Music / Jazz
The week in jazz – April 4-10
The big jazz business this week is all at the Colston Hall, but if you’re keen to hear the fulsome vocal tones of the great Gregory Porter (Wednesday 6) you’d better have booked already because it sold out a while ago. It’s not too late, however, to catch a ticket for the Hall’s organfest featuring The Necks & James McVinnie (Sunday 10), a compelling combination of modern classical and improvised music and starring the mighty sounds of the Colston’s all-too-rarely heard Harrison and Harrison pipe organ. Australian improvising organ trio The Necks (pictured above) have some 30 years of playing together behind them with each performance freshly conceived live on stage. Their unique music can reference modern minimalist composers as well as jazz and even dance music at times so will complement McVinnie’s choice of pieces by Philip Glass and Tom ‘Squarepusher’ Jenkinson.
A keyboard trio with a lot fewer jazz miles launches their debut CD at The Fringe on Wednesday (6) as a home gig on their Arts Council supported tour. The Bristol-based Andy Nowak Trio features bassist Spencer Brown and Andy Tween on drums playing pianist Andy’s hook-laden contemporary compositions from the Sorrow and the Phoenix album. The same evening at Canteen Latin-leaning jazz guitarist Giles Barratt brings his trio for a set of modern and Brazilian numbers. Meanwhile filmic composer Andy Christie’s piano trio has gained Sarah Moody’s cello to become Monty’s Alibi and they will showcase a new set of ambient and textured jazz pieces at the Colston Hall foyer (Friday 8, 6.15pm).
Despite his choice of band name, Cheltenham sax player Dom Franks’ StrayHorn (Future Inn, Thursday 7) is not a tribute to Duke Ellington’s longtime collaborator but rather plays Dom’s hard bopping original material. The quartet includes local heroes Will Harris (bass) and Matt Jones (drums) and the distinctive piano of Alex Steele. Bebop Club mainman Andy Hague’s trumpet playing will feature in the Tom Ollendorff Quartet (Bebop Club, Friday 8) when he joins a trio of rising star graduates from the Royal Welsh Academy. Guitarist Tom Ollendorf has already begun making waves on the London scene with a deft, freewheeling style inspired by the likes of US innovator Jonathan Kreisberg.
Friday night also sees the return of the occasional funk, jazz and Latin collective Los Mercenarios to the Old Market Assembly, while jump jive and swing outfit Hot Tin Roofs liven up Saturday night (9) at No 1 Harbourside and there will no doubt be some stylish dancing when the breezy swing of vocalist Lucy Moon’s Paper Moon Band visits the Alma Tavern (Sunday 10).
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