London Calling
December 2002

London Calling
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By John Eyles

The sixth edition of The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD by Richard Cook & Brian Morton has just been published. A new edition appears every two years, so this one marks the tenth anniversary of the guide. In that decade, this awesome achievement has deservedly received every available plaudit. For jazz fans, it has achieved an unassailable status. It is our Bible. Running to over 1400 pages, the guide aims to rate every jazz CD currently available. As this is clearly an impossible task, one of the pleasures of reading the guide is to spot its gaps! (I will not spoil your fun. Find them for yourself!) Suffice to say that they are few and far between - but that there is no mention of “London Calling” favourites Gary Smith or The Necks.

I am always awestruck by the sheer volume of listening and appraising that Cook & Morton must be constantly undertaking. If one browses at the album review pages of All About Jazz, they give some idea of the huge number of jazz albums released each month. Yet this intrepid pair manage to listen to them all (or the vast majority of them) and to give each one an authoritative star rating and to find fresh, pertinent things to say about each one and to express them in pithy, readable prose. Respect!

Whether one reads the book systematically or browses the entry about a particular artist or flicks through reading entries at random, this book will always deliver. It passes that most crucial test of any writing about music ­ it makes you want to listen. Although their rating system is often a reliable guide to a recording’s quality, the authors are not dogmatic; it is interesting to see how some ratings have changed over time. (For example, Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder rose from ***(*) ­ three and a half stars ­ in earlier editions, to achieve one of the coveted crowns awarded to Cook & Morton’s most favourite recordings. And Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters has fallen from favour and been quietly demoted from crown status to a mere ****.) Cook & Morton insist that their crowned recordings are no more than personal favourites. However, they include many recordings from the canon that jazz fans deem essential to health and happiness (by Satch, Duke, Bird, Diz, Miles, Trane...) By contrast, the crowned recordings also include some wilfully obscure recordings. For example, how many of you would have included Peter Kowald’s solo bass opus Was Da Ist in such a list? Seeking to expand your collection based on such recommendations can become an interesting (and pricey) enterprise! Yet reading the book does not necessarily have to lead to expenditure. I have dug out many long-unlistened-to albums and rediscovered them as a direct result of reading Cook & Morton eulogies.

If you have never encountered this book, trust me and put it on your Christmas list now. If you have an earlier edition of it, then invest in this updated version. This book gets better and better.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~ghfick/jazz.html

And if you want a quick look at all the albums to which Cook & Morton have awarded four stars and crowns (over 2000 of them!), then this site is an obsessive’s dream. These albums are the heart of a great jazz collection.

London Jazz Festival Diary -- My Top Moments

The Necks
Purcell Room. November 20th.
The Necks were head and shoulders above anything else that I saw in the ten days of the festival (if you will excuse the anatomical confusion). The Purcell Room was packed, with an expectant buzz around the place. The trio’s set consisted of two long, unbroken pieces. Each was typically mesmeric in its intensity; starting from seemingly simple opening phrases that were repeated and repeated and repeated and very slowly varied, they slowly built to climaxes as intense as any in jazz (yes, really). Not for nothing did The Necks entitle their debut album Sex!

Lloyd Swanton’s bass is pivotal to the group. It is the pulse of the music throughout, allowing drummer Tony Buck to concentrate on percussion effects and embellishment as much as on timekeeping. It is difficult to pin down why The Necks’ music is as effective as it is. Pianist Chris Abrahams employs simple figures with lots of repetition, and never seems to opt for displays of virtuosity. As with much great jazz, what is omitted is at least as important as what is included. A key strength of the threesome is their total empathy with each other. But, in the end, it feels as if they perform alchemy, turning seemingly unpromising material into something very precious.

Tomasz Stanko
Queen Elizabeth Hall. 24th November.
Stanko was with his young quartet, with whom he recorded Soul of Things (ECM). As on that album, they played music that was beautifully poignant and affecting with a bittersweet edge to it. Stanko must be sick of being compared to Chet and Miles, but it is easy to see why when one hears him play. One thing is certain; if Tomasz Stanko had the cool image that Chet or Miles once enjoyed, he would be a massive star. As it is, an ageing Polish trumpeter in a floppy hat is unlikely to gain mass appeal. However, this concert had been moved to the larger Queen Elizabeth Hall from the Purcell Room due to the demand for tickets, so maybe I am being unduly pessimistic. Meanwhile, across town at the Barbican, the ever-cool Courtney Pine was packing them in with his John Coltrane tribute. No disrespect to Pine, but having compared notes with friends and colleagues who went to the Barbican, I suspect that those who chose Stanko tonight made the right musical choice.

Lee Konitz
Queen Elizabeth Hall. 24th November
The much-fancied climax to the festival .was actually something of an anti-climax. The special one-off quintet that played the second half of the concert did not gel well, becoming merely a procession of solos. However, the first half ­ in which Konitz played solo, in a duo with John Taylor, and in a trio with Peter Ind and Dave Cliff - was a delight. The trio performance was a highlight, with Konitz and Ind recreating a teaming that dates back half a century, and the threesome swung as hard as anything heard all week. Konitz is a joy to listen to in any setting, and displayed his renowned talent for melody throughout the evening. The trio showed him off to best advantage, though.

Kevin Mackenzie’s Vital Signs and Trio AAB
Pizza Express Freestage, Royal Festival Hall. 17th November.
The Sunday afternoon freebie gig to promote Scotland’s Caber jazz label was a joyful celebration from start to finish, with a real party atmosphere prevailing. There were many highlights throughout, but I have opted for these two, as they each had distinctive and recognisable Scottish elements. Kevin Mackenzie’s Vital Signs kicked off the event, setting a very high standard from the outset. They combined the instrumentation of a jazz band with that of a ceilidh, fiddles and accordion. The two seamlessly blended to produce a powerful and compelling amalgam, featuring jazz soloing alongside rhythms that set people dancing (particularly some interesting Caber camp followers in dodgy patterned shirts and toupees!)
Trio AAB were expected to be good and easily lived up to expectations. Their individual take on post-Ornette jazz was as inventive and idiosyncratic as ever. Their inclusion of a version of “Scottish Soldier” ­ with Tom Bancroft out from behind his trap kit to play bodhran ­ was a contrast to the more left-field jazz offerings, and added to the Celtic atmosphere. Bancroft has spoken of his vision of Scotland being a centre of jazz within a decade; the whole of this showcase event ­ which also featured Brian Kellock, James Cairney, and Celtic Feet - emphasised how realistic that vision is.

DJ Spooky and Matthew Bourne
Adventures in Sound, Queen Elizabeth Hall. 16th November.
These were two of the highlights from the six-hour Adventures in Sound event that dominated the first Saturday of the festival. Headlined by the Scorch Trio who made for rather a dreary end, the event also included music from Evan Parker and Matthew Shipp Trio plus their collaborations with DJ Spooky. In his own set, DJ Spooky presented three short sound & video compilations. The best of these was a continuous edit of fifty years of drum solos that combined visuals of many great jazz drummers ­ Sid Catlett, Art Blakey, Max Roach…- with a driving, rhythmic soundtrack.
Matthew Bourne was winner of the Perrier Jazz Musician of 2001. In his new band, The Electric Dr. M, he combines his ear for beautiful melodic improvisation with surreal sampling to produce an original musical vision. [“London Calling” hopes to feature an interview with Matthew Bourne soon.]

David Murray & The Gwo Ka Masters
Queen Elizabeth Hall. 21st November.
A festival appearance by David Murray is usually a safe bet, and this was no exception. Londoners have become used to seeing Murray in a variety of settings, often tributes or collaborations. This was one of the best, a pairing of Murray’s trio with three musicians from Guadaloupe - vocalist Guy Konket and percussionists/vocalists Klod Kiavué & François Ladrezeau. Such settings seem to bring out the best in Murray, and he was on top form, with his bass clarinet work, in particular, being a perfect foil for the vocals.

Brad Mehldau.
Royal Festival Hall. 18th November.
A foggy day in London town, so support act Chris Potter and his group only just managed to land at Heathrow airport, and arrived late. Result ­ the Brad Mehldau Trio went on before the interval. The group were at the end of their UK tour, and sounded very good together. Mehldau was keen to play music from his new album Largo and was not particularly out to please the crowd, ignoring requests for favourites such as “Riverman”. Anyway, listen for yourself at the Radio 3 website, here.