.

Harris’ between song announcements these days contain a wealth of information, that earlier nugget about the Andrews Sisters being an example. Now he explained how he was first influenced by rock guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Peter Green of the original Fleetwood Mac. Harris now picked up his electric guitar to deliver a stunningly emotive instrumental performance of Green’s “Need Your Love So Bad”, a piece that has increasingly become a high point of his set.

Harris moved back to acoustic guitar for “Oud Elegy”, a fiendishly complicated piece with a 39/16 time signature originally written for the oud by the North African musician Dhafer Youseff. Harris has been relishing the technical challenges of this piece for some time now as he adds world music to the flavours of an already eclectic musical mix.

Finally in this all too brief ‘taster’ of a set the trio moved back to the classic gypsy jazz canon with “Bossa Dorado” but with a Chuck Berry quote thrown in for good measure.

As he thanked the crowd Harris informed us that a new album is imminent which will be released on his own label, a keenly awaited follow up to 2010’s “Live At The Hatch” and 2014’s studio album “Ninick”.

Today’s performance, excellent though it was, offered only a glimpse of what Remi Harris is capable of. Readers are urged to check him out for themselves at a full length performance. Harris is a particularly hard working musician who performs live frequently. Please visit http://www.remiharris.com for details of his schedule.

The Harris Trio were followed by the Ben Cipolla Band, a young group from Swindon fronted by vocalist, songwriter and occasional guitarist Ben Cipolla. As well as impressing at last year’s Cheltenham Jazz Fringe the band also won the award for ‘Best Newcomer’ at the 2014 Marlborough Jazz festival where Cipolla guested with Clare Teal. He has also featured on her Radio 2 programme.

The Cipolla band also played at the 2015 Wall2Wall Jazz Festival in Abergavenny where I was impressed by their blend of musicality, showmanship and mix of original songs and jazz, pop and soul covers.

The line up at Abergavenny was a six piece but today’s show featured the full octet with Cipolla fronting a line up featuring guitarists Jonny Budd (electric) and Isaac Francis (acoustic), bass guitarist Dan Springate and drummer Will Downes-Hall. A full three man horn section featured Lawrence Cooper on trumpet, David Knight on alto sax and Ash Garfitt on tenor and baritone saxes.

Although still so young that their parents have to drive them to gigs the Cipolla band have already released a critically acclaimed EP. “Guest House”, from which some of the songs in an all original programme were taken. A full length album is due for release in 2017 and will doubtless be very keenly anticipated.

Roared on by a large contingent from Swindon the band started energetically with “Mr Chameleon” but a problem with Cipolla’s vocal mic meant that they got off to a shaky start. Wearing the same eye catching blue suit that we’d seen at Abergavenny the confident singer soon got himself back on track and ultimately this concert was a triumph for the band.

The catchy “Felicity Fandango” helped to keep the crowd onside as did the reggae grooves and rousing chorus of “Saskia”. And even in Cheltenham there wasn’t anybody called Saskia in the audience!

Budd impressed on electric guitar on “Stripped Down”, a song sourced from the “Guest House” EP. By way of contrast “Worthwhile” offered a welcome change of pace and dynamics with an assured duet between vocalist Cipolla and acoustic guitar specialist Francis.

Punchy horn lines and funky grooves helped to power “Puppet”, a song from the EP that also had its more reflective moments too.

“Capuccino” was a song written about the band members busking experiences and “Monkey Love” saw Budd abandoning his guitar to pick up a second alto sax thereby creating a four piece horn section. The set ended with the uplifting “Cocoa Butterfly” with the band having to reluctantly refuse the deserved requests for an encore due to festival scheduling pressures.

Once again I was highly impressed with this young band’s standard of musicianship and overall coherence. Although the charismatic Cipolla is very much the leader and front man this is a group that still seems to have a genuine ‘band’ mentality, one senses that they are all good mates off the stand as well. However there’s also a drive and professionalism about the band, a work ethic that will help to ensure their continued progress as they prepare to record their début album.

The Abergavenny performance included covers by well known artists such as Stevie Wonder and Van Morrison as well as the more contemporary singer-songwriters John Mayer and Patrick Duff.  It also included a clutch of jazz standards further complemented by a couple of songs by Cheltenham favourite Gregory Porter, who Cipolla cites as a huge influence.   

But today’s performance was all about the band’s increasingly sophisticated original songs which clearly delighted the members of this capacity audience. I’ll admit that the music of the Ben Cipolla band is rather outside my usual listening area but I do see huge potential in these talented young musicians. Ben Cipolla’s star will continue to rise and I’m certain that we’re going to hear a lot from him and his talented band.

ELKIE BROOKS, THE BIG TOP

From two of the rising stars of the UK music scene to a veritable legend of the business. I first remember Elkie Brooks as a member of the early 70s group Vinegar Joe which she fronted with co-vocalist Robert Palmer. Brooks’ raucous on stage performances routinely upstaged Palmer and it was no real surprise when Vinegar Joe imploded with both singers going on to have successful solo careers. However the band remains in the public eye with Brooks still often to be seen belting out “Proud To Be a Honky Tonk Woman” a staple of BBC 4’s regular pop and rock nostalgia programmes.

In 1977 Brooks had a massive hit with “Pearl’s A Singer”, still the song most closely identified with her and one which established her as a bona fide star after years of scrabbling around the cabaret and second division rock circuits. It also marked a toning down of her music as she became an increasingly mainstream entertainer, moving further away from her blues and rock roots and becoming increasingly ‘middle of the road and AOR. Of course it all led to a plethora of hits and Brooks, true trouper that she is has continued to tour extensively, amassing a large and loyal following in the process.

I’ll admit that I’d rather lost touch with her music over the years but was still more than happy to see one of the great survivors of British popular music in action. Whether Brooks is genuinely a ‘blues singer’ is a moot point but she still has a belter of a voice and the vitality and energy of her performance belied her seventy years.

Still pencil slim and wearing an elegant black dress she fronted a six piece band featuring Rufus Ruffell (guitar), Lee Noble (backing vocals, keyboards), Brian Badham(electric bass) Stevie Jones   (tenor sax) Andrew Murray (keyboards) and Michael Richardson (drums). Initially the musicians kept a low profile with the arrangements seemingly designed to highlight the remarkable power of Brooks’ voice.

I’m not going to describe every song because most of them will be so familiar beginning with “Gasoline Alley”, once a hit for Rod Stewart.

Aretha Franklin’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man”  and Percy Sledge’s “Warm and Tender” established her soul credentials with powerfully emotive performances and then it was into the hits such as “Fool If You Think It’s Over” , “Sunshine After The Rain” and “Don’t Cry Out Loud”.

Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love” was recently made famous for a new generation by Adele but here Brook’s claimed it as her own with her hoarse, bluesy expressiveness. She also started to cut her musicians some slack too with Stevie Jones turning in the first of several effective r’n'b style tenor solos.

Occasionally bombast got the better of her as on a synth drenched “Night In White Satin” that only began to improve with Ruffell’s lead guitar solo that took the place of the flute led instrumental section on the Moody Blues original. And then there was Brooks’ transcendent Daltrey-esque scream at the very end of the song. 

“Lilac Wine” was another well received popular hit and the inevitable “Pearl’s A Singer”, still Brooks biggest hit and presumably inspired by her own cabaret days, brought the house down. “I’ve been singing this for thirty nine years” said Brooks but if she was tired of it it certainly didn’t show.

I’d expected “Pearl” to be the climax of the concert but instead it cleared the way for what, for me, was the best section of the show as Brooks and the band exploded into a turbo charged blues and rock ‘n’ roll medley that reminded me of Vinegar Joe in their hey day. Here Ruffell and Jones really came into their own with some blistering solos as the band really turned on the afterburners behind Brooks’ raunchy vocals. The entire audience in a sold out Big Top was on its feet by now as Brooks and the band romped through a sequence of songs that included the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” and “I’m Tore Down”, a blues song associated with Freddie King and Eric Clapton.

The inevitable encore was Prince’s “Purple Rain”, an appropriate choice but unlike some of the other tributes over the weekend not a spontaneous gesture. Brooks’ bluesy arrangement of the song actually appeared on her most recent album and has been in her repertoire for some time. In the light of recent events it took on a new significance and poignancy here and helped to make this excellent performance even more memorable.

I have to confess that I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed this performance by Elkie Brooks. She undoubtedly still ‘has it’, not just the voice but also the personality. Her exuberant non stop performance saw her working the audience and flirting with her band mates but never taking herself too seriously as she skipped girlishly around the stage, danced unselfconsciously and delivered the announcements with a dollop of salty, acerbic, no nonsense, Salford wit. It was clear to see why her audiences love her so much.

For me this was an unexpected Festival highlight.

DARIUS BRUBECK QUARTET

Pianist and composer Darius Brubeck is, of course the son of Dave Brubeck, also a pianist and the composer of “Take Five” and a string of other jazz hits from the 50s and 60s. Rather than resenting living in his father’s shadow Darius seems more than happy to carry on the family name, playing his father’s music with his brothers Chris (bass) and Dan (drums) as Brubecks Play Brubeck.

Based in London since 2006 Brubeck has assembled an excellent band of musicians from the capital’s jazz scene including the experienced saxophonist Dave O’Higgins, rising star bassist Matt Ridley and the South African born drummer Wesley Gibbens.  The repertoire of the band includes well known Dave Brubeck tunes, original compositions from the pen of Darius Brubeck and pieces by South African musicians such as Abdullah Ibrahim.

Brubeck’s connection to South Africa is deep rooted, having spent over twenty years in the country as the Head of Jazz at the University of KwaZulu Natal where he initiated the first degree course in Jazz Studies offered by an African university. He still retains an honorary artist-in-residence post at KwaZulu Natal and returns to South Africa on an annual basis.

Today’s performance saw Brubeck and his quartet performing to a capacity crowd in the Jazz Arena. Brubeck adheres to the sartorial fashions of his father’s time with the leader and his band mates appearing in sharply tailored suits and ties – I’ve never seen O’ Higgins or the spectacularly hirsute Ridley looking quite so dapper. 

The set commenced with a passage of solo piano from Brubeck with Ridley’s bass walk subsequently introducing the main body of the song, an Abdullah Ibrahim tune, the title of which Brubeck failed to announce. This featured a soprano sax solo from O’Higgins and a brushed drum feature from Gibbons over Ridley’s still implacable walk.

Brubeck dug quickly into his father’s back catalogue, eliciting a ripple of applause from the audience in a packed Jazz Arena as they recognised the familiar intro to “Blue Rondo A La Turk”.
O’Higgins filled the Paul Desmond role here, albeit on tenor, and his solo, complete with a quote from “Stranger In Paradise” was followed by Brubeck at the piano. Matt Ridley impressed with a bass solo that combined melodicism and dexterity in equal measure, his feature subtly supported by the patter of Gibbons’ brushed drums before the roles were reversed and Ridley repaid the complement.

Brubeck informed us that the jazz standard “I Don’t Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You” was co-written by Bing Crosby back in 1931 in conjunction with co-composers Ned Washington and Victor Young. The piece was a ballad feature for Brubeck on piano, O’Higgins on warm toned tenor sax and Ridley with another wonderfully melodic bass solo. The performance was crowned by a n impressive but beautiful solo tenor sax cadenza from O’Higgins.

Brubeck is a skilled composer in his own right and four original pieces were to follow, all of them sourced from this quartet’s latest release, 2014’s “Cathy’s Summer”, the album named in honour of Brubeck’s wife and manager Catherine.

The first original piece was “Ravely Street”, presumably named after the London thoroughfare in NW5. This saw O’Higgins probing deeply and intelligently on soprano as he shared the solos with the composer on piano.

Brubeck informed us that he had performed the tune “Before It’s Too Late” on Jamie Cullum’s BBC Radio “ programme. This saw O’Higgins moving back to tenor and again sharing the solos with Brubeck on a mid tempo tune that had something of the feeling of a jazz standard.

The album title track began with a drum prompt from Gibbens which introduced O’ Higgins’ theme statement, this followed in turn by concise solos from piano and tenor sax. But the piece ended as it began with Gibbens, his drum feature over Brubeck’s insistent Latin-esque piano figure garnering a great reception from the Jazz Arena audience.

The last of the original tunes was “Flippin’ The Bird”, a breezy piece based around a catchy and persistent melodic fragment that possessed a distinct hard bop feel and wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Blue Note album from the 50s or 60s. The ebullient Gibbens was again in sparkling form as he occupied a prominent place in the arrangement alongside soloists O’ Higgins (tenor) and Brubeck (piano).

Brubeck’s love of South African jazz runs deep and the set concluded with the happy Township sounds of “Baby I Don’t Know”, written by a South African composer whose name I didn’t quite catch. Solos here came from the leader on piano and O’Higgins on tenor sax, the latter dubbed “an honorary Brubeck” by Darius on account of O’Higgins having toured with Brubeck and his brothers.

The audience at the Jazz Arena loved Darius Brubeck and his quartet and as this was the last gig of the Festival at this venue they were able to perform a deserved encore. Almost inevitably this was “Take Five”, Dave Brubeck’s biggest hit, which drew a barrage of applause on the intro and included solos from O’Higgins on tenor, Brubeck on piano and Gibbens at the drums, clearly relishing his chance to play the Joe Morello role.

This was easily the best straight ahead jazz performance of the day, one that I enjoyed very much and which got a terrific reception from the Jazz Arena crowd. The album “Cathy’s Summer” is also a rewarding , if not particularly demanding listen, with a good mix of eight original tunes and three standards, these including “I Don’t Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You”.

But the award for gig of the day goes to Elkie Brooks for the sheer chutzpah, energy and stagecraft of the singer’s performance allied, of course, to that still extraordinary voice. 

 

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