Music / Jazz
The week in jazz – November 7-13
So – skates on time: there were a few tickets left for The Bad Plus at Colston Hall (Monday 7) but they were fast heading towards ‘sold out’ like those for the same night’s Cinematic Orchestra performance in the main hall and Tuesday’s GoGo Penguin gig at St George’s. It’s good to see such high demand for top quality jazz and Bad Plus remain a major landmark in US jazz development for matching the 21st century surge in European piano trio evolution (EST etc) with a muscular and populist American style made riveting by their collective talents.
If you didn’t manage to get into either of those concerts there’s still a lot of great stuff on offer, including a legend of the British free jazz story. In the mid-60s saxophonist Trevor Watts, who appears at The Fringe (Wednesday 9) in a duo with pianist Stephen Grew, set up the self-explanatory Spontaneous Music Ensemble in London. The collective became a crucible for new forms of improvised music with players like Kenny Wheeler, Derek Bailey and Evan Parker joining Watts and drummer John Stevens over the next decade. Watts himself established Amalgam, a high energy band that included Keith Tippett on piano. Watts’ eloquent and fluid playing has continued in various ensembles and solo projects.
By contrast a couple of very promising young whippersnappers come by later in the week, namely guitarist Ben Lee (Future Inn, Thursday 10) and sax player Matt Anderson (pictured above, Bebop Club, Friday 11). Matt hooked up with local bass player Will Harris at the Royal Academy and this contemporary jazz quartet also includes pianist Ashley Henry and Jay Davis on drums. Birmingham-based Ben Lee has established a big reputation for both jaw-dropping technique and creative ideas as a player and bandleader, with influences ranging from folk to funk and beyond.
There’s the first in a weekly series of great jazz gigs at the Hen & Chicken coming up (Sunday 13) when exuberant drummer Andrew Bain rolls into town with the transatlantic Embodied Hope Quartet reflecting his own time spent in New York. Saxophonist Jon Irabagon (Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra, John Zorn and others) and pianist George Colligan (Jack DeJohnette – among many, many others!) represent the US side of things, while London-based US bassist Michael Janisch is a more familiar face over here. It’s Andrew’s first project based on his own compositions and enterprising promoter Ian Storror did very well to bring this short tour to Bristol.
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