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Black Flower at Moriska Paviliongen
Black Flower
Moriska Paviljongen
Malmo, Sweden
February 16, 2018
Black Flower opened their concert at Moriska Paviljongen with a trance-like song redolent of early Pink Floyd, but soon enough the bpm picked up and seismic bass notes started resonating. We've all heard of EDM, but is IPM (instrumental party music) a recognized genre yet? Black Flower's tunes are built on one or two chords, typically with a middle-eastern modality. The front line of Nathan Daems (saxophones and flute) and Jon Birdsong (cornet) riff as much as they improvise. When the gloves come off, Daems elaborates the scale of the moment while Birdsong offers more melodic and textural content. But the focus is more on hip-shaking than beard-stroking, and the solid rhythm team of Simor Segers (drums) and Filip Vandebril (very electric bass) keep things percolating. (Wouter Haest, on keyboards, limits himself to playing textures and simple riffs but gives face as good as Keith Jarrett, so there's that, I suppose.) The group detours into space on occasion but mostly it's about the joy of compound meters at slamming volume and riffage. The attendees weren't the usual sixty-up crowd—always a good sign—and the band is good at what it does. But if the thought of a bass-drum with a contact mike taped to it gives you shivers, keep a wide berth.
Moriska Paviljongen
Malmo, Sweden
February 16, 2018
Black Flower opened their concert at Moriska Paviljongen with a trance-like song redolent of early Pink Floyd, but soon enough the bpm picked up and seismic bass notes started resonating. We've all heard of EDM, but is IPM (instrumental party music) a recognized genre yet? Black Flower's tunes are built on one or two chords, typically with a middle-eastern modality. The front line of Nathan Daems (saxophones and flute) and Jon Birdsong (cornet) riff as much as they improvise. When the gloves come off, Daems elaborates the scale of the moment while Birdsong offers more melodic and textural content. But the focus is more on hip-shaking than beard-stroking, and the solid rhythm team of Simor Segers (drums) and Filip Vandebril (very electric bass) keep things percolating. (Wouter Haest, on keyboards, limits himself to playing textures and simple riffs but gives face as good as Keith Jarrett, so there's that, I suppose.) The group detours into space on occasion but mostly it's about the joy of compound meters at slamming volume and riffage. The attendees weren't the usual sixty-up crowd—always a good sign—and the band is good at what it does. But if the thought of a bass-drum with a contact mike taped to it gives you shivers, keep a wide berth.
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Story of the Day
In 1998, having a blast playing with a big band made up of students from Thelonius Monk's Institute of Jazz, outdoors, surrounded by the gorgeous mountains of Aspen Snow Mass, I was thinking how much I wanted to create a smaller band that would have the same power of a big band, but with so much more room in it for each musician to shine. Little did I know this was the beginning of a beautiful journey, one that continues to this day, in which every concert, every recording is another beginning, another thrill, another joy. I conceived of the band as a septet 20 years ago, and later refined it to a sextet in 2005
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