Music / electronic music
The week in Jazz Aug 14-20
Good news/bad news time for Bristol jazz lovers – the great Andy Sheppard is making a welcome return visit to the city from his new life in Portugal and he’s including a gig this Wednesday with the lovely Pushy Doctors at The Fringe. The bad news? Of course the minuscule venue has sold out! Andy’s involvement with the Fringe has been a big factor in its success over the last few years and his continuing loyalty is admirable but now that we see so much less of him mightn’t FringeJazz do well to use a slightly bigger venue for these exclusive visits? Pretty please?
Hard bopping saxophonist Greg Sterland
More accessible modern jazz entertainment can be found at Salt Cafe with a ‘double bill’ of Epoch and the Greg Sterland Trio (Friday 18). Why the quotation marks? Well in the time-honoured jazz tradition this is a case of two frontmen and one rhythm section, with the tireless Italian duo of Pasquale Votino (bass) and Paolo Adamo (drums) working through both sets. Epoch is their ambient trio with guitarist Matt James, whose compositions mix classical and jazz influences while there’ll be more hard-bopping improvisation when they join tenor player Greg Sterland for a mix of standards and original numbers.
Jackson keyboard player, vocalist and main man Jack Baldus
Over at Canteen that night there’s upbeat contemporary soul-jazz and hip-hop fusion from New Zealand’s Sola Rosa, the funky project of producer Andrew Spraggon and earlier in the week you can catch Bristol’s similarly electro-funky Jackson as they launch their new Push Through EP at Gallimaufry (Tuesday 15). Centred on the keyboards and vocals of Soul Strutter’s Jack Baldus the band offers ambitious productions and exploratory structures while harking back to a classic soul-jazz era (including the use of the Talkbox, a quirky 70s precursor of the Vocoder).
is needed now More than ever
Finally, this week’s dose of improvised mayhem is at The Old England (Saturday 19) when ‘free improvised noise, jazz and experimentation duo EUH! headline a triple bill that also includes a free jazz duo of sax player Dave Jackson and drummer Wayne Rex and a solo set from the subtly mysterious historian of microprocessing known as dsic.
You can hear the new Jackson EP on their Soundcloud page
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