Jazz on a Winter's Weekend 2013 - Reviews

JAZZ ON A WINTER’S WEEKEND

Royal Clifton Hotel, Southport, February 1-3

We live in an age of episodic jazz! This was my overriding impression of the Southport Jazz Weekend. Time and again I encountered lengthy, tightly structured compositions with clearly defined sections (movements?), some of them contrastingly free in style. In the case of the remarkable young Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset and his Quartet, I was equally impressed by the dynamism and energy of the performance and the way in which he managed to absorb a tremendous range of influences to create his own distinctive style.

On the opener, Birds, Neset began with fractured phrases over a Bachian piano figure (the outstanding Ivo Neame) before launching into a free improvisation on tenor. Elsewhere (I’m not sure of the title – the idea of separate numbers sometimes seemed irrelevant) a rhapsodic piano interlude served as a calming influence, a slow movement after a wild and intense soprano episode. When Neset played an orthodox ballad, Sane, a fine controlled performance, what seemed to be a coda became (via Neset’s range of technological wizardry) an extended chorale by a harmonious choir of saxes!

Without matching Neset’s prodigious energy and invention, trumpeter Laura Jurd’s opening concert of the weekend had something of the same use of contrasting episodes, hard bop alongside solemn chorale – and also another welcome feature of many groups at Southport, a sense of humour! I enjoyed the distinctive identity of Laura’s quartet, the individuality and willingness to experiment whilst remaining accessible. Something of a disappointment to me (possibly unfairly, as maybe I’d built expectation too high), the Walter Smith III Quartet tended to operate individually, a quartet of soloists, without either the unity or the contrasts between the episodes to compel attention. On the positive side Smith proved himself a beautifully melodic tenor saxist and there were fine contributions from Mike Janisch (bass), Matthew Stevens (guitar) and Jamire Williams (drums).

The Southport Jazz Weekend consists of 11 main concerts in two concert rooms at the Royal Clifton Hotel over a time-span from Friday afternoon to late on Sunday, plus workshops and art/photographic exhibitions in the hotel’s smaller rooms and near-constant solo and duo jazz in the bars . This year there was astonishing unanimity among the audience: Marius Neset was sensational; so, too, in a totally different style of tenor saxophone, was Eric Alexander. Playing with the Jim Rotondi Organ 4Tet, he brought total authority to bear on everything he did, soloing with effortless attack and endless invention. With Rotondi crisp, poised and precise on trumpet and flugel horn, this was a constantly enjoyable set. Even when momentum was temporarily lost with a rather indulgent All the Way, Alexander brought everything together again with a superb reading of Michael Jackson’s She’s Out of My Life, a glorious performance which convinced me that it’s a great ballad – maybe it is, but I’d never noticed before! Incidentally, Jim Rotondi did something similar for Barry Manilow in his ballad feature! On the Hammond B3 Renato Chicco stabbed and smeared as required and brought a nice line in musical humour to the final number, Love Walked In. Like Rotondi Dado Moroni made a great impression last year with Greg Abate’s group, but, despite his proving again to be a spectacular pianist, capable of seemingly effortless swing, and despite top-quality playing from Andrew Cleyndert, Mark Taylor and Mark Nightingale, his quartet session didn’t quite take off – difficult to say why.

The Southport Winter Jazz Weekend always features a few events especially programmed for the festival. The Steve Waterman Invitation Big Band concert on the first evening was particularly interesting, a development of the small group arrangements on Steve’s album, Buddy Bolden Blew It, of tunes composed by or for great trumpeters. As someone who derived modest enjoyment from the album, I found the big band version much more satisfying, especially Steve’s tribute to Buddy Bolden, Red Vest Man, with Mark Nightingale intoning a magnificently solemn march. In general it was a sparky big band playing Steve’s clever arrangements of everyone from Roy Eldridge to Kenny Wheeler. As well as Steve himself, Anthony Kerr and Chris Allard excelled as soloists, but perhaps the biggest impact was made by three forthright Northern saxophonists: Munch Manship, Al Wood and Mike Hall.

The other big band event carried on the festival’s accidental sub-theme of humour in jazz. It’s not unusual for a guest composer/arranger/soloist to get splendid attack and section work from a youth/student big band. What was remarkable about trombonist Mark Bassey’s concert with the RNCM Big Band was the degree of involvement with the students as individual musicians. As a ‘special guest’, Mark was unusually generous: not only did musicians such as Iain Mundy (trumpet), Joshua Poole (tenor sax) and Liam Waddle (piano) get a chance to excel as soloists, but all the band members were involved in the musical fun of Mark’s Underwater Adventure, from the trombone section’s intrepid call and response on Wade in the Water to imitations of pink jellyfish to the exhilarating musician-by-musician and section-by-section finale.

Two singers in the late night slot both made good impressions for different reasons. Trudy Kerr, with her excellent trio, decided the answer to the perpetual problem of an audience nearly jazzed-out at the end of the day was to hit them hard with an in-your-face This Could Be the Start of Something Big. Later highlights included a hell-for-leather Rhythm of Life and duetting with Anita Wardell on In a Mellotone.

On the first night Zara McFarlane deservedly took the plaudits simply for performing. Her originals and her interpretations of standards had an appealing freshness, but her determination and commitment to appear after a serious car accident on the way to the gig said even more about her prospects for success in the future.

And then we’re left with the last evening. There always seems to be a special Alan Barnes programme at Southport and the Music of Johnny Mandel produced some of Alan’s best writing for a seven-piece band accompanying Anita Wardell who sang the lyrics of Dave Frishberg and the Bergmans immaculately and sensitively. The four-man reeds only front line (Alan, plus Robert Fowler, Andy Panayi and Paul Booth) doubled, trebled and quadrupled with consummate skill, moving from three tenors and baritone for an instrumental swinger to two flutes and maybe clarinet and bass clarinet for the gentle textures of songs such as The Shadow of Your Smile.  This was followed by Iain Dixon and Mike Walker taking us through to Monday with classy treatments of challenging originals, a finely integrated quintet sound and Iain’s droll introductions – another contributor to the Saxophonist’s Guide to Lancashire Humour!

RON SIMPSON

All photos by Robert Burns

9th JAZZ ON A WINTER’S WEEKEND – Royal Clifton Hotel, Southport – 1-3 February 2013

Review by Peter Vacher

Nine years in, Southport Melodic Jazz Club’s winter festival shows no sign of faltering or ennui. A must-see event for discerning jazz fans, it offers distinctive concert presentations in a relaxed hotel setting, the whole programme managed seamlessly by Geoff Mathews and his team. More to the point, they find bands and commission performances that buck the play-safe trend of so much festival programming.

New talent Laura Jurd’s quartet opened on Friday, her bright trumpet sound, clipped, fragmentary style and rhythmic derring-do pleasing everyone on a series of intriguing originals. Pianist Elliot Galvin is no slouch either. A good start. Meatier fare followed with Steve Waterman’s Invitation Big Band playing his compositions celebrating the great names of trumpet jazz. Originally conceived for his quintet – Anthony Kerr, vibes, Chis Allard, guitar, Alec Dankworth, bass, Dave Barry, drums – these luminaries supplemented by excellent Manchester musicians, his expanded treatments worked well, allowing Waterman and Kerr to produce mini-wonders of solo extemporisation, Allard closely behind. Highlight? Veteran tenorman Munch Manship and Mike Hall jousting memorably on Clark Terry’s ‘Haig and Haig’.

Saturday dawned early for Norwegian wunderkind Marius Neset with Phronesis for rhythm. He wasn’t sure what to expect and nor were the audience. In the end, both were satisfied: tenorist Neset in a set that combined frenzied angularity with deceptive lyricism, the challenging drumming of Anton Eger at its core, the festival-goers clearly relishing this vigorous, energising music. Italian pianist Dado Moroni’s follow-up was tamer, his trio backing trombonist Mark Nightingale engagingly enough ahead of a storming concert, an absolute zinger, by trumpeter Jim Rotondi’s Organ 4- Tet, his bright strengths supported by the iron-clad certainties of Eric Alexander’s tenor work. Here was power, energy, creativity, almost the best of it on Alexander’s ballad version of Michael Jackson’s ‘She’s Out Of My Life’. Trudy Kerr’s persuasive vocals saw out the midnight hour, intimate yet pleasingly idiosyncratic.

Sunday dawned bright with trombonist Mark Bassey fronting the RNCM students’ big band in a series of quirky originals, his out-front banter a cheery bonus. The much-vaunted Walter Smith III Quartet sidled in, this young US tenorist’s set pronounced by one seasoned onlooker as ‘vapid’ and so it was. Smith tried to end it 30 minutes early but pushed back on for an encore, his dander up, he played with surprising animation on a blues. If only….in contrast, Alan Barnes came good yet again in a concert shared with vocalist Anita Wardell that celebrated the music of Johnny Mandel. Arranged by Barnes for a superb four-man sax section (Barnes, Fowler, Panayi, Booth) plus rhythm, (pianist Robin Aspland, Andrew Cleyndert, bass, and drummer Steve Brown), here was music of near-peerless quality. Top spot of the festival for many although for some of us the Iain Dixon-Mike Walker 5 ran it close, these two making music late on that just oozed class.

Peter Vacher / 17.2.2013

Click here for more photos from the weekend by Alan Ainsworth.