London Jazz Festival
Tim Cumming
The penultimate concert in the eclectic and impressive K-Music Festival of contemporary Korean music on Monday at the Purcell Room featured some of the most exquisite and affecting performances of the season, with the traditional Gayageum stringed instrument paired with an effects-laden, ambient-cum-exploratory jazz quartet featuring one of the most distinctive and arresting drummers anywhere, making remarkable music from her kit (shimmering cymbal solos, anyone?). K-Music tends towards surprising as well as enthralling its audiences, and that was certainly the case here.In 2016, solo Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
The choice of what to go and hear in the London Jazz Festival can be bewildering: this first weekend of its 10-day run presented over 120 events. I managed to attend eight, of them at least in part, including some of the show that has predictably soaked up most of the media attention: the first of Jeff Goldblum’s two concerts on Saturday at a packed Cadogan Hall.Goldblum’s credentials as an A-List celebrity, as an entertainer, as a stage presence, as a charmer, as a quick-witted comic improviser are in no doubt. He can turn literally anything into part of a highly entertaining show and have Read more ...
peter.quinn
As moments of transcendence go, Laura Mvula’s guest spot at Robert Glasper’s EFG London Jazz Festival show provided one of the year’s most transporting musical moments.Powered by the huge harmonic slabs carved out by keyboardist Travis Sayles and the vast backbeat of bassist Derrick Hodge and drummer George “Spanky” McCurdy, Mvula’s delicately outerspacious “Bread” was recast as a 10-minute meditation. The mantra-like repetitions of the refrain "Lay the breadcrumb down so we can find our way", together with the uniquely affecting timbre of Mvula’s voice, succeeded in uniting and lifting up 2, Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
At 83, and with 60-odd years on the road, Wayne Shorter could be forgiven for, in a musical sense, getting the slippers and pipe out and knocking out comfortable versions of his hits, the classic tunes he wrote for Miles Davis among them, like “Footprints” and “Sanctuary”. But instead, he went full tilt into a largely improvised set consisting of only five numbers in 90 minutes, most of them recent, and then a new collaboration, given only its second outing at the Barbican. There were a few times you thought you had heard some of these these musical conceits before - but that is mainly Read more ...
Matthew Wright
There was an Italian flavour to the EFG London Jazz Festival programme at Kings Place on Thursday night. Enrico Rava is an eminent statesman of European jazz, who emerged in the 1960s as a disciple of Miles Davis. He was collaborating with young pianist Giovanni Guidi, also recorded on ECM, though best known for diaphanous soundscapes rather than free jazz at its most raw and bloody. They were joined by electronic music pioneer Matthew Herbert, who now has a distinguished presence across opera, theatre, film and books, as well as improvised electronica. Last night’s gig was the first Read more ...
peter.quinn
For fans of vocal jazz and fine lyric writing, this 75th birthday concert for the inimitable Norma Winstone offered a treasure trove of riches. From intimate chamber jazz to the gravitas of a full orchestra, the two sets seamlessly blended every aspect of Winstone’s artistry.As Nick Smart, the Royal Academy of Music’s Head of Jazz and our genial conductor for the evening, reminded us in his scene-setting introduction, we were celebrating not one but two anniversaries: it was in November 1966 that Winstone performed her first run at Ronnie Scott's as a band leader in her own right, opposite Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
She calls it “dirty samba”. Elza Soares, The Woman at the End of the World - to use the name from her last album - sat on a throne like a warrior from a fantasy sci-fi film at the back of the stage. Her regal, mythic aura has been earned in an epic life story and a series of albums that started in 1960.She has had hits in every decade - in that sense she is like Cliff Richard, an evergreen. Except while Richard is currently touting a tame retro rock 'n' roll album, Soares (pictured below) is still energetically pushing artistic boundaries at the age of 79. If Elza Soares was a little Read more ...
peter.quinn
There are singers who can dazzle with their technical mastery, those who welcome you into their musical world through a special communicative gift, and those who can traverse genres with absolutely no artifice. Rarest of all are those singers who combine all of the above with a timbral quality that can touch your very soul. Lizz Wright is one such singer.From the very opening song, an unaccompanied take on Hoagy Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You”, the stunning beauty and emotive power of Wright’s voice carried all before it, and immediately set up an electrifying charge between singer and Read more ...
Matthew Wright
This rambunctious German-Swiss trio is used to selling out much larger venues at home. Their overdue EFG London Jazz Festival debut, in an enthusiastic but not full Kings Place, introduced British audiences to an exhilarating take on the acoustic jazz trio. This is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a brilliantly, brutally eclectic ensemble that pushes the language of jazz to new limits of originality, and does so with irresistible energy, and a refreshing sense of fun.One of Wollny’s trademarks is his choice of inspiration, which extends far beyond the usual jazz canon, in both directions, from the Read more ...
peter.quinn
Following the seismic events across the pond earlier this week, an outcome which has left the rest of the world blinking in disbelief, Guy Barker’s brilliant arrangements for this year’s Jazz Voice offered much needed balm for the soul. Creativity, collective endeavour, community: humanity’s finest qualities were in evidence.Relocating to the Royal Festival Hall this year and hosted by Jay Rayner, this celebration of song announced the opening of the 2016 EFG London Jazz Festival and featured the customary jazz-related anniversaries, birthdays and milestones stretching back from 2016.Known Read more ...
Tim Cumming
How, exactly, are you supposed to review a Keith Jarrett concert – solo, completely improvised, just one man and his Steinway, audience on all sides, ushers walking up and down the aisles bearing signs forbidding any record of the evening's music?“Someone asked me, ‘How do you know what to play?’” he said to us between one of the half dozen improvisations of the first half of his first-ever concert for the EFG London Jazz Festival. Long pause. Good question. He looked down at his instrument. “This is a really good piano.” In the second half, he had more: “Here's how I do this.” Long pause. “ Read more ...
Thomas Rees
“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Cassandra Wilson to a half empty Royal Festival Hall, after a sulky rendition of “Don’t Explain”, the opening track from her Billie Holiday tribute album, Coming Forth By Day. It was an hour and fifteen minutes since the singer was due on stage and half an hour since the directors of concert promoter Serious had arrived in her stead – amidst boos and irate whistles – to tell us she was refusing to leave her hotel room. A good chunk of the 2,500-strong audience had gone for their trains, demanding refunds on the way out and venting their frustration on Twitter, and Read more ...