Artsfest is this weekend with a barrage of arts activities across the City centre. A particulary interesting event is one taking place on Saturday at 6pm in Symphony Hall main stage.Composer and Pianist Steve Tromans will be performing a new work in collaboration with THSH poet-in-residence, Julie Boden. The title of this work is “The Piano Room” and is based on a fascinating idea of using the Symphony Hall’s piano store room as inspiration for a piece of music and poetry. The gig is free entry and sure to be a gem in the Artsfest programme. Below is Steve Tromans’ own description of The Piano Room :

The poetry and music flow together in a 40-minute long evocation of Symphony Hall’s piano store room, which is to the back of the stage, housing the concert grands and other assorted pianos.  I recorded four hours of solo piano compositions and improvisations there the night before I moved to live in Mongolia, and Julie also spent a night there writing poetry inspired by the room and its contents.  There’s something about the room at night that seems to inspire artists to create new work.  My musical contributions follow on from my Jewel in the Lotus “musical haiku” evocations of time, place and mood.

www.steve-tromans.co.uk

www.myspace.com/stevetromansmusic

www.thsh.co.uk/page/symphony-hall-birmingham/poetry/the-piano-room/

I found the discussion about the Kit Downes Trio a bit depressing and certainly very patronising.  I think their album Golden is an excellent example of what is happening in jazz today and definitely worthy of its nomination for the Mercurys.  But K T Tunstall in discussion with Lauren Laverne dismissed it because it is solely instrumental.  The implication is that music has to have words to be of interest.  What kind of theory is that?!

In another vaguely related area, I am, however, delighted that Shabaka Hutchings is to be the next BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.  Shabaka was brought up in Birmingham and was much influenced by Soweto Kinch.  He is now based in London, but does play in Birmingham quite often.  Shabaka is an excellent example of an artist who is equally at home in a straightahead jazz context and in a more contemporary adventurous setting.

Tony

Atomic: Theatres Tilters Vol 1 and 2: Jazzland

Atomic, the Scandinavian five-piece supergroup, play a short UK tour with saxist Ken Vandermark’s band from 16 September – and if the music is anything like this live double album, they will be must-see performances. Atomic take improv to the outer reaches, but then pull it back with infectious swing clamour, hints of Latin jazz or Ornette Coleman, or the Iberian shimmer of the Liberation Music Orchestra with the late Don Cherry’s trumpet bubbling through it. Driven by Paal Nilssen-Love, a powerful free-jazz drummer, the band move from trumpeter Magnus Broo’s 1970s Miles Davis fierceness, through Håvard Wiik’s cool postbop piano solos, or flat-out free-swing with saxist Fredrik Ljungkvist playing blurty clarinet. There are quirky minimal themes that sound like piano-tuning, blustery free-Latin melodies, and squeaky improv that turns into circus band stomping and frantic thrashing on the finale’s Two Boxes. It’s exhaustingly exhilarating, or exhilaratingly exhausting.
Tony

Atomic ( Ken Vandermark plus Atomic, Saturday 18th September , CBSO Centre, 8pm )

As August draws to a close, it is time to be thinking about Birmingham Jazz’s autumn season.   The Brindley Place sessions on the 4 Fridays in August passed off well despite the wet  weather, and it was good that we had an uninterrupted session with Mike Hatton’s MJHQ last Friday.  Excellent band with a strong new lineup that really gelled on this their first gig.

We open the autumn season with a strong Rush Hour Blues session on Friday 10^th September as part of ArtsFest.  The session will be in the Main Hall rather than the usual foyer and will feature an excellent double bill with Ben Markland’s Quintet and the Percy Pursglove/Andrew Bain Organ Quartet. BBC Radio 3’s Jazz Lineup programme will be recording the session for later broadcast.   The session runs from 5.30 and on this occasion will go on to 7.30pm.  Entry is, as ever, free of charge.

Our first CBSO Centre gig is very special with a double bill featuring the Vandermark 5 and the Scandinavian group Atomic.  Ken Vandermark is, to my mind, one of the finest players in contemporary jazz and one who is constantly thinking about the music and coming up with new ways to express himself.  He has made Chicago his base resisting the temptation to move to New York, and has been a key figure in the development of a distinctive identity for contemporary jazz in that city.  Birmingham Jazz has played a major role in bringing Ken’s music to British audiences touring the first Vandermark 5,  the Free Fall Quartet and setting up an original group with Mark Sanders and Barry Guy.  This group did a 6 date UK date and recorded  the excellent Fire Fox album.  Ken has often been associated with a Fee Jazz approach, but in the Vandermark 5 the emphasis is much more on composition and on a more structured approach to the group’s music.  Still plenty of improvisation of course.

The other band on the double bill, Atomic, are one of the great Scandinavian bands with both Norwegian and Swedish members.  The front line is from Sweden: trumpeter Magnus Bro and saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist and the rhythm section from Norway: pianist Havard Wiik, Ingrebrigt Haker Flaten on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums.  The two groups have often worked together so expect some cross group collaboration.

Lots of great other gigs coming:  drummer Tony Levin marks his 70^th Birthday with a Birmingham Jazz run tour with a Birmingham date at mac on 9^th October.  Flat Earth Society prove that the Belgian jazz scene is very far from boring with a great show featuring music to accompany the silent film, The Oyster (mac on 2^nd October). And in late November look out for the Christian Scott Quintet at the Hare & Hounds Pub, led by a great young trumpet player who is about to become very big in jazz.

More details in a return of our regular blogs.   

Hear a clip of the prom on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/about/clips.shtml?prom55_jcgone

Wow. Now that’s how you put on a show. The hardest working man in show business (Mr James Brown esq) may be dead and buried but, ladies and gentleman, I think we have some contenders for the hardest working MEN in show business. Despite sounding like the sort of ‘services’ offered on those postcards you get on phone booths in London, Soil and Pimp Sessions are actually an ultra cool Japanese ‘Death Jazz’ outfit. Yep, ‘Death Jazz’. I know, a genre for every occasion these days right? Just as you’re scattering some dirt on your loved ones up pops this lot with a brain scrambling rendition of ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag’…

You can read the whole review here.

The gig we put on last night (28th July) in The Rainbow Cellar with Dan Nicholls’ Mirror with James Allsopp and  Dave Smith was equally enjoyable.  The contrast between these two events is marked: Soil & Pimp was a great event which was enjoyed in a very active way by a large and enthusiastic crowd while Mirror was very much a listening gig enjoyed by a smaller but positive crowd really into listening to the intracacies of the music.

I think the contrast shows the range of Birmingham Jazz’s activities.

Tony   

For the Mirror trio, Dan has brought together two of my absolute favourite UK players in James Allsopp and Dave Smith.  I am not exactly sure what the music will sound like. But I am sure it will be amazing!  Dan himself says:

Mirror is a new ensemble interpreting and reworking the compositions of keyboardist Dan Nicholls. Featuring the distinctive voices of James Allsopp (reeds) and Dave Smith (drums), the music aims for a fluidity between written and unwritten and explores the unexplicable connections between sound and image.

Tony

Willem Breuker came to Birmingham on three occasions with the Kollektief he led, playing the Adrian Boult Hall on two occasions, and mac once as part of a weekend dedicated to Dutch contemporary jazz.  I loved the music of the Kollektief both for itself but also for the humour of it all.  Breuker was a delightful man with whom I managed to maintain a friendship, even though he didn’t tour UK after the various tours in the 1990s.  I would see him on visits to the Bimhuis club in Amsterdam and never tired of the humour of the band.

Tony

Tony 

Soil & Pimp Sessions (Wednesday 21st Hare & Hounds, High St, Kings Heath, doors at 8pm) is a Japanese band which developed a kind of crazy bebop style in Japanese clubs and now tours the world.  It’s a band that will appeal to a clubbing audience without losing the older jazz fan who will recognise its bop style.  They generate a great atmosphere with the audience whipped up by the ‘agitator’ who acts as compere with a megaphone.  This will attract a big crowd and it will therefore be a largely standing audience.

At Rush Hour Blues this week (Friday at 5.30 at Symphony Hall foyer) is Tom Hill’s Outsville, a quartet that features two fine players we areley hear in Birmingham: Ian Ellis on saxophone and Jonathan Taylor on piano. I have always thought that Ian is one of the finest saxophonists in UK, but he has never received the coverage he deserves.

Coming up next week is Mirror, a new trio led by pianist Dan Nicholls featuring James Allsopp on saxophones and Dave Smith on drums.  This is at the regular Jazz Club session at The Rainbow Pub on Digbeth.  This is on Wednesday 28th July at 9pm.

Tony