Live From Berlin: Lina Allemano, Jonas Westergaard & Lisa Wulff

Lina Allemano/Uli Kempendorff/Jonas Westergaard/Nathan Ott
Kunstfabrik Schlot
Berlin, Germany
March 24, 2025

Johann Greve is lately running a monthly Schlot Session at this lesser-known (but wonderful) basement jazz club in the Mitte part of town, open since 1993 (originally in Prenzlauer Berg, but shifting here in 2000). It's quite spacious for such a joint, with many tables for quaffing and nibbling snack bar-bites. The stage is well-placed in its sight-lines, and even this Monday nite gig was fairly well-populated, more by an observing crowd than a host of hopefuls for the later jam session. Yes, indeedy folks, the evening began with a named quartet of well-known players, two from different lands, the other pair natives who are regulars on the scene.

Lina Allemano (trumpet) divides her time between Canada (Toronto) and Germany, spending most of her time in Berlin, while Jonas Westergaard (bass) arrives from Denmark. Tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff and drummer Nathan Ott are native Berliners. Together they play unusual music (for a jam session evening), and it was already sounding well-honed on this, their first encounter in this particular formation.

Ambitiously and unusually, a major drum solo opened the proceedings, with frosted trumpet and breathy tenor following later, the bowed bass coming in last, for a registration of the theme. Westergaard offered a deliberately enunciated solo, making a gradual slow-tread, nudging Allemano forward by setting up a recurring figure. The horns hung their high tones out in the air, with Kempendorff taking his own solo, soon joined by Allemano for a twinning adventure, softly deconstructing the number.

"Take What You've Got" began with another tenor solo, alternating breath then blat, Ott's puffball mallets purposefully sparse. There was a cross-communion of horn chatter, spitting fire, leading into the third piece, where a clarinet made its appearance, but only fleetingly, before the tenor hung again. It sounded very much like some of the compositions seeped into one another. This foursome should definitely operate together soon, as they appeared to be enchanted by their own joint sounds, blending core-jazz with a kind of third stream classicism, and the odd bubbling of freeness. The quartet hung out at the jam session, but didn't take to the stage, unless such a thing happened following your scribe's wending his way homeward.

Lisa Wulff & Poison Ivy
A-Trane
Berlin, Germany
March 25, 2025

The following night, it was Charlottenberg instead, for a visit to Berlin's key jazz club, the A-Trane, which is way smaller than Schlot, but often features some of the starriest names on the international scene. It's also on street-level, rather than down steps. Tables but no food, although they always offer dark beer-brew on tap, unlike most Berlin jazz haunts. The second set of bassist Lisa Wulff's Poison Ivy quartet probably caught them in a more climactic state than the first. Wulff comes from Hamburg, and won the German Jazz Prize for bass in 2023. Poison Ivy also includes Adrian Hanack (tenor saxophone), Frank Chastenier (piano) and Silvan Strauss (drums).

A very quiet piano solo paved the way for Hanack's eventual entrance, his solo lifting up with an organic construction, hitting on an a capella finish. He switched to clarinet for the next tune, a fleeter rush, with traps a-clackin,' breezing more openly, with Chastenier's piano driving this time, although toning down the pace during his own solo. Wulff herself took a fluid, articulate solo, followed by a rattle and a clatter of a drum feature. Strauss digs his skin-tones and rim-brittling, but eventually began trading with his bandmates, making this feel like an early climax to the set.

The third composition had a lone bass introduction, with a classical development, Hanack turning to flute. Next, Wulff played an electric bass, but a coolness-emanating tiny construction, good for hand luggage. The funk entered the club. Hanack developed a poking tenor edge, then it all subdued itself for a loungey piano solo, marking Chastenier as this band's governor of subtlety. Wulff made a delicate bass navigation around his pools, before a jangling and jabbing break-up to the funkness. There was a well-deserved encore, "Nightmares And Daydreams," its grumbling theme returning periodically, with the drums on their highest clatter-setting. The style-contrasts between piano and the drums/saxophone axis are well-pitted together, with the bandleader standing literally in the middle-space.

Comments