Music / bristol international jazz and blues festival
Review: Trio HLK with Evelyn Glennie/Clare Teal Big Mini Big Band/Sefrial, Bristol International Jazz and Blues Festival
After a lively night at the after-hours jam session it was a bit of a dash to get in for Trio HLK’s 1pm set in the Colston Hall. It was the kind of music that deserved a more composed preparation, intense and intricate weaving of musical threads often operating in separate timeframes yet always holding together somehow. The tunes may be derived from standards but only rarely afford a glimpse of originals like Blue and Green, rendering them in abstractions. Opener The Way You Look Tonight had a driving bass line from Ant Law’s 8-string guitar that passed seamlessy to Richard Harrold’s left-hand synth as Ant slipped away on a fluent tide of musical ideas, crosscut by cut up beats from drummer Richard Kass.
HLK’s Ant Law and Dame Evelyn Glennie raising the bar
The trio were squeezed onto half the stage to make space for guest Evelyn Glennie’s spread of marimbas, timpani, vibes and other percussion. If collaborating with such unusual and complex music was a challenge it didn’t show and her adroit use of tone and melody on closing epic The Jig was a marvel of unity (albeit cut up and crosscut in the band’s style). As a start to the day it raised the bar enormously and while there was much entertainment to be had nothing else came close.
is needed now More than ever
Sax soloist James Gardner-Bateman catches’s Clare Teal’s eye
Clare Teal, of course, is a consummate entertainer who wins audiences over before she’s even picked up the microphone. That she’s an impeccable singer also goes without saying, and she glided across a choice of material that ranged from Dylan’s I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight to Latin classic Perfidia via Van Morrison, Duke Ellington and Cole Porter, finding for each the perfect blend of lyrical clarity and stylistic reference. Her Big Mini Big Band was a fine thing, with pianist Jason Rebello contributing harmony vocals and a fine brass chorale arrangement of I Wish You Love, while ‘local boy done good’ James Gardner Bateman was an eminent soloist notably on the Duke’s Ain’t Got Nothing But The Blues.
Sophie Stockham’s Sefrial – a Foyer highlight
Out in the Foyer saxophonist Sophie Stockham’s quintet Sefrial were a highlight of the day’s free programme. The band’s original music and approach has evolved over the last three years to a sophisticated blend of contemporary jazz, Americana and art-rock, with Joe Wilkins guitar shimmering and sliding around the close-tied sax duo of Sophie and Jake McMurchie. The Sefrial sound has become spacious and relaxed and a recognisable voice for their musical ideas.
The Cult Fiction Big BIg Big Band in action
But if Clare Teal’s was a Big Mini Big Band the evening’s main gig – Cult Fiction – was a Big Big Big Band, with sizeable string and brass sections and a complex rhythm gang including three percussionists. The concept was to make real time versions of vintage TV theme music, clearly tapping the nostalgia buttons for an audience that didn’t need to be told the original sources. I must confess to not really knowing much of the material – it felt like a pub quiz I would lose badly – but the complexity of arrangements was often dazzling and the rich use of sound big and small was highly creative. It wasn’t really jazz as such, though jazz influences were strong in many tunes, but no doubt the original recordings kept many great jazz musicians’ rent paid back in the day.
Rounding the night off at the jam session in Bambalan proved a good reason not to have rushed home in the gathering snowfall, however, as the mighty Pee Wee Ellis took the stage, to be joined by Kasabian’s Ian Matthews on drums, with a tight brass section comprising Nick Malcolm’s trumpet and the saxes of James Morton and Craig Crofton. Their brief but riveting set included a powerhouse rendition of Pee Wee’s Chicken, with an ebullient keyboard solo from George Cooper definitely rocking the house. A fine taster for Pee Wee’s gig tomorrow, it was agreed.
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