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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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I love jazz because of Elmer Bernstein's score for the 1957 American film noir Sweet Smell of Success, which I first saw as a teenager in the '70s. As a playwright/screenwriter, I write to music and I'm always looking for ways to incorporate it into my work; the most recent example being Bob Crosby and the Bobcats “Big Noise From Winnetka,” which became the signature theme for my last stage play The Gift of the Gab
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