Music / Jazz
The week in jazz – June 13-19
First off – what’s NOT happening? Well the Bebop Club is now on their well-earned summer break but also, sadly, the expected visit of Darius ’Son of Dave’ Brubeck’s quartet to the Lantern (Sunday 19) has been cancelled due to those darned ‘unforeseeable circumstances’. Happily that might avoid a tricky choice, however, as the rather lovely duo of Andy Sheppard and John Paricelli (pictured above) are appearing at the Hen & Chicken that evening. The pair are reviving what started as a spontaneous gig-filling favour at legendary Bristol jazz pub The Albert and which then produced 2003’s excellent p.s. album, a set of delicately woven chamber pieces steeped in warm lyricism.
Improvisation is big on the agenda this week, too, as the radical Emergenc(i)es Festival continues at Trinity, with musical input this week including ‘free’ vocalist Maggie Nic(h)ols (Thursday) and vibraphonist extraordinaire Corey Mwamba (Friday). There are daytime workshops and an evening performance on Friday (17). Ever-rewarding improvisational pianist John Law brings his ultra-contemporary New Congregation quartet to Future Inns (Thursday 16) with Sam Crockatt’s sax just one ingredient in the music’s success. Elsewhere on Thursday – at St Stephens Church in the centre – trumpeter David Mowat contributes both music and artwork to Comprovisations , a ‘Bloomsday’ celebration of writer James Joyce involving readings and spontaneous composition.
We seem to have a fret-feast for jazz guitar buffs most weeks and this time it’s Jamie Cullum anointed youngster Remi Harris (Canteen, Wednesday 15) who’s the six-string sizzler with a penchant for gypsy swing. If, however, the continental football extravaganza and That Debate haven’t put you right off the E word then you might prefer the Bristol European Jazz Ensemble’s vibrant contemporary jazz argument for international cultural exchange at The Fringe on the same night.
Fans of powerhouse brass action can expect a lively weekend starting on Friday (17) when Brass Junkies bring their New Orleans ‘second line’ style to Old Market Assembly in a double bill with the mighty Smerins brand of danceable funk. Following that off with the meticulous drums’n’brass constructions of the idiosyncratic Dakhla Brass (Sunday 19, Alma Tavern) should satisfy anyone’s hornblowing cravings.
Finally this week’s wild card is the thoroughly appealing Durians trio from New York (Canteen, Saturday 19), a weird blend of Aphex Twin type electro-acoustic dance music with jazz-rock and improvisation all fired up with imaginative whimsy. They’re named after a famously stinky fruit, apparently, and after The Comet Is Coming’s recent triumphant Saturday nighter at the venue this lot should go down a storm.
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