By Francesco Martinelli
Tampere is a Finnish town about two hours by car from Helsinki, and the its
Jazz Happening has been consistently featuring for over 20 years the more
"on the edge" side of the music, as proved by the impressive roster printed
in the program. The old customs house of the town has been renovated and
hosts the offices of various festivals - theatre, film, and jazz - as well
as a spacious jazz club and a huge auditorium with top quality sound and
light equipment, so the musicians are in the best of conditions.
This year
program featured an healthy mixture with offerings from the USA, Japan as
awell as various European countries and a good share of Finnish groups. The
most attended concert was Bill Frisell's new quintet, and the guitarist seem
to have found a like-minded group he can feel comfortable with: basically a
trio with guitar, bass and drums - the extraordinary Kenny Wollesen - it
includes as added colors a violin, played by Jenny Schainman, whose role -
tastefully fulfilled - is to play simple, long-noted counter lines to the
guitar, and Malian percussionist Sidiki Camara, whose coexistence with the
busy jazz drumming of Wollesen is somehow problematic. Not very deep, maybe,
but a pleasant experience for the sro audience.
From USA, two female-led
groups represented different "schools" of New York's avant-garde: Susie
Ibarra's trio with Ikue Mori guesting, and Lisa Sokolov's quartet. Ibarra
has a very special musicality on her instrument, while her structures
prompted the group members, especially the experienced Craig Taborn on piano
and keyboards, into interesting improvisational territories. Mori's unique
blend of non-percussive drumming and deadpan humor integrated very well with
the trio.
Violinist Jennifer Choi, another of the growing group of
improvisors without a jazz background, jumped bravely into the fray taking
many risks. Sokolov's is another world - a strongly emotional experience, as
her voice can switch from a caressing whisper to an heart rending cry in a
matter of seconds. Backed by a trio of first class musicians - John Di
Martino on piano, Cameron Brown on bass and Gerry Hemingway on drums - who
put themselves modestly at the service of her conception, she mixed hymns,
standards and original compositions on contemporary poetry, unifying the
repertoire into to her own unique musical personality. A singer whose depth
and range should have a much bigger visibility on the scene: check out a
part of her abilities in the delicious' last Hemingway CD, Songs, on the
Between The Lines label.
Another presence from New York, not immediately
musical, was painter Jeff Schwanger, the Music Witness, whose two-handed
style of painting is often seen during the Vision festival and similar
happenings. Schwanger has been invited to the festival for three years in a
row to document it in his unique style. I was for the first time in the
condition to look at the paintings with leisure after listening to the
concert and was amazed at the way they capture the general feeling and some
specific details of the music.
The much touted Ekova trio was a big disappointment, mostly because any
subtlety in ud and percussion playing was drowned by the pounding
electronics; the compositions and vocal style of the leader were also less
than memorable. In fact, many of the groups that used the ubiquitous synths
and DJs were not especially successful: Niels Petter Molvaer's new group
keeps presenting his sinuous trumpet lines with an heavily "groovy"
electronic background, and he honestly during his press conference
acknowledged his dept to Jon Hassell and Brian Eno - if the inspirations are
at this level of interest, you can imagine the results. Rinneradio was like
Molvaer's music played by a Garbarek-style soprano, basically more of the
same with many repetitions in grooves and timbres. If one wants to groove,
why not go the whole hog and try to do something interesting with the
material at hand, instead of trying to nobilitate it with some "jazz" on
top?
This is what The Bays are doing: a crazy group of musicians from
London, playing improvised drum and bass without any predetermined structure
but with great gusto and freshness, by far one of the best discoveries of
the festival. Interestingly enough, they don't have a record out and do not
want to. Doppelmoppel, the funnily named improvising trio with two
trombones - the Bauer brothers, Connie and Hannes - and two guitars, Joe
Sachse on electric and Uwe Kropinski on modified acoustic - were a great
hit, and rightly so: an endless flow of melodic and rhythmic ideas, a
capacity of immediate reaction to each other's interjections - they've been
playing together for over twenty years - and a unique timbral combination
with plenty of space around each individual sound. Among the highlights, the
percussive solo on guitar by Kropinski, enhanced by the custom built guitar
with two microphones inside.
Pianist Satoko Fuji's quartet from Japan
presented a strangely "raw" improvised set - she has a classic background,
while trumpet player Natsuki Tamura comes from jazz, and electric bassist
Takeharu Hayakawa has experience in "prog-rock". The music was very exciting
in spots, while sometimes seemed stuck in trying to put different materials
side by side, waiting for something to combine and ignite. Like every other
free piano player she's been compared to Cecil Taylor, but I failed to hear
any similarity. Quite absorbing though, an original personality to be sure
who's likely to evolve into a major voice on the scene.
France was very well
represented by the FranÃÂÃÂÃÂçois Courneloup quartet: the muscular lines of the
leader's baritone and the driving rhythms of Echampard's drums nicely
balanced and even questioned by the open inventions of Marc Ducret's guitars
and Yves Robert's trombone. Among the Finnish groups, I missed the U-Street
All Stars due to the too late hour; Delirium - well, Swedish-Finnish to be
precise - presented a set deeply rooted into Don Cherry's acoustic quartet.
Impressive on their instruments, and deeply involved emotionally with the
music, these young guys deserve serous attention to their work and live were
definitely exciting, often incorporating "modern" rhythms into their
all-acoustic music.
Jarmo Saari Filmtet - as its name implies - presented a
program of famous themes from the soundtrack of classic and modern finnish
films; if you're wondering at the notion, just remember that Aki Kaurismaki
is today established as one of the major directors of European cinema. The
compositions were often lovely and nostalgic, but the groups was too heavy
in instrumentation: Saar, guitarist and leader, is some kind of electronic
wizard, and he used a huge rack of effects, midi, vocoding and even a
Theremin; on top of this, there were on scene an Hammond organ with its
Leslie, an electric keyboard plus the usual bass abd drums. The tuba player
seemed sometimes to despair of the chance of being heard at all, but
fortunately there was space for the fluent, expressive solos of Peppa
PÃÂÃÂâÃÂìivinen on a variety of reeds; he's a leader on his own right and by many
considered the best exponent of today's Finnish jazz - an area that, after
this exciting, well organized and warmly welcoming festival I'm eager to
explore!
