Music / Jazz
Review: Dark Days, The Lantern
It’s nearly 60 years since James Baldwin penned the first of three essays included in Dark Days. The slim book gives a taste of the writers acute perceptions and wise council about race and racism in the US and beyond. What’s shocking is how fresh and relevant they remain in what would have been his hundredth year – the anniversary that inspired free jazz bass player Neil Charles to put this show together.
Neil Charles’ Dark Days (pic – Tony Benjamin)
The formula is pretty straightforward: from those essays Neil selected a half-dozen core quotes to which he matched musical themes, often catching the rhythmic patterns of Baldwin’s speaking style. He gave these pieces to three fellow improvising performers and they collectively worked them up into the full-length suite we saw at The Lantern. As with all improvised music this meant there were ups and downs, but given the quality of the players – Pat Thomas on piano, Mark Sanders drumming and Cleveland Watkiss providing vocals and loops – things pretty much motored along with fire and energy and moments of real individual brilliance.
Pat Thomas, Cleveland Watkiss and Neil Charles – Dark Days (pic – Tony Benjamin)
On stage they were four very different presences: despite being the bandleader Neil Charles was mostly hidden behind the peak of his baseball cap, working furiously at the strings of his instrument. At the piano Pat Thomas had a sort of stoicism, sitting patiently with hands folded until playing, then crouched over the keys with hammering fingers dancing from end to end. Cleveland stood back in the shadows waiting for the moments when he would spring forward, increasingly energetic as the piece unfolded. And, as a drummer, Mark Sanders’ quiet theatricality made him eye-catching throughout, either to see how he manipulated cymbals, gongs and woodblocks to make sound or to catch his polyrhythmic frenzy all delivered with the calmest of facial expressions.
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Cleveland Watkiss – Dark Days (pic – Tony Benjamin)
The music surged, usually devolving from the theme into an emotional tumult led by the piano before passages of more restrained duets such as a bluesy interlude of bass and piano. Phrases like ‘Sing or shout – testify!’ or ‘You can’t betray a country you don’t have!’ were harangued through repetition and loops – at one point a solo Cleveland was left to steadily layer those loops over and over, evolving a rhythmic pulse and shifting texture behind his falsetto singing.
Mark Sanders – Dark Days (pic – Tony Benjamin)
Towards the end a 5-time groove emerged with a palpable sense of swing that had Pat Thomas bouncing cheerfully on his piano stool. Cleveland then introduced dub style patois that the drummer picked out with pinging rimshots. Possibly that was to relocate James Baldwin’s message from the US to the UK, or maybe it was just a bit of fun – who knows, but it certainly provided the latter.
Whether this was the best way to appreciate the brilliance of the writer is arguable – Dark Days is a tiny sliver of his work, and this was a sliver of Dark Days – but as an emotional expression that hopefully provides an introduction to further reading in this centenary year it could be inspirational.
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