A tasty appetiser for an enticing menu of jazz
Fly/New Focus Old Fruitmarket Rob Adams ****
IT WAS appropriate that some of the local talent that Glasgow Jazz Festival has made it its business to champion throughout its history should make the first sounds onstage at the festival’s flagship venue on this, the event’s 30th instalment.
Saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski and pianist Euan Stevenson’s New Focus has been a great advertisement for the Scottish scene since its formation in 2011 and in a brief set that managed to be both satisfying and an appetiser for more, the quartet previewed the imminent second album, New Focus On Song, suggesting that extra grit has been added to the folk and classical-inspired melodic assurance that has become the leaders’ trademark.
Stevenson’s Corea Change was a pacey, dynamic homage to a keyboard hero that perfectly captured its subject, Chick Corea’s musical character and the compositional talent was enhanced by collective accomplishment and superb individual skill, not least from Wiszniewski on soprano.
Composition is a key ingredient in the music of illustrious saxophone, bass and drums team Fly, with Larry Grenadier’s varispeed bassline on saxophonist Mark Turner’s slowly evolving Brother Sister and Grenadier’s own bebop-swing tribute to fellow bassist Oscar Pettiford giving fine examples.
The preparation almost became secondary to the execution, however, as the three musicians’ roles became interchangeable in a fascinating display of group dynamics, in which Jeff Ballard’s crisp, creative drumming, Grenadier’s wiry, tenacious bass playing and Turner’s mellifluous tenor lines took turns to lead and support.
If the ensemble approach could occasionally be quite dense, then the encore showed them in an entirely clear, direct and groovy light, playing a Ballard-led boogaloo that while intricately detailed, might well have filled a dancefloor.
George Benson Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Stuart Morrison *****
GEORGE Benson has reached the point in his career, when the epithet ‘legendary’ is not only appropriate, but accurate. Now 73 years old, he has been playing guitar since he was eight and has been a star in both jazz and pop for more than 40 years. He has a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, for goodness’ sake. So, when the lights dimmed and the voice announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome multi-Grammy award winner, the legendary George Benson,” nobody was arguing.
Benson sauntered on to the stage, gave a little shimmy for the ladies and picked up his guitar as his ridiculously tight band eased their way into Love x Love. The voice, a little rusty at first, warmed up during a lovely cover of Norah Jones’s Don’t Know Why and by Turn Your Love Around and Kisses in the Moonlight, it was at full throttle. He ranged across his career, playing the hits but also reminding us that he was, first and foremost, a jazz guitarist. He played a blistering, solo, jazz arrangement of Danny Boy, taking that most traditional of tunes to a different place altogether. Stevie Wonder’s Lately also received the treatment, this time with his band. But, of course, it was the hits that most people wanted to hear and he played most of them, with only Nature Boy and Greatest Love of All being obvious omissions. In Your Eyes, Give Me the Night and Never Give Up on a Good Thing breezed by. This Masquerade made a welcome appearance and he finished with a cover of the Drifters’ On Broadway, allowing his band to stretch out.
Legendary? You better believe it.
Soweto Kinch Trio St Luke’s Stewart Smith ****
A LEADING light in contemporary UK jazz, Soweto Kinch belongs to a generation of players for whom hip-hop and the music of the African-Caribbean diaspora are a natural part of their vocabulary. An alto saxophonist and rapper, the London-born, Birmingham-raised Kinch has four ambitious concept albums to his name, the latest of which, 2013’s The Legend of Mike Smith, forms the basis of tonight’s show.
Loosely based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, the album explores the concept of the seven deadly sins in a contemporary urban setting, freely mixing jazz and hip-hop. It makes for a show that is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, not least during the rap number The Board Game, for which Kinch splits the audience down the middle, having the “fat cat” side chanting “privatise the gains”, and the “have-nots” opposite replying, “socialise the losses.” This austerity parable is set to a head-nodding boom-bap beat, the live rhythm section of bassist Nick Jurd and Glasgowborn drummer Jonathan Silk grooving over the pre-recorded track.
Kinch’s gift for jazz improvisation carries over the freestyle rap he invents around words suggested by the audience. This being Glasgow, Kinch has to come up with rhymes for “girders”, “gallus” and “wide-o”, a challenge he responds to with aplomb.
The jazz numbers largely acoustic, from the fiery hard bop of Sweeping Change, where Kinch’s richly toned and forceful alto is chased by the fleet-fingered Jurd, to the bluesy ballad Vacuum, where the saxophonist modulates between tender lyricism and anxious upper register peels. Kinch deftly incorporates hip-hop elements into Traffic Lights, electronically processing his horn and weaving soul jazz organ and guitar samples around his trio’s funky live playing.