2024 had been a busy year on the Jazz In Britain front with a range of new releases from our archives, plus two albums of newly recorded material. Early in the year we set up a new imprint Jazz Now, and Eternal Triangle's debut album 'Gravity' was released in April, closely followed by 'You Are Here' by Kevin Figes. Kevin played in several of Keith Tippett's later ensembles and the album is dedicated to Keith's memory. In another first for Jazz In Britain, we held a launch event for 'You Are Here' at Bristol Beacon which was well supported and a memorable occasion.
From the archives there have been releases from the cream of British Jazz, including Dave Green, Trevor Watts, Gordon Beck , Ray Russell and two from Bobby Wellins, as well as Chris Searle's excellent book Talking The Groove, which features a selection of his reviews and interviews from The Morning Star over the last 15 years or so.
GIGS OF THE YEAR 2024
I've attended several excellent gigs during 2024 and here are the cream of the crop.
My personal gig of the year was the performance by Dutch band Under The Surface at Sudbury Arts Centre in June. It's difficult to put a handle on UTS's music as every gig is different, but to me they are making some of the most exciting music around at the moment. You'll see my full review of the gig if you scroll down.
Nat Birchall's Unity Ensemble played an excellent gig at London's Café OTO in May, which also featured Mark Wastell and British sax legend Alan Skidmore. There is a full review in the blog.
Another favourite was Alexander Hawkins & Marco Collonna's performance at Wakefield Jazz in October, which featured the music of Eric Dolphy alongside some of Marco's original compositions; again, the full review is below.
Later in October, I attended a recital by the Gavin Bryars Ensemble also at Café OTO. It was the first time I had seen Bryars perform live and although now in his 80s, he and the rest of the group played a mesmerising set of his arrangements of pieces by Carla Bley and Tom Waits as well as his own compositions, including two of my favourites, The Flower of Friendship and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet.
Gavin Bryars Ensemble at Cafe OTO
The final event in my gig calendar for the year took me to one of my favourite venues, The Lescar in Sheffield. Last Wednesday they played host to British guitarist Rob Luft and the Albanian/Swiss chanteuse Elina Duni, whose sultry, smoky voice delivered a selection of original compositions and standards, plus songs by Jacques Brel and Charlie Haden, accompanied throughout by Luft's multi layered guitar. All in all, an enchanting evening.
Elina Duni, Rob Luft
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2024
At the beginning of the year I was sent a copy of a CD by Roberto Ottaviano's Eternal Love Quintet called People. The album is a selection of pieces devoted to people that have inspired Ottaviano and shaped his career. Some of these he played with, such as Misha Mengelberg or the great South African trumpeter Mongezi Feza. Indeed, there is a South African feel which pervades throughout the album. Other pieces are inspired larger than life figures such as diva Maria Callas or racing driver Niki Lauda.
Recorded live at various venues around Europe during 2022 and 2023 this is an absolute peach of an album. Eternal love pervades throughout the album's 8 tracks and I heartily recommend it to anyone.
Roberto Ottaviano, soprano sax, vocals; Marco Colonna, bass clarinet; Alexander Hawkins, piano; Giovanni Maier, double bass; Zeno de Rossi, drums.
'People' is released on Dodicilune Records (Ed560).
My album of the year for 2024 is Invisible Ropes by Sun-Mi Hong's BIDA Orchestra. This album was commissioned by BIMHUIS in Amsterdam as part of their ongoing REFLEX strand, which allows Dutch based artists to create new work which is then premiered at the venue.
For this commission South Korean drummer Sun-Mi Hong put together an international sextet featuring John Dikeman (US) on tenor sax, Mette Rasmussen (Denmark) alto sax, Alistair Payne (Scotland) trumpet, Jozef Dumoulin (Belgium) piano & Rhodes and John Edwards (England) on double bass.
The album opener, Big Fly sees Dikeman delivering a tenor sax tour de force accompanied by Sun-Mi's insistent drums and sets the tone for the rest of the set. This is fast, fearless music and the standard of improvising is superb throughout.
The track titles are unusual to say the least, for example, Temple of a Thousand Neon Leggings or Running Horse Candle. In a short promotional video Sun-Mi Hong explains; 'For this project I wrote music based on my dreams, my dreams are nonsense...' and there is a sense of chaos that pervades throughout this music, and yet it is an organised chaos and the momentum rarely drops in intensity in over an hour of playing.
For me the high point is Dust Bowl 1 the main focus of which is Mette Rasmussen's excoriating alto sax accompanied by Edwards thrashing his bass for all it's worth and Sun-Mi's unique drumming style under-pinning the whole thing.
This is a truly remarkable album and I sincerely hope that this sextet are given the opportunity to record again in the future.
Invisible Ropes is released on BIMHUIS Records (BIM019)
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