Tuesday, 13 November 2012

London jazz festival 2012: highlights from days three and four - The Guardian (blog)

Four days into the 2012 edition, the London Jazz festival genre-juggling act still works magic. Sunday's Gil Evans tribute show by a surefooted and enthusiastic group of Trinity Laban Conservatoire students under the direction of Polar Bear's Mark Lockheart was a credit to the players and their director, especially when Lockheart shrewdly let his young charges rock out in an extended jam on Evans' exultant arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing.

The late maestro Evans' music was nothing if not cinematic in its harmonically lustrous dreamscapes, and on Monday night guitarist Bill Frisell – whose composing similarly glows with rootsy blues chords and idiosyncratic harmonies – supplied his own cinematic commentary for Bill Morrison's remarkable silent film on the 1927 Mississippi disaster, The Great Flood. It felt like a highlight of the LJF already.

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The star pairing of Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu, and a jazz/classical venture for Britain's adventurous reeds newcomer Shabaka Hutchings are highlights of Tuesday night's action, while a discreet delight looks set to be vocalist Norma Winstone's appearance with her European trio, opposite Finnish harpist Iro Harrla with saxophonist Trygve Seim and bassist Ulf Krokfors, at St James' church, Piccadilly.
John Fordham

John L Walters writes: The unstoppable Snarky Puppy – led by composer/bassist Michael League – sound as if they've absorbed and reinvented almost the entire history of jazz fusion. The 'F' word is still an embarrassment (and a licence to doodle) in some quarters but League has figured out what's good and vital about the genre, and has a band that plays his compositions with such energy and confidence it's as if keyboard synthesisers had just been invented.

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Using three horns and a big, tight rhythm section (with guest Jason Marsalis adding righteous New Orleans grooves to a couple of numbers), League's tunes prowl the entire jazz-rock landscape, integrating reggae, funk and Afro-Cuban rhythms with blistering ensemble passages and solos that had the crowd at Shoreditch's XOYO yelping for more.

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Hyperpotamus, the Spanish solo vocalist who was the support act, is another musical omnivore, who sounds as if he grew up recreating Recoil and Moby without realising they used samples. Using nothing more than mics, pedal-controlled looping devices and his voice, he conjured beats, brimstone preachers, gospel choirs and explosive electro, ending unexpectedly with a moving version of Strawberry Fields Forever.

• See also: John Lewis reviews Herbie Hancock's Royal Festival Hall solo show. "Sure, it was self-indulgent, but there is no musician you'd rather watch tinkering around on stage for two hours than Hancock."

• Picture gallery: Festival highlights from photographer Emile Holba

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