Music / contemporary jazz
Bristol’s week in jazz, August 20-26 2018
Alto saxophonist Sophie Stockham quietly and methodically staked her claim in the Bristol jazz scene, first emerging alongside singer Lady Nade before becoming a founder member of the groundbreaking Dakhla Brass. So, by the time she started her contemporary jazz quintet Sefrial, she was able to call on some of the best local names to give it a pretty star-studded line-up. Following the success of that project she’s begun experimenting with smaller scale collaborations and this week sees her sparring with Hammond organ boogaloo demon Jonny Henderson in the up close arena of El Rincon (Friday 24) as well as guesting with math-jazzers Waldo’s Gift (Gallimaufry, Wednesday 22).
That latter will be Waldo’s Gift guitarist Alun Elliott-Williams’ second gig, having appeared as his pedal-tastic alter-ego Sublunary at the Canteen (Tuesday 21). Alun’s combination of technical skill with an impressively wide range of musical influences really comes into play in this solo soundscaping project. He’s followed on that stage (Wednesday 22) by The Heavy’s tenor sax tyro John Pratt’s muscular JP3 blues-boogie trio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMHESD86VT4
is needed now More than ever
There’s a couple of other young jazz generation bands to watch out for this week, with proggish jazz rockers Prudent Primate crossing Stokes Croft from a gig at Canteen (Thursday 23) to new venue Corner 77 (Friday 24) for what will be the first of a monthly residency slot there. Lively groove hackers Snazzback pop up once more at the Gallimaufry (Thursday 23), this time plundering the ambient/techno soundtrack of cult film Pi for inspiration.
Representing a (slightly) older generation, the longer-established Silverado sextet (Fringe, Wednesday 22) is a brilliant revisiting of the tunes of the late Horace Silver. Pulled together by trumpeter Andy Hague – who transcribed and arranged the pieces – the classy line-up brings out the remarkable blend of melodic catchiness, rhythmic subtlety and deceptive complexity that made so much of the great man’s music instantly and enduringly successful.
And then there’s a whole bunch of nicely uncategorisable things that just might tweak a jazz-minded listener’s fancy, starting with the Iceman Furniss Quartet headlining a typically random programme at the Old England (Friday 24), quickly followed by the intriguing In The Machine celebration of all things analogue and modular at Corner 77 (Saturday 25). By contrast, then, Sunday (26) offers some very unplugged music with global collaboration Radial Band at Canteen and Athea, the improvisatory folk-jazz duo of singer/guitarist extraordinaire Paul Bradley with percussion diva Emma Holbrook, closing the week at the Tobacco Factory on Sunday evening.
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