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Jazz In Marciac Festival: Day 12

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There is no good seat at a quality Afro/Cuban/Latin concert.


If the band's really on, people ought to be out of their chairs and in a space where they can jam with style. It's a mentality I've long held, not being schooled in appreciating the subtler nuances of the genre, and it puts me at odds with a crowd perfectly happy on their butts during day 12 of the 28th annual Jazz In Marciac festival.


This is confession of my failure, not theirs.


Two large all-star bands, the Afro Cuban All Stars and the Latin Giants of Jazz, were the featured events heading into the final weekend of the two-week festival in this 13th century southwest France village. But, as has happened on a couple of other days, they got surpassed by some regional acts - including an Afro/Cuban group - not necessarily superior artistically, but easier to connect with.



A late morning performance by musicians from the Maison Des Conservatories in Paris fell into the Art Jazz category, filtering known songs like "I Got Rhythm" to freeform cadence and eclectic sax work well beyond Bird bop, doing spoken-word-over-drums musical poetry, and collaborating on some lower-key ambient compositions largely focusing on group harmonics. Most was interesting; its value as great music probably varied by the piece in the ears of the beholder.



There were the usual repeat appearances by some groups - I'd swear the Alain Brunet Quintet played the same electric Miles set as day 11, in fact - but the Kaz Trio proved worthy among the newcomers. Pianst Siegfried Kessler's complex chording and drummer Jean Pierre Arnaud's drumming were ideally matched in their build-and-release tensions ("the piano is too full," a woman at one cafe table told her companion) on neotraditional compositions. A surprise was bassist Michel Zenio's plucking mostly high-end notes with horn-like phrasing - highly assertive despite a non-aggressive tone - and at the time I thought it likely was as much personality as I'd hear from an acoustic player during the festival (a hint, of course, I may have been wrong).



If that provided an intellectual surge of energy, then an early evening appearance by La Mecanica Loca charged the emotions. The 10-member Afro-Cuban group achieved something I haven't seen on the town square stage to date - it got a significant number of people in the crowd up front and on their feet. It wasn't breakthrough material - just an assembly of well-played stuff featuring, in particular, singers and drummers honing in and connecting with the audience vibes.



The Saturday evening energy thing continued to trend upward during a pre-headliner stop at the L'Atelier cafe, a place on the way to the main concert tent I'd bypassed on previous nights to get the main events on time. Today I was early, however, and the sounds coming out the doors previously were promising.



Sure enough, a young sax-led quartet was brewing up a loose and frenzied post-bop storm.



I dropped my pack at a table, took a few quick photos and got the computer out to take some notes all before really taking a look at the band, at which point my professional observer skills as a journalist for 15 years finally kicked in and I realized it's Benjamin Dousteyssier, a guy who's impressed me several times all week. Good grief. That's like blowing a Downbeat blindfold test with the CD case in front of you.



Anyhow, these guys are in their element in a small club setting.



The cafe owner, Patrick Bauzerand, said the name means "workshop" and it's a fitting name for a place where the stage talent has seemed mostly young and exploratory. His son, Peter, combined rapid left-hand chording with a mix of right-hand ones close and far on keyboards and piano, evolving with the rhythm section from disciplined to pleasingly discordant stuff that came close to rocker territory in volume and attitude. Dousteyssier was a pleasure to watch as well as hear, moving away from the mic and around the stage as needed to keep an eye on bandmates and feed them shots for solos.



If I wasn't doing a working gig (not to be mistaken for a paying one) I'd have stayed until closing. Unless a few area acts churn out killer material during the final few days Dousteyssier's band got some kind of medal among French bands locked up in the totally meaning awards coming in my final update (no appeals and no actual prize beyond World Wide Web immortality).



Besides, a couple of world music acts featuring all-star talent are a good bet to keep the mood going, right?



Well, in all fairness, the Afro Cuban All Stars and the Latin Giants Of Jazz delivered, both in their performances and among one of the biggest and most enthusiastic crowds of the festival. For that reason this is more explanation than assessment since I'm convinced that, like a Stephen King fan trying to appreciate Shakespeare, I just don't get it.



The only true connection I felt came early during the Afro Cuban All Stars concert when leader Juan De Marcos Gonzalez paid an opening tribute to former band members Ibrahim Ferrer, who died a few days after playing his last concert in Marciac last week, and Ruben Gonzalez, whose son, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez Perez, played a solo opening on "Tributo A Ruben Gonazlez." The elder Gonzalez, who died in 2003, noted in a 2000 interview that even though his son "sings very well and plays piano, he's decided not to become a musician. Once in a while he plays and records music with me."



The younger Gonzalez played a sparing, chord-heavy ballad for a few minutes before the ensemble joined in at a mid-heat pace, where he continued the thick and largely right- hand soundings with an appropriate uptick.



Beyond that what I heard during the night is my usual experience for large and talented bands of the Latin/Cuban/African genre: A lot of heavily backed solos with hooks designed to immediately gratify the emotions more than the mind, with the leaders in front doing some of that coordinated dance-step schtick. The packed tent got plenty of chances to join in clapping and such, and were having an obvious ball doing so, but I wasn't feeling it from either the front-row press area or the back bleachers where I typically sit so I can keep all the action in front of me.



Finally it occurred to me there simply wasn't a good seat in the tent and right place to be might not be there. The proper setting for "Mustang Sally" is tossing a rubber chicken among the crowd on a nightclub dance floor chicken and the place to be during Strauss is twirling your significant other in a ballroom.



I wandered into the beer tents outside the main stage, then the lawn where the concert could be heard and/or seen on video screens posted most likely as a courtesy to the workers. Nothing. Everyone was focused on their wine and pate sandwiches, save one or two employees into the spirit of things behind the counter. Even the young people I spotted nightly in small groups on the lawn with blankets and guitars were content just being on the grass. The one area I didn't go was backstage - my mistake, it turns out, as a group of the somebodies in that garden party setting were getting their groove going.



I went back to the L'Atelier cafe. The stage was empty and the speakers were playing cocktail jazz.



Game over.



Coming on day 13: Elvis lives and a surprising twist from the last night of heavy hitters - Randy Weston and Wayne Shorter.

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