Music / Jazz
Review: Issie Barratt’s Interchange, St George’s
Picking an all-woman jazz ensemble was a good call for International Women’s Day and, while the talented contribution of women players and singers has been long recognised in the jazz world, it was still refreshing to see a female-dominated audience (albeit a small one) for this gig.
Issie Barratt’s 10-strong Interchange big band
Issie Barratt’s contribution to jazz development in the UK is enormous but her work in academia and jazz organisations has often taken priority over performing so it was ironic that some of Interchange’s younger players were more recognisable than the bandleader herself. Thus the ambient atmospherics of Interchange accordionist Karen Street’s Still Here was a showcase for Yazz Ahmed’s smooth and measured flugelhorn solo, with Issie’s baritone sax very much a blended element.
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Maddie Dowdeswell, Charlie Pyne and Yazz Ahmed
The Interchange programme consisted of ten pieces, each composed by a different woman for the band’s 10-strong line-up. That range of compositional styles led to an interesting diversity within what was largely a ‘chamber jazz’ format, and though the writing often kept the musicians on a tight rein opportunities for solo playing were seized with enthusiasm. One highpoint was To The Power of Ten, commissioned from Nikki Yeo, featuring moments of tight unison playing between the accordion and Tori Freestone’s tenor sax while Brigitte Beraha’s wordless vocals soared and floated with impeccable range and control. The piece provided young dep trombonist Maddie Dowdeswell with her first chance to shine with an expressive solo delivered in a carefully modulated tone – she would continue to impress all evening and is clearly a ‘name to watch out for’.
Issie Barratt, Helena Kay, Tori Freestone and Shirley Smart
The same should be said of Scottish alto sax player Helena Kay to judge by a fluent bopping solo on Palmyra, a multi-faceted composition by cellist Shirley Smart that managed to move from Arabic muezzin calls to upbeat cumbia via louche Argentinian tango featuring the multi-instrumental Tori Freestone on violin (having already played tenor and soprano sax and flute). The piece’s shifting moods meant that notable individual performances kept emerging out of the collective playing that nicely balanced the band’s strong musical personalities.
Brigitte Beraha
One inevitable side-effect of complex writing is the look of concentration on everyone’s faces so the evident cheerfulness of drummer Katie Patterson and bass-player Charlie Pyne should be applauded, especially as the latter somehow managed to keep smiling while both singing and playing assuredly through Brigitte Beraha’s song Donna’s Secret. This number was probably one of the jazziest moments, a big band blowout that swung splendidly between its bilingual verses. By contrast Charlie also led off Hope – a (literally) breathtaking choral piece written by the band’s sadly unwell trombonist Carol Jarvis with seven harmonising voices accompanied by two recorders and gentle accordion. The famous St George’s acoustic made this an unexpected pleasure.
Karen Street
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was Issie’s own composition Kulning that closed the show with a touch of classiness in the writing that really used all the players’ skills to the maximum. This tone poem about the Swedish mountain valleys came complete with the traditional ‘kulning’ calling songs used by women farmers to summons their cows down for milking. Once again the sheer musicality of Brigitte Beraha’s vocal contribution was more than noteworthy, woven into the sonic landscapes, while Katie Patterson’s supple drumming managed to lift the piece without dominating. Fine impressionistic sweeps made creative use of the many musical textures within the band and, combined with the female folk culture that inspired it, provided a fitting coda to this International Women’s Day celebration.
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