2013 Jazztopad Festival

It was a set that took a lot of energy; after the first piece, Hayashi took one drum center stage and, with remarkable power and athleticism, delivered a piece that, supported by Matsuoka, drew huge rounds of applause from the sold-out crowd. Hayashi then returned to his place behind his other drums and attempted to speak to the audience...but was so winded that he needed to take a moment to catch his breath, before going into an explanation of each of his drums, including what they were made of and what animal skin was used for the drum head. Between Hayashi and Matsuoka, the English may have been limited, but they still managed to come off as something of a comedy duo as they explained their music and instruments...Hayashi even demonstrating how an instrument resembling a bronze ashtray can, when combined with a second one, create something capable of sustaining interest all by itself.

The duo also performed a more ethereal piece driven by a pre-recorded synth track, as Hayashi switched to shakuhachi. It was an impressive performance that set the stage for the second act on the bill: Chiri, the group that includes Australian drummer Simon Barker and Korean Pansori singer Bae Il Dong, the inevitable consequence of Barker's trip to Korea documented in the film Intangible Asset 82, screened earlier in the week.

Unfortunately, Chiri's third member—Australian trumpeter Scott Tinkler—was waylaid with a serious health matter (thankfully he is now on the mend), leaving Barker and Il Dong to perform as a duo. While there's no doubt they'd have been well augmented by Tinkler, the relationship that has evolved between the drummer and singer since their first meeting in Korea was clearly so deep that they managed to pull the set off without any difficulties—or, at least, if there were challenges, the audience would never have known.

Barker's experience and education in Korea has clearly changed the way he approaches the conventional drum kit. Most drummers (Steve Gadd being one notable exception) are very still in their body, with movement only taking place in the forearms and wrists; Barker, in contrast, put his entire body into his playing, and the result was a breadth of textures that were simply not possible with the more conventional approach. His solos were a combination of power and precision, delicacy and dynamics, and true melodism, which became especially apparent in his call-and-response segments with Il Dong in this slimmed-down Chiri duo.

Il Dong's source material largely comes from traditional stories. The set opened with two of them: one, a funeral song from a very long story (as Korean traditionalism seems prone to be); the other a love song. Dressed in a white robe and with nothing but a small fan in his hand that he occasionally opened, Il Dong's delivery was beyond impressive; few in the audience may have known Korean but, with Barker's few words of introduction, it was still possible to feel what the songs were about, even the long story that closed the set.

The duo closed with an epic tale about a blind man's whose wife has passed away and, alone with a daughter who, seeing how sad her father is, believes that if she sacrifices herself by drowning in the ocean, her father will be able to see again. Going on a boat into the ocean and throwing herself into the water, she drowns, but a dragon beneath the ocean sees her, rescues her and takes her back to land, where she is found by some men who take her to a palace where the prince falls in love with her. Marrying the prince, their first event is big party, where all the blind men from the area are invited in order to see if her father might come. After a very long time, a man appears and she says to him, "Do you have a wife and daughter?" She cries when she hears they are both dead, but then he hears her voice and, realizing that this is her daughter, his sight is restored. What was most impressive, beyond each musician's talent, was their clear connection; eye contact was persistent throughout the set, and it was clear just how much each player respected and enjoyed working with the other—a feeling clearly experienced by the audience as well, based on its enthusiastic response, demanding a well-deserved encore.

Saturday, November 23: Living Room Concerts / Quasimode / Michiyo Yagi Trio Deluxe

Beginning on Saturday, there were two afternoons of living room concerts, another of Jazztopad's unique offerings. Looking for ways to bring artists and fans together in more intimate surroundings, the living room concert series is announced prior to the festival, and home owners that would like to host the concerts apply. Once the locations are chosen—ranging from, in this year's case, a student apartment to a moored houseboat that was used twice—people can apply to attend the individual concerts; in each case, the sponsoring family is able to invite a certain number of people, the festival is also able to invite its guests, and whatever space is left is open for application, people only finding out if they've been accepted by text or email the evening before.

Each living room concert was divided into two halves, each one a duo performance of approximately 20 minutes, with a 15-minute break in-between for refreshments and socializing. Over the two days—Saturday and Sunday—the mini-concerts ranged from a saxophone/koto duo from Michiyo Yagi and Jakub Skowroński (who also guested with Quasimode at the Wrocĺaw Philharmonic Hall), two duos with bassist Maciej Garbowski (one with drummer Wojtek Romanowski, the other with saxophonist Piotr Łyszkiewicz) and first encounters between percussionist Kan Hayashi and clarinetist Mateusz Rybicki, and Łyszkiewicz and drummer Michal Bryndal. First meetings with singer Bae Il Dong and pianist Nikola Kołodziejczyk, and Simon Barker and clarinetist Mateusz Rybicki took place, as did Quasimode mates stripped down to just percussionist Takahiro 'Matzz' Matsuoka and bassist Shigeki Umezawa, another featuring trumpeter Maurycy Wójciński (the other Pole guesting with Quasimode) and drummer Jan Słowiński, and, finally, Rybicki paired with guitarist Tsuneo Imahori.

With just a half hour between each living room concert, it was a fast-paced afternoon for those looking to attended all three offered each day, and the actual performances ranged from surprising and inspiring to less than completely successful, but irrespective of how good any individual mini-concert was, the idea of being able to hear musicians normally seen in the less personal space of a concert hall in such an intimate space made it well worth it.

That evening, the second double bill of Tokyo Jazz Festival Presents: Japan took place at the Wrocĺaw Philharmonic Hall and, while there is clearly some challenge to be had in putting bands with drummers in the room, it's still possible...except that on this Saturday evening the sound was so poor that it made the evening almost unbearable. First up was Quasimode, a Japanese quartet augmented, for this evening, with two Polish players: saxophonist Jakub Skowroński and trumpeter Maurycy Wójciński. Led by pianist Yusuke Hirado and Sixth Sense percussionist Takahiro "Matzz" Matsuoka, the group was rounding out by drummer Sounosuke Imaizumi and bassist Shigeki Umezawa. What was unfortunate was that the minute Imaizumi entered, the sound became a harsh, indistinguishable mush. That said, from what could be discerned, Quasimode's popularity in Japan may be based on its upbeat, danceable music; while the players were competent enough, the music wasn't particularly inspiring, unfortunately, making the set all the more difficult to take, when combined with the appalling sound.

Hopes were high all week for Michiyo Yagi's Trio Deluxe, with guitarist Tsuneo Imahori and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida—two other legends on the Japanese scene. Unfortunately, poor sound once again marred what should have been an exhilarating set. Yagi's opening and closing a cappella pieces were absolutely lovely, the koto player first performing Polish legend Krzysztof Komeda's "Lullaby from Rosemary's Baby," from the composer's score to Roman Polanski's renowned horror film, and closing with another unannounced solo piece that was equally beautiful.

Unfortunately, however, once Imahori and Yoshida joined Yagi, the same problems that marred Quasimode's set ruined this performance as well. It's hard to know what the sound engineer was thinking, but with the soundboard placed in a particularly impractical spot, even placing plexi-glass baffles around the drummers couldn't stop them from completely dominating the mix. And it was particularly unfortunate for Yagi's set, as these were clearly three exceptional musicians, who all deserved far better.

Sunday, November 24: Living Room Concerts / Charles Lloyd Premiere

Fortunately, with his own sound engineer onboard, Charles Lloyd's evening performance—coming after another afternoon of six sets of living room concerts in three locations—fared far better than the previous evening at the Wrocĺsaw Philharmonic Hall.

Lloyd was premiering a new piece of music, the Wild Man Dance Suite that he'd been negotiating with the festival for three years, and it turned out to be a positively triumphant closer to Jazztopad 2013. Lloyd has been no stranger to the music of Greece, his Athens Concert (ECM, 2011) a wonderful meeting place between the music of his own quartet of the past several years and a series of Greek pieces brought together under the banner of a three-part "Greek Suite" that, in addition to featuring political singer Maria Farantouri, also included Greek lyra virtuoso Socratis Sinopoulos and pianist/arranger Takis Farazis.

Lloyd re-recruited Sinopoulos for Wild Man Dance Suite, his Byzantine lyra—a bowed string instrument played vertically with the bottom of the instrument resting in the lap rather than in the nook of the shoulder—a surprisingly appropriate instrument for this new set of music far more rooted in the American jazz tradition than the majority of The Athens Concert. That Sinopoulos proved a more than capable improviser was no more surprising than the same being said for Hungarian-born gypsy, Miklos Lukacs, whose cimbalom—a hammered dulcimer-like traditional gypsy instrument from Hungary, with groups of strings tuned in unison—proved an equally appropriate instrument to complement the more traditional rhythm section that rounded out the sextet—all fine players, but all making their first appearances here with Lloyd: pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Gerald Cleaver.

Earlier discussions suggested that the concert would be in two parts: one, a selection of older Lloyd tunes, rearranged for this group, followed by an intermission and second set where Wild Man Dance Suite would be premiered. Instead, Lloyd played one 80-minute set (not including encore) that was Wild Man Dance Suite in its entirety, performed solely on tenor saxophone despite there being a flute and two taragatos onstage. While there's no doubt that Lloyd's now longstanding quartet with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland is in no danger of being dissolved, this newly minted sextet certainly made a case for being an alternate project that Lloyd should continue to explore. Given just one day's rehearsal at the venue, there was a clear chemistry that made this an exciting evening, not just for the world premiere of a long-form piece of new music, but for the debut of a new group that blended traditional jazz with textures from antiquity, creating something altogether new and exciting.

Lloyd was in terrific form, managing double duty as both an active bandleader, guiding his group through this challenging suite of music—and a supportive one, too, providing plenty of encouragement each time one of his band mates was spotlighted—and as a featured soloist himself, creating endlessly flowing lines that cascaded with ease. It's no small challenge to succeed at long-form soloing, but Lloyd has proven, time and again, more than capable of creating extended solos that are not just a collection of ideas but are, instead, stories that reflect the life portrayed in Dorothy Darr's film, Arrow to Infinity, screened at Jazztopad earlier in the week.

Not surprisingly, the sold-out house (standing room only) responded with particularly strong enthusiasm—certainly the most extreme response to any performance attended in the past week. Lloyd responded with an encore where he moved to flute and, once again, gave space for everyone in the group. Always a generous leader, Lloyd's largess was especially notable here, as the instruments played by his Greek and Hungarian compatriots may not have seemed ready-made for improvisation, but in the hands of Sinopoulos and Lukacs were clearly appropriate, as they delivered solos over a modal context that suggested Lloyd's idea of bringing together an American jazz format with something seemingly less likely was just one more example of the saxophonist's open-minded approach and clear belief that commonality can invariably be found amongst even the most seemingly incongruous instruments. It was a success three years in the making, and must have been as satisfying to Festival Director Piotr Turkiewicz as it was Lloyd—and Darr, who could be seen along the side of the hall taking photos throughout the show.

And so, with Jazztopad 2013 finished and its superb staff ready for a well-deserved breather before commencing work on the 2014 edition, there's little that Turkiewicz would reveal about the coming year:



What is certain is that Jazztopad—no matter what shape it takes, no matter who it invites and no matter what is commissioned—is a festival that will be worth returning to year after year, as a festival that looks to break the mold of convention to create a festival experience for the city of Wrocĺaw that is not only distinguished in the country of Poland, but on an international level as well.

Photo Credit
John Kelman

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