cork city, eire.
The Cork jazz
festival came under new management this year and the
relaxed atmosphere in the Metropole and the Everyman
Theatre was welcome.Also there were extended venues for
partisan choices, The Firkin Crane Centre and The Granary
Theatre made their mark. The innovation of a
"Musician in Residence" , James Williams, was
exceptionally welcome.
The emphasis
however, in preparation for Cork's tenure in two years
time of The European City of Culture, was
already well pronounced in favour of European Jazz
musicians. Jan Gabarek received the honour of European
Jazz Man of the Year from Pat Cox, our man in Europe, at
the end of his performance.
For my choice the Everyman Theatre carried the most
important appointments thus this appreciation of the
Festival is limited to that venue. A choice that was
fully rewarded and persuades me that the Theatre
Management had the perception and staff ability to carry
off one of the best ever series of musical experiences an
audience could hope to receive.
I was not expecting to enjoy Gabarek
actually but I succumbed to joy easily enough. He played
with exceptional musicians. His legendary vanity overcame
him only once after a solo by the superb Eberhard Weber
on his bass that resembles an ancient chair-back. Gabarek
forestalled applause suddenly appearing from a shadow,
Pan with a brown stick, a flute, with plaintive and clear
notes.... His backdrop of two large white sails with
rigging strung out into the auditorium ensured that this
Festival started on a jubilant voyage this Friday evening
- frosty autumn weather outside and the Asgard disporting
her tall masts in the docks below. Beautiful music from
the Master mariner; and Marilyn Mazure who,with a
veritable building site of percussion instruments,
introduced with her solo the symbol of developments that
the next two days were to amplify. She had gongs, bells,
baskets and fringes of metal; tin trays and bowls,
drumsticks, knives and snowballs and with balletic dance
she incorporated their communications with her drums and
woodcarvings building a staircase of harmony depicting
Jacob and the Angel... Gabarek and his pianist Rhiner
Bruningham then lifted us up to heaven until the crowd
stood up to roar their admiration and applause
Saturday afternoon. Martin Drew, a genial Toby Jug,
celebrated with his gang the Jazz Couriers from Soho,
London, they woke up the inner chords and he was
followed, to my interest, by Lynn Arial. I remembered Lyn from several
years ago when she clacked around in a tight little pink
suit and a loose pair of high heeled shoes she must have
borrowed from her sister. She whispered secrets with old
jazzmen hugging their sax's and played exstatically as if
on her first public engagement. Alas, she has grown up -
she composes some nice melodies, light and wholesome with
her breezy drummer, a picnic party for sophisticates,
only loomed over by the double bass player, powerful, and
the only one on stage with any secrets. As the contract
on the programme had now been interrupted, (the Bad Plus
Trio not arriving)what could we expect this evening?
(drawn3/4 yrs
ago)
Saturday evening. Came in Carla Bley - a beautiful old
animal of a woman - her hair stolen from a picture of a
lion she cut out and handed to her hairdresser - with
Steve Swallow her husband who hangs like a vulture over
his bass. They are with Bill Drummond (drums) and the
blessed Andy Sheppard ( who may, or may not be the
Irishman attending a funeral that he looks like, until he
starts to blow those wonderful sets on sax and clarinet.)
"The Lost Chords" - we descend, yes, the whole
theatre, into a desolate New York basement, as black as
night, with these slow haunts of melody spiralled by
lightnings and fireworks.
The scene breaks up and in comes old Charley Lloyd with a
jolly little red hat and Geri Allen pushes off the vessel
on piano with quiet but insistent passages that break out of rapid
scales and tides until the whole quartet are playing
throwing out their nets of rhythm that placed itself in
the spine and shoulders of an attentive listener.
Sunday afternoon. A trio played that afternoon but only
the pianist held my attention - not for any personal
throw on it, but the technical feats he achieved. But my
excited anticipation is too high, Abdullah Ibrahim is
onstage. I make a frightful mistake: ,from the Press Box,
stage-side, I am surrounded with photographers and I
decide to take one as Abdullah Ibrahim begins to play -
Jasus! I haven't turned off the flash and he leans back
with a face like thunder - trembling I hide behind the
curtain.
.Abdullah Ibrahim sets in motion a phenomena of music
that seems to mesmerise the entire audience and produce a
calm and peace that was evident later on as they left the
theatre. It was this, I thought, and discussed with my
eldest son....his phrases held at their core a group of
wonderfully drawn notes that he chose to push through
time. These notes were nevertheless constantly
obscured, or turned aside or around with interference ;
chords too, that might shade or shred this delicate core
of beauty which had to be reduced in turn, obscured, or
drawn to accompany that movement forward. Jules said he
"made the piano sing." Abdullah Ibrahim sat
there his eyes sometimes drifting as though he were blind
and feeling the music with the delicate touch of the
blind. For an hour he held us in the palms of his hands
until we must surely understand that his human knowledge
of this world's cruelty could overcome it. Because of the
terrible years that are passing us now, and through my
hands on the Internet as I am creating this magazine,
understanding this structure of his music was like a
perceptive antidote to the despair that sometimes
overcomes me - as I sort the articles about this
remorseless and guilty clique of power that have given
lease in violence to their fear of loss of power. May
that music rest in my ears a long time........
Sunday evening.What then? O my god..... a feat of
superlatives should pass my lips for the extraordinary
Bobby Previte.
But
it was the story, a series of completely clear and
constantly interesting pictures in sound... a wrestle
with sleep, the thrust of daylight into a suffocating
steamy room, to wrestle with knotted vest and dirty
socks, the street, pauses and actions, traffic, sight and
hearing shattered by just another day and this crazy
frenzied guy laughing at us as he drove this onslaught of
the senses from the prone nature of slumber , a
electronic machine belching, and placing its horribls
splashes of light and colour on our mental apparitions.
Bobby Privete took deep breaths and stretched high above
his drums to flail the time going by - we moved through
it, we suffered the suffocating frustration of it, the
parsimonious gasps for a breath of air, a cigarette glow,
the slam of a door, her voice that fractures. I expected
members of the audience to get hysterics. I had
claustrophobia. And suddenly I realised where it was
going - a mind, this mind, any mind, could prevail and
make sense of both the chaos of modern life and the chaos
of the senses. After a long time the tender sax of Greg
Osby blew a little gap in the zone, time fled. exhausted,
and then his notes fell on the passing hour like the
slender shadow of evening, swollen in a curtain or a
darkened room. Here were bunches of girls like flower
blossoms......As this set drew to a close Charlie Hunter,
earlier so cruel with his harsh notes, stuttered then
found as if by chance a harmony that streamed out from
his guitar. I sat back and spoke to nobody in particular,
"I've heard many stories of Frankenstein but that's
the first time he got a girl.", which led to some
laughter.
But don't give up on this yet... Pharoah Sanders, William
Henderson (piano), Mathew "Baby" Garrison(bass)
and John Betsch, Guardian of the Drums climaxed this last
set of the Festival.
I can
hardly see to draw, and I had failed to make even one
single sketch of Frankenstein - indeed now, I scarecly
raised my head from the drawing paper except to look and
learn - until the pain of this music hit me. God...they
are playing the story of their lives in USA - its getting
worse I know...... I have been there, I have sat on a New
York pavement and indeed on that pilgrimage of a poet, I
received help again and again from these people,
AfroAmericans, I know this story in part, I know its
sound, its pitch, its manipulated hatred and fear from
the stupid white racialism that can happen anywhere,
between any kinds of society. I learned in my childhood
the lies of the upperclasses, the hypocrisy of knowledge
and wealth, and the loathsome significance that any
little white man or woman can signify, sexually and many
another way - as masters over slaves. It is part and
parcel of the agony of present time...The Guardian
crashes on his drums with apalling riffs and then throws
his sticks in the air. Split! On stage suddenly. left all
alone is young "Baby " Garrison, he looks maybe
sixteen years of age and he starts playing to us. He is
playing with Spanish fingering on his bass, intricate
tunes pass through the audience like all the memories of
innocence.....
of The European City of Culture, was
already well pronounced in favour of European Jazz
musicians. Jan Gabarek received the honour of European
Jazz Man of the Year from Pat Cox, our man in Europe, at
the end of his performance.
I was not expecting to enjoy Gabarek
actually but I succumbed to joy easily enough. He played
with exceptional musicians. His legendary vanity overcame
him only once after a solo by the superb Eberhard Weber
on his bass that resembles an ancient chair-back. Gabarek
forestalled applause suddenly appearing from a shadow,
Pan with a brown stick, a flute, with plaintive and clear
notes.... His backdrop of two large white sails with
rigging strung out into the auditorium ensured that this
Festival started on a jubilant voyage this Friday evening
- frosty autumn weather outside and the Asgard disporting
her tall masts in the docks below. Beautiful music from
the Master mariner; and Marilyn Mazure who,with a
veritable building site of 
percussion instruments,
introduced with her solo the symbol of developments that
the next two days were to amplify. She had gongs, bells,
baskets and fringes of metal; tin trays and bowls,
drumsticks, knives and snowballs and with balletic dance
she incorporated their communications with her drums and
woodcarvings building a staircase of harmony depicting
Jacob and the Angel... Gabarek and his pianist Rhiner
Bruningham then lifted us up to heaven until the crowd
stood up to roar their admiration and applause
Arial. I remembered Lyn from several
years ago when she clacked around in a tight little pink
suit and a loose pair of high heeled shoes she must have
borrowed from her sister. She whispered secrets with old
jazzmen hugging their sax's and played exstatically as if
on her first public engagement. Alas, she has grown up -
she composes some nice melodies, light and wholesome with
her breezy drummer, a picnic party for sophisticates,
only loomed over by the double bass player, powerful, and
the only one on stage with any secrets. As the contract
on the programme had now been interrupted, (the Bad Plus
Trio not arriving)what could we expect this evening?
passages that break out of rapid
scales and tides until the whole quartet are playing
throwing out their nets of rhythm that placed itself in
the spine and shoulders of an attentive listener.
nevertheless constantly
obscured, or turned aside or around with interference ;
chords too, that might shade or shred this delicate core
of beauty which had to be reduced in turn, obscured, or
drawn to accompany that movement forward. Jules said he
"made the piano sing." Abdullah Ibrahim sat
there his eyes sometimes drifting as though he were blind
and feeling the music with the delicate touch of the
blind. For an hour he held us in the palms of his hands
until we must surely understand that his human knowledge
of this world's cruelty could overcome it. Because of the
terrible years that are passing us now, and through my
hands on the Internet as I am creating this magazine,
understanding this structure of his music was like a
perceptive antidote to the despair that sometimes
overcomes me - as I sort the articles about this
remorseless and guilty clique of power that have given
lease in violence to their fear of loss of power. May
that music rest in my ears a long time........
But
it was the story, a series of completely clear and
constantly interesting pictures in sound... a wrestle
with sleep, the thrust of daylight into a suffocating
steamy room, to wrestle with knotted vest and dirty
socks, the street, pauses and actions, traffic, sight and
hearing shattered by just another day and this crazy
frenzied guy laughing at us as he drove this onslaught of
the senses from the prone nature of slumber , a
electronic machine belching, and placing its horribls
splashes of light and colour on our mental apparitions.
Bobby Privete took deep breaths and stretched high above
his drums to flail the time going by - we moved through
it, we suffered the suffocating frustration of it, the
parsimonious gasps for a breath of air, a cigarette glow,
the slam of a door, her voice that fractures. I expected
members of the audience to get hysterics. I had
claustrophobia. And suddenly I realised where it was
going - a mind, this mind, any mind, could prevail and
make sense of both the chaos of modern life and the chaos
of the senses. After a long time the tender sax of Greg
Osby blew a little gap in the zone, time fled. exhausted,
and then his notes fell on the passing hour like the
slender shadow of evening, swollen in a curtain or a
darkened room. Here were bunches of girls like flower
blossoms......As this set drew to a close Charlie Hunter,
earlier so cruel with his harsh notes, stuttered then
found as if by chance a harmony that streamed out from
his guitar. I sat back and spoke to nobody in particular,
"I've heard many stories of Frankenstein but that's
the first time he got a girl.", which led to some
laughter.
I can
hardly see to draw, and I had failed to make even one
single sketch of Frankenstein - indeed now, I scarecly
raised my head from the drawing paper except to look and
learn - until the pain of this music hit me. God...they
are playing the story of their lives in USA - its getting
worse I know...... I have been there, I have sat on a New
York pavement and indeed on that pilgrimage of a poet, I
received help again and again from these people,
AfroAmericans, I know this story in part, I know its
sound, its pitch, its manipulated hatred and fear from
the stupid white racialism that can happen anywhere,
between any kinds of society. I learned in my childhood
the lies of the upperclasses, the hypocrisy of knowledge
and wealth, and the loathsome significance that any
little white man or woman can signify, sexually and many
another way - as masters over slaves. It is part and
parcel of the agony of present time...The Guardian
crashes on his drums with apalling riffs and then throws
his sticks in the air. Split! On stage suddenly. left all
alone is young "Baby " Garrison, he looks maybe
sixteen years of age and he starts playing to us. He is
playing with Spanish fingering on his bass, intricate
tunes pass through the audience like all the memories of
innocence.....
