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Archives: Juli 2015

It’s almost august, windy, rainy and cold in Amsterdam. Good to leave for 10 days in warmer Lisbon to attend renowned Jazz em Agosto Festival there at the Gulbenkian Foundation.

It was in the summer of 2008 that I first got in contact with this Lisbon Festival organized in the first two weeks of august by the Gulbenkian Foundation. I came to Portugal at that moment to join two concerts of the group of ûd-player Rabih Abou-Khalil with fado singer Ricardo Ribeiro*, first at coastal place São Martinho do Porto and then at Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon. I travelled with my 14 year old son Dikran and when we were in Lisbon, we stayed in an apartment in Alfama, at the foot of the Monastery Såo Vicente de Fora. Alfama is Lisbon’s oldest district, the old Moorish town spreading on the slope between the São Jorge Castle and the Tejo river. The great 1755 Earthquake did not destroy the Alfama, which has remained a picturesque labyrinth of narrow streets and small squares. It was the best possible first acquaintance staying in the Alfama labyrinth.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Except the Rabih Abou-Khalil concert I had two appointments there, one with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier who was performing at the festival Jazz em Agosto, and then other with Pedro Costa of Clean Feed Records at the record shop Trem Azul on Rua do Alecrím near landing point Cais do Sodre at the Tejo river**.
 
 
 

 
 
 
In retrospect prominent scenes of concerts and personal meetings pop up immediately of the four editions of Jazz em Agosto festival I attented: the playful performance of bassist Barre Phillips and accordionist Philippe Contet (2008), the conduction of Butch Morris (2009), the performance of legendary trumpeter Bill Dixon with Chicagoan Exploding Star Orchestra (2009), the concert of the 19-piece Electro-Acoustic Ensemble of Evan Parker (2010), the first performances of Peter Evans (2009) and of saxophonist Darius Jones (2011) I ever saw, and Wadada Leo Smith’s ensemble Organic (2011). I have lively and precious memories of talks with Sylvie Courvoisier, Hernani Faustino, Pedro Costa, Rodrigo Amado, Gabriel Ferrandini, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Bill Dixon, Jack DeJohnette, Darius Jones, Ingrid Laubrock and Cecil Taylor.
 
 
 

 
 
 
It would have been impossible at other festivals to meet musicians and groups like in Lisbon and see them working and performing in such lush urban ambiance. Especially the atmosphere of the nightly outdoor concerts at the amphitheatre in the park of the Gulbenkian Foundation Is unforgettable and a special experience again every time. This year the number of concerts are reduced but will all be outdoors in the amphitheatre.
 
 
 

 
 
 
This year’s program offers a challenging melange of European and North American spearheading music. It starts on Friday, July 31, with a strong Scandinavian glaciation stream mainly from Sweden, the 19-piece Fire! Orchestra and the quintet Swedish Azz complemented by Austrian-Portuguese orchestral power with the Orquestra Jazz de Matesinhos from Porto with the update of Michael Mantler’s ground-breaking work for the first Jazz Composer’s Orchestra in 1968***.

This will be followed in the second half of next week by the Portuguese Red Trio joined by extraordinary British reedist John Butcher +. Thursday and Friday will have two impure jazz combinations: DJ Illvibe s will enter a playful family party with elderly legends Aki Takase and Alexander von Schlippenbach. Norwegian bass-canon Ingebrigt Håker Flaten will join forces with some hard-boiled young musical beasts called The Young Mothers****. It will all lead into a double peaking apotheosis, first the trio of Wadada Leo Smith, Henry Threadgill and Marcus Gillmore performing Wadada’s Great Lake Suites and then ending up with Orchestre National de Jazz*****.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Mats-olof Gustafsson is the man of this year’s festival summer. Artist in residence at Moldejazz and multiple appearances with “his” 19-piece Fire! Orchestra at European festivals******. And also at Jazz em Agosto he will act in an important role. It reveals he is a kind of core artist of the festival:

“Gustafsson has performed at Jazz em Agosto nine times, making him the festival’s most frequent performer. Those concerts have covered a broad spectrum, including appearances as a featured performer in other people’s bands, often with strong evidence of the free-jazz inheritance.” (p. 72 (Broomer e.a.)).

For the 30th edition of the festival in 2013 the Gulbenkian Foundation produced a book with 50 profiles out of musicians and groups who had played the festival, from Muhal Richard Abrahams to John Zorn:

Stuart Broomer/Brian Morton/Bill Shoemaker, Arrivals/Departures – New Horizons at Jazz em Agosto, Lisbon. Gulbenkian Musica. Lisbon 2014
 
 
 

 
 
 
*
It is related to the album Em Portugues (released in september 2008 on Enja label)

**
The interview with Sylvie Courvoisier was published in German magazine Jazzthetik. In the Clean Feed item nobody was interested in Germany or The Netherlands then.

***
It was also performed at Moers Festival with the Austrian Grand Cuisine Big Band. See my review.

****
See my recent radio program
+
See my radio program in 2011

*****
See my review of the orchestra’s appearance at Moers Festival and Jazzdor Berlin

******
See my review of Copenhagen Jazz Festival
 
 
©FoBo_HenningBolte
 

Does your creativity boost in a coffee shop atmosphere, but there is no café around? No problem, on coffitivity.com you can choose between morning murmur (gentle hum), lunchtime lounge (bustling chatter) and university undertones (scholarly sounds). Imagine the surreal feeling to listen to these sounds in an empty café.

2015 28 Jul

Music For Church Cleaners

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„Solo organ works in modern music are extremely rare, and especially improvised performances, such as this one by Irish harpist Áine O’Dwyer. She was given access to the pipe organ in St Mark’s Church in Islington, UK, „while the cleaners were at work“, hence the title of the album.

I am not an organ fan, I don’t like the pompous and dramatic multiphonic dynamics of it, of this first kind of acoustic synthesizer, the overpowering and religious connotations of the instrument, reminiscent of the so dreaded realm of falsehood, fakery and kitsch of childhood church experiences.

Yet to O’Dwyer’s credit, she plays the instrument quietly, slowly and reverently, using the church’s space as an inspiration. The ambient sounds of the church, not only cleaners, but also visitors and children give the overall sound a special dimension, one that is not out there in the stratosphere and even higher heavens, but one that is close to earth, contrasting sharply with the surroundings.

I like it a lot, despite my bias against the instrument.“

(freejazzblog.org)

2015 28 Jul

Inside the loop and other states of „Eden“

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the trailer

 

„… an excellent film about states of trance and ambient fields that you might love even if your French house and garage music passion does not really exist.“ (m.e.)

2015 28 Jul

Don’t Hassel The Hoff!

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There might be something smart-alec-like about telling readers a memory with totally cool classics that soundtracked your teenage years, so it might help to add a guilty pleasure. It happened in the 80’s. I belonged to millions who looked „Knight Rider“ on TV. Starring Michael Hasselhoff. And I wasn’t 12 years old anymore.  Some remember: a car that speaks, „a man who makes a difference“. He did „Baywatch“, too. And started a career as a rock musician. After „Knight Rider“, I stopped following his paths, but I have to confess, though it was totally ridiculous, I liked the pure escapism of the stories with the intelligent car being your best buddy. There was nothing subversive. Counter-culture was a millon miles away, it was all childish. Now, „The Hoff“ is back. David Hasselhoff arrives in England to reinvent himself as a serious film actor by starring in an avant-garde biopic about his own life. A fantastic and very funny way to reflect the traps, the chaos, the rock bottom. Demon alcohol. The downward spiral. First and last season, six episodes. Titled: „Hoff The Record“. Fucking brilliant, but you only can enjoy it full circle, in case you once had seen at least some episodes of „Knight Rider“.

Read the blog in Cafe Leiss. American Breakfast. Electronic Calendars. Beat poetry. Django Reinhardt. Conny & Duke. The weather is fun, clouds, rain, sunny periods. I was taking a bath the other day, and I was shortly reminded of my Portugese swim accident last year – a soft flashback, but, for a second,  I looked behind my back, no black cliff, for god’s sake. I have an old acquaintance here who introduced me to Riley Walker’s new album „Primrose Green“, a fresh take on 70’s folk with some jazz vibes and psychedelic colouring.  The spirit of Tim Buckley. Tim had loved Keith Jarrett’s solo albums. A lot of great folk pioneers were testing borders, and loved the territories of free improvisations. It’s amazing to listen to a vinyl album on an island that is – in my case – flooded with teenager memories of romantic feelings, yearning & insecurity – and a Dual record player with a panoramic view to the sea. Like inside an early Wim Wenders movie. In that time, long gone, the records that entered (let’s call it that way for a moment) „my soul“ (fragile, breakable, agnostic) were all treasures: Blue, Dis, Sgt. Pepper, A Love Supreme, Face To Face, Liege and Lief, The Harder They Come.

2015 28 Jul

For a guitar (Riley Walker says)

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There’s something macho about guitars that I hate – this bullshit associated with the advertising for Gibson and Fender – guys playing like this (makes pained face). Guild make great guitars, they’re handcrafted and they sound amazing. It’s a guitar that can sit in your house for 30 years, and you can just pick it up and play it. Working-class guitars for working-class people. Mine’s beat to shit, it got some miles on it. It has a resale value of nothing. I’ve dropped it, scratched it up a bunch, thrown it across a stage – not in anger, you should only throw a guitar in celebration – but it holds up. It’s a warhorse, man! You can be on the highway doing 80 miles an hour, go „Fuck it“ and throw it out, and it’ll still come back going „I got one more song, man!“ I know the inside and the outside of that guitar, but it’s filthy. I think if I cleaned it, I’d lose it all. For recording I use a pickup, and i’ve a couple of mics trained on it. The pickup goes through an old amp which is mic’d up. I love the sound of the amp, it gives it some urrrgghh! It’s like the old cousin singing alongside the great tenor. You gotta have a mixture of those two worlds, I think.

 

A short film about Riley Walker …

2015 28 Jul

Breakfast in America

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2015 28 Jul

The Electronic Calendar

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„I live alone, like pith in a tree,
My teeth rattle, like musical instruments.
In one ear a spider spins it’s web of eyes,
In the other a cricket chirps all night,
This is the end.
Which art, that proves my glory has brought me.
I would die for Poetry.“

 

Jeder aus der Beatgeneration kennt das Gedicht HOWL von Allen Ginsberg. Wenigen ist Bob Kaufmann in Erinnerung. Er (1925-86) war der einzige Schwarze unter den Dichtern der Beatniks. Seine Nähe zum Jazz, er nannte seinen Sohn Parker, spürt man auf in seinen Gedichten. Seine ästhetische Quelle war Miles Davis. Er improvisierte meist frei und laut … Er rief seine Gedichte in die Fenster von North Beach/S.F. hinein …

Gestern Abend sah ich einen Film über den Maler Henry Lautrec im belgischen TV. Ich dachte an Bob Kaufman, den man auch wegen seiner Possen und Originalität für verrückt erklärte und wie Lautrec eine Elektroschocktherapie aufzwang.

Was für feine drives und illusions in seinen Gedichten herrschen:
 

„O man in inner basement core of me, maroon obliteration smelling future of green anticipated comings, pasts denied, now time to thwart time, time to frieze illusionary motion on far imagined walls, stopped bleeding moon dial clocks, booming out dead hours – gone … gone … gone … gone …“ (poem SECOND APRIL)

 

Als Bob Kaufmann starb, spielte KJAZ, der Jazz Sender von San Francisco nur Stücke von Charlie Parker.

And now let’s jump on the FLYING MUSHROOMS von Carsten Höller and fly to  L.A., um unsere Musicmind zu erweitern, genauer gesagt zu Drew Lesso. Was für einen großartig vorzeigbaren Bogen hat er von der Beatmusik bis zur Computermusik gespannt.

Drew Less ist 1949 in Pittsburgh (?) geboren. Er beherrscht alle Musikrichtungen. Sein Studium bei Stockhausen, sein Interesse für Astronomie und PCS waren ausschlaggebend für das, was er heute ist: a computer music composer. Er komponiert, was er in der visuellen Art weltweit sieht.

Wer sich für Algorithmus Musik interessiert, sollte in die Welt von www.drew lesso.com Almost music eintauchen … – Eine hoffentlich vielversprechende Anregung.


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