Review: Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman at LJF2011
Photo Credit: Edu Hawkins

Ornette Coleman
(Royal Festival Hall, Nov 20th. Closing night of LJF2011. Review by Jon Turney)

Listen hard enough, and you can still almost feel the vibe from Ornette Coleman’s triumphant performance to close the Meltdown festival he curated on the South Bank in 2009. So would his reappearance on the last day of the LJF live up to that night of standing ovations and cries of “we love you, Ornette?” Hell, yes.

This was a reversion to the great man’s usual show, if you like. No Charlie Haden duet. No Flea from the Chili Peppers adding bass to Turnaround (in fact, unusually, no Turnaround). No wailing interlude from Master Musicians of Jajouka. The absence of guests gave a clearer view of the remarkable understanding between Coleman and his two long-standing bass players – Tony Falanga, thunderously emphatic on acoustic bass, and Al MacDowell, whose fast-fingered electric bass sounds more like guitar. It is perhaps a little like having Ornette’s contrasting bassists of old, Charlie Haden and Scott LaFaro, at the same time. Falanga is Haden, typically keeping solid time and underpinning the leader’s shifting line, MacDowell is LaFaro, skipping around in lightning fast commentary-cum-anticipation alongside the man with the plastic alto sax.

The three together make a tight-knit trio, supported by Denardo Coleman behind the drums. Denardo, a drummer it is easy to hear too much of, exhibited an unusually light touch for much of the evening, using his cymbals and brushes to good effect. Some of the bluesy ballads still had backbeats, but they were fine too.

The quartet’s single set lasted over an hour and a half, with rarely a dull moment. Most numbers were short, but the Coleman song book is long. We had plenty from the very beginning of his recording career – sometimes pretty much as they were then, sometimes reworked a little. Round Trip, from a little later, was a welcome favourite, and Latin Genetics as jaunty as ever. Coleman stuck mainly to alto, the trumpet and violin excursions being a bit perfunctory these days. His intonation is occasionally more wayward, too– hardly a problem in this music – and he makes a few more squeaks, but the keening, swooping tone is largely intact. In mid-set, he eased off a little, allowing MacDowell to state themes and confining himself to a few flurries and trademark licks as the bass players explore the tune. But by the end he was back in the driving seat, signalling the switches of direction each number took. These are not as unexpected, or as inventive, as fifty years ago. But to me the effect was still as fresh, as invigorating as ever.

At 81, the man’s urge to play seems inexhaustible. And at set’s end, the clamour for an encore eventually brought him back for the customary reminder that he is one of jazz’s peerless melodists. Lonely Woman, played against softly plucked acoustic bass, became a farewell benediction.

londonjazzfestival.org.uk

Review: Keith Jarrett Standards Trio

Keith Jarrett / Gary Peacock / Jack DeJohnette

(Royal Festival Hall, 27th July 2011) 

Those untameable, disconsolate beasts, social media commentators, have been giving Keith Jarrett a hard time. Or do I mean "We...."?

Rather than paying attention to the music, there is one who posts as @angryjarrett on Twitter (strapline "Are you taping this? ARE YOU FREAKIN' TAPING THIS?"). Another goes by the moniker of @fakejarrett . And those with an appetite for controversy, or a perverse need to see the artist humbled, can be sated by tracking down a Youtube clip (160,000 views) of Jarrett losing his patience with people with cameras at UmbriaJazz in 2007.

If I have to be true to the stereotype of the blogger and complain at all about last night, then all I that can find would be that Jack DeJohnette was occasionally overbalancing. This was an approach which worked well in Ornette Coleman's "When will the Blues leave?" with rims and casings producing unusual and anarchic textures, but less so at other times.

But, in the final analysis, are the seekers-out of controversy and small gripes really representative, well, of anybody? On the evidence of last night's packed Royal Festival Hall concert by the Keith Jarrett Standards Trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, it is clear that the population of devotees, accumulated over decades, is larger, by far, than that of the malcontents.

 Listen to the recent duo album Jasmine, with Charlie Haden, and the impression is of a musician getting progressively calmer, mellower. Jarrett got a reputation for petulance in a brief period about 3-4 years ago when other aspects of his life were in turmoil. Yes,  Jack DeJohnette did plead with the audience, at Jarrett's request, to put their phone-cameras away. There were warnings in the hall about taping and photographing which did come across as draconian, heavy-handed. But in the end, these are distractions, a sideshow. It is the music which has to speak for itself. And it did, consistently.

One didn't have to look very far to see the way in which the audience takes Jarrett to its heart. I noticed a man in a seat near me reaching out to find his wife's hand in the particularly melting introduction to Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays." I also read the spontaneous reaction of pianist Andrew McCormack on Facebook last night: "The intro to 'In Your Own Sweet Way' was worth the admission price alone!"

But most telling was the audience's reaction to the end of the official second set. There was whooping, cheering. A significant proportion of the spectators was up on its feet. And they were duly rewarded. The first encore, "God bless the child" was by my watch not far short of fifteen minutes long, and was followed by three others.

Reputation is a lagging indicator. Jarrett is back on form.

Produced by Serious for the South Bank Centre

Review: Al Jarreau

Al Jarreau. Photo credit: Roger Thomas

Al Jarreau
(Royal Festival Hall. 3rd July 2011. Part of Bluesfest London. Review by Jeanie Barton)
Look to the Rainbow has been one of my favourite albums for a decade or more, so preparing to see Al Jarreau live on the last night of Bluesfest London was exciting, to say the least. Just prior to my departure a friend had told me to lower my expectations, which not only wasn't possible, it didn't turn out to be necessary either.

The Royal Festival Hall has a majesty only comparable to Star Wars Senate and there was certainly an other-worldliness to the reception of our host and hero. Al is modest and magical; the huge hall was fast transformed into a vast room full of his closest friends as he cracked straight into the groove with his ultra-talented multi-instrumental ensemble.

We didn’t have to wait long to hear the title track from Look to the Rainbow; Finian's Rainbow’s wistful hit was sensitively snuck in second but the sentimentality was quickly kicked to one side with You Don’t See Me during which Al opened wide his beatbox.

As a singer, Jarreau physically and audibly emulates congas, bass, guitars and more, weaving a thick mesh of melody and harmony into his signature sound, which was passed between the ensemble lead by Joe Turano (saxophones, keyboards and backing vocals) with John Calderon (guitars and backing vocals) Mark Simmons (drums) Larry Williams (piano, keys and flute) and Chris Walker (bass, backing and lead vocals). It was hard to tell where the voices began or ended.

The greatest hits tour worked together some old favourites and million seller milestones such as Moonlighting, alongside new works. We were treated to a collaboration with special guest Earl Klugh on guitar, performing a new number with lyrics by Al called This Time.

Al Jarreau exudes an infectious hopefulness and happiness, his smile beaming while he cradles his microphone almost cuddling it - his love for music is tangible. He had us in stitches too repeatedly making a joke of his advancing years and his need to pee quite regularly.

After an intermission (to pee, he informed us again) the second half opened with a typically experimental version of Elton John’s Your Song. The Beatles' She's Leaving Home was also given the Jarreau treatment – his unique chromatic harmonisations and percussive punctuation funked and revved up moments, while his soaring, almost operatic range elongated and sensitised other sections of the songs.

As a lyricist himself, he manifestly has a keen appreciation of a song’s story, and at no time were his vocal elaborations at the expense of the words. Another collaboration was with bassist and vocalist Chris Walker who reluctantly stepped to the front to sing. Al is rightly championing him as a phenomenal vocalist – the moment he opened his mouth to sing his own song How Do You Heal a Broken Heart (I’ll pretend to let you go) he somehow made me weep and I was not alone! He stayed to duet with Al and they sang a thrilling scat dual. A free section of vocal improvisation accompanied sensitively by Larry Williams on piano morphed into a re-harmonised verse of The Shadow of Your Smile which again flowed seamlessly into Take 5 – an anticipated crowd pleaser and percussion fest.

The audience were on their feet before Al said goodnight – he had clearly prepared an encore and gloriously it was Chick Corea’s Spain, the perfect combination of sentimental ballad and rhythmic indulgence. The atmosphere was ecstatic. Perhaps befitting Al’s visit to Wimbledon, where he was interviewed the previous day, there was a record-breaking rally of energy between the performers and the audience which no one wanted to end.
www.bluesfestlondon.com / www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Review: Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright III
(Royal Festival Hall, Friday 20 May, Reviw by Chris Parker)

Although the genre might be generally regarded as being defined by the willingness of its practitioners to mine their own lives for material for their songs, singer-songwriting contains few figures as consistently self-revealing and frank as Loudon Wainwright III.

His first recorded line, from 'School Days'on his eponymous debut Atlantic album in 1971, was, after all: 'In Delaware when I was younger …', and on over two dozen subsequent albums he has charted his emotional life through fatherhood, divorce and fraught relations with his children by the late Kate McGarrigle (Rufus and Martha); equally fraught and complex relations with his own father; the death of his mother (memorialised in one of his finest albums, 2001's Last Man on Earth); and general reflections on Life, the Universe and Everything with special reference to Loudon Wainwright III.

His concerts, however, are usually humorous (often wry, but frequently downright hilarious) affairs, during which, exercising a barbed wit and a facility with words that frequently call Tom Lehrer to mind, he combines such soul-baring with an ironic detachment (manifest in his celebrated squirming stance and tongue-poking facial contortions) that enables him to put just enough distance between himself and songs such as 'Mr Guilty' (about the emotional wreckage he left behind him after his marriage broke up), 'Five Years Old' or 'Your Mother and I' (addressed to his children after same) to render them bearable in a concert setting. On this occasion, however, there were hints that this ironic detachment, which has been showing distinct signs of wear since the aforementioned Last Man on Earth album, is less robust these days.

Wainwright was preceded on stage by his daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche, and by her mother Suzzy Roche, who set the tone of the evening with their clear-voiced sincerity and self-deprecating humour, so when his set started with 'Grown Man', about the problems attendant upon entering a relationship with a fortysomething male, and continued with a song pointing out that he was now older (64) than his father when the latter died, it became clear that the arch flipness of yore had been toned down somewhat, especially when, after a brief humorous interlude ('Heaven', detailing all the delights paradise has in store, among them beer for breakfast and unlimited and guilt-fste sex), he sang two deeply personal songs about his grandfather and father respectively.

The rest of his ninety-minute set was in much the same vein: an amusingly sympathetic song about Prince Charles ('POW') was followed by a list of (prescription) drugs he was currently taking ('My Meds',
ruefully followed by the comment: 'Never let it be said I don't know my own demographic'), a number of self-critical songs about past excesses, the odd reflection on the state of the planet ('The World is a Terrible Place') and – admittedly in response to one of the many audience requests that marked each pause in his performance – 'Suicide Song' ('When you get the blues and you want to shoot yourself in the head, that's all right … go ahead').

Even the odd non-original song was firmly in this emotional mode (the Bryants' classic 'Love Hurts', Marty Robbins's 'At the End of a Long Lonely Day'), so by the time Wainwright reached his third encore, it was no surprise to find that he chose a somewhat downbeat song, 'When I'm at Your House', rather than, say, 'The Swimming Song', 'Dead Skunk' or even a touching feelgood article such as 'Say that You Love Me'.

In many ways, this concert was thus as notable for what it omitted as for what it actually contained: Wainwright is (like the aforementioned Tom Lehrer) a master of the telling snapshot song, epitomised by much of the material on his turn-of-the millennium album Social Studies, acerbic comments on current events ('Tonya's Twirls' about skulduggery in the ice-skating world, 'New Street People', comparing expelled smokers with vagrants, 'Y2K' about the millennium 'bug' etc.) and tour d'horizon songs about the state of the world ('Carmine Street').

Such songs generally pepper his live performances, adding spice to his selection of more reflective personal songs; their absence perhaps signalled a new Loudon Wainwright, one characterised more by the sincere inward probing of the likes of 'You Can't Fail Me Now' or the reflections on mortality of 'Doin' the Math' (both from 2007's Strange Weirdos) than by charming flippancy.