Music / Jazz
Bristol’s week in jazz, February 18-24 2019
OK – so there’s no point telling you about Andy Sheppard’s gig at the Fringe on Thursday because it sold out before promoter Jon Taylor could say Pushy Doctors.
But if post-bopping contemporary saxophones are your thing there’s ample compensation this week with reed-ripping potential all over the place. And there’s a host of interesting duo combinations, too.
For starters there’s Sefrial at Leftbank (Saturday 23), the very impressive and original quintet collective that features both Get The Blessing tenor sax player Jake McMurchie and Dakhla altoista Sophie Stockham. The band has really grown into its own identity as a contemporary unit, with Matt Hopkins’ guitar providing an undertow of rock references in their original music.
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Sophie switches to tenor for her brand new project Orphic at the Tobacco Factory (Sunday 24), joined by Pete Judge -another GTB and Dakhla luminary – on flugelhorn, with Chris Jones on bass and the irrepressible Tony Orrell sitting in on drums. The band are developing an interestingly fluid sound using well chosen tunes from modern composers.
Another wielder of tenor sax pops up at the Bebop Club (Friday 22): the Dino Christodoulou Quartet is a new modern jazz project led by the main man of powerful jazz-rockers Milon and focuses on Dino’s long-standing admiration for the work of John Coltrane, especially the classic Giant Steps and Blue Trane albums. The band features keyboard player Anders Olinder who also appears with alto sax firebrand James Morton at The Bell (Wednesday 20) alongside splendid London-based guitarist Tony Remy, a longtime foil for both of those players. It’s a gig that promises an evening of very groovy jazz.
And one last reed wrangler comes to town in the shape of retro clarinet project Adrian Cox: Profoundly Blue (Jam Jar, Friday 22). Adrian is on a mission to remind us all of near-legendary hot jazz clarinet player Edmond Hall, sometime collaborator with Louis Armstrong, and the show combines both vivid music and an informative run through of Hall’s life and career.
Getting bang up to date, however, Waldo’s Gift are using their regular Wednesday session (20) at the Gallimaufry to welcome Nihilism, a very happening quintet from London with a newly released classy EP (Exposition) and a massive live reputation for exploratory music rooted in contemporary rhythm styles and bags of energy. The band features Saskia Horton’s ear-catching violin and our own jazz uberfiddler returns to the Future Inn on Thursday (21) when John Pearce & Dave Newton team up once again.
It’s always a pleasure to see two such assured players interact live, and a similar treat is on offer at El Rincon (Thursday 21) when the trumpet/guitar duo of Gary Alesbrook & Matt Hopkins revisit the cool West Coast jazz scene of Chet Baker and others.
And then there’s Dadi Etro, a highly unpredictable and theatrical music duo from Italy offering two gigs this week (Crofter’s Rights Tuesday 19/Spin Bar, Friday 22)under the bewildering title Dark Soft Freaky Beats – They can play us but we won’t Brexit. Often posing as aliens, their music has an appealing electro-cabaret quirkiness and their striking visual elements would have gone down well at the Brunswick Club’s multi-media experimental BEEF Night In (Saturday 23).
If you’re checking both of those you’ll no doubt want to not miss Off Grid (Sunday 24), Cafe Kino’s monthly ambient experimental and dance session including a live set from ambient electronic composer Liam McConaghy aka Microdeform.
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