Music / Jazz
The week in jazz, July 16-22 2018
Well, the Friends Reunited website may have been wound up but the jazz scene will always bring former collaborators together and this week’s gig by the Nick Malcolm & Olie Brice Quartet at The Bristol Fringe (Wednesday 18) reunites two pairs of improvisatory chums from different generations.
Trumpeter Nick and bass player Olie (seen relaxing on a beach above) emerged on the local scene some 15 years ago in the ambitiously improvisational band Heyoke before going their separate ways. They re-met in Nick’s eponymous quartet, recording three impressive albums from 2012 onwards, but then again went off with other projects.
Now they join with Paul Dunmall and Tony Orrell – serial collaborators since the 70s heyday of Spirit Level – on sax and drums respectively. This all adds up to some ferociously good spontaneous musicality and another high point in the Fringe programme.
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Get The Blessing’s Pete Judge in ecclesiastical mode
There is some worthy competition on the night, however, as the mighty Get The Blessing turn up at The Exchange. Having last been seen alongside a symphony orchestra in the spacious and contemplative location of Clifton Cathedral the Exchange’s splendidly gloomy cavern will no doubt bring out the darker side of the band’s distinctive jazz rock.
Terry Seabrook (left) and Peter Fraize
The transatlantic pairing of Fraize & Seabrook (Future Inn, Thursday 19) formed in 2016, with Washington DC saxophonist Peter Fraize and UK Hammond player Terry Seabrook getting together to bring some classic hard-bopping organ jazz to the Love Supreme festival. The success of that outing led to them re-uniting for another UK tour with their ‘energetic soulful update of the classic Hammond organ group’.
Jazz and ‘dark folk’ singer Maaike Siegerest
Friday (20) sees a typically eclectic evening at Cafe Kino the main point of which is to launch an EP of new classical music by the cello/piano duo of Bettella & Stabler and featuring a support set from Dutch jazz ‘and dark folk’ singer-songwriter Maaike Siegerist whose highly musical vocals and melodic compositions lift her well above the usual.
Things also go well beyond the usual, unsurprisingly, down at The Brunswick Club (Saturday 21) when Edinburgh’s 50% PURE label showcases some of their very avant garde wares, including Brunswick resident collective CHAMP and AI music pioneer Joe Coghill aka 303Myth.RAR.
Los Kamer in their Kamervan
Anyone sorry to have missed out on the sold-out Quantic show (Trinity, Monday 16) might find Latin-laced consolations checking out Kola Roasta (Gallimaufry, Thursday 19), an emerging local collaboration of seasoned Afro-Latin musicians, or the samba exertions of Bloco Dos Sujos at No 1 Harbourside (Friday 20).
There’s also the quirky Mexico-meets-Balkan sound of Los Kamer at Canteen (Saturday 21) – a fusion nicely anticipated by the great Leningrad Cowboys in their day.
Trad veterans Severn Jazzmen still swinging
But Saturday is smack in the middle of this year’s Harbour Festival and while there’s no dedicated jazz stage as such this year some acts do pop up here and there, including vocal swing from Ruby Jazz Band, dazzling math-fusion trio Waldo’s Gift, jazz-funkers Manfredi Funk Initiative, jazz-rockers Groovelator and the Severn Jazzmen paying tribute to Bristol’s trad boom that launched them back in 1967.
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