Roy Ayers, Chaka Khan, Enrico Pieranunzi, Riccardo Arrighini

The Soul & Funk night at the Umbria Jazz Festival featured Vibes player Roy Ayers and soul queen Chaka Khan.

Ayers brand of Acid Jazz is extremely popular in Italy and a large crowd whooped and hollered through his set. Playing with a very hot tight band Ayers also had time to show off his vibes skill along with singing and generaly getting the crowd into party mood.

Chaka Khan, energetic and bouncy ripped through all of her hits and thoroughly entertained this great arena


The two jazz performances at the Pavone and Morlacchi theatres were decidedly different.

In the afternoon Riccardo Arrighini complete with orchestra played a concert of jazz versions of Puccini opera - it was different! Nessun Dorma played in the style of Fats Waller?


The midnight concert was an altogether different affair featuring straight ahead driving jazz featuring Enrico Pieranuzi on piano, Rosario Giuliani on sax's and Bert Joris on trumpet, playing tunes from the new Cd 'Soft Journey' this was an excellent set of well constructed and played music. Giuliani is an excellent soloist finding great room for improvisation within the compositions.

DSQ @ Swanage Jazz

Dave Stapleton Quintet - Swanage Jazz Festival

A midday gig in a marquee in the middle of a field. It wasn't a massive audience but we seemed to go down well to those who were there - some nice comments afterwards! Swanage was a nice place to play - bit of a drive - but worth it. Some photos from the gig...



















































































Musically we had a great gig, playing our usual set. We will be playing some new tunes from September onwards, I've been writing quite a bit lately so I want to gradually introduce these new tunes into the set. ur next gig is at Budapest Jazz Festival in Sept, then in the UK we are playing Lincoln on 4th October, Birmingham on 10th and Cork Jazz on 24th. Hope you can make it to one of those!

Dave

Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Bobby Hutcherson

It was Vibraphone heaven here in Perugia last night!

The Gary Burton Quartet Revisited was the main event in the Arena Santa Giuliana - featuring Burton, Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow and Antonio Sanchez the stage was set for some excellent music from this quartet of world class players.

The set included Metheny's B & G (Midwestern Nights Dream), Keith Jarrett's Coral and a beautiful duet between Burton & Metheny.

I really enjoyed this concert, Metheny keeping the effects to a minimum and playing some superb lyrical guitar, Burton, well, being Gary Burton never playing two notes where only one is needed and Steve Swallow, who must surely rank as one of the worlds best electric bass players, playing with his distinctive style, tone and intonation.

The only thing, for me anyway, that was missing was a bit of fire or a spark to really ignite this band into a truly stellar performance. None of the band particularly connected with the audience all playing 'heads down' and the passion - which we all know is there in this music - just did not translate to me in the audience.

Joe Locke, who has featured a couple of times in my blog continues his brand of vibes bringing huge emotion to his compositions and to this new quartet - the new CD from this line up will be terrific and is already top of my shopping list.

The midnight show featured another vibes player Bobby Hutcherson, a guy who has been around for quite a while - he has had a long association with McCoy Tyner. Equally well know as a player and composer, and cited as an influence by Locke (who was there to see his show).

Hutchersons set was a great mix of jazzy blues played with style and passion - Joe Gilman's great piano runs and some truly great drumming from Eddie Marshall who commanded the stage from his kit bursting into small really intense solo's interspersed with really cool brushwork when Hutcherson was at the vibes.

This was a great day for anyone who enjoyed the vibes and here in Perugia we had three excellent and totally different showcases for the instrument - and tonight it carries on with the huge talent of Roy Ayres!

Herbie Hancock & Charlie Haden

The first show of the day at the Teatro Pavone featured a solo performance by Danilo Rea - a wonderful pianist with a great range of styles and techniques - we saw him last year when he was outstanding and he was just as good in this performance.

The late afternoon show featuring Francesco Fabri was sadly cancelled but a reception hosted by piano manufacturers Fazioli more than made up for any disappointment. Held at the very posh Hotel Brufani the party was to celebrate owner Paulo Fazioli's birthday and who better to play 'Happy Birthday' then Fazioli ambassador Herbie Hancock.

Surrounded by at least a dozen photographers Hancock was unruffled as he sat and played two of the pianos on display (not at the same time of course!). Hancock also had a reunion with friend Yasuhiro Fujioka (Fuji to you and me) - and as reported in yesterdays blog it was Fuji's birthday - which prompted another version of 'Happy Birthday' played by Hancock and a tune specially for him. Rather more weird (in a very nice way) Enzo 'The Bear' (Chief of security and bouncing) for the festival then sat at the same piano as Hancock and proceeded to give a recital of the most beautiful ballads, muttering under his breath as he played 'Herbie who?'.

The Chief member of the Enzo fan club also sat in for a song.

The midnight show featured the Charlie Haden 4tet West with Alan Broadbent (Piano), Ernie Watts (sax) and Rodney Green on drums. The show featured material both recent and going back a long way - including a song he recorded with Ornette Coleman in 1957 - 'Lonely Woman'.

This was a great concert with all the musicians contributing not just great solos but also fantastic interplay and great understanding - Broadbents' gentle style and Watts contrasting energy were just sublime.

Enrico Rava & Philip Catherine

The main concert in the arena last night was Roberta Flack - the same show as in Vienne last week so I won't repeat my comments from then!

The midnight show was an excellent collaboration between Trumpeter Enrico Rava and Guitarist Philip Catherine. The pairing produced an astonishing show full of contrasts and some exquisite playing not just from the front two but also from bassist Riccardo Del Fra and drummer Aldo Romano.

The duet between Catherine and Del Fra was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the show.

Rava's playing and interpretation is just sublime and his sound with subtle reverb suited this theatre perfectly.

Earlier in the evening at the Rocca Paolina Harry Allen and Joe Cohn played as part of their series of concerts at this venue. Very laid back and full of emotion the pairing have been receiving great reviews and good audiences for their daily shows.

My friend Fuji had his 'Coltrane Reference' book launch here yesterday too. A well attended reception heard about his toil with this book and his search for Coltrane information.

It was also his 55 birthday which he celebrated in his own inimitable style!

Cassandra Wilson, David Sanborn, Stefano di Battista, Joe Locke

Cassandra Wilson and David Sanborn were the main attractions here last night in Perugia - after torrential rain during the afternoon the skies cleared just in time for the evening performance at the Arena Santa Guilliana.

Cassandra opened the show and with her smooth vocals and excellent band she gave a terrific show - outstanding was her haunting and really slow version of Glen Campbell's' 'Witchita Lineman' and her opening choice 'Caravan'.

David Sanborn played some excellent bop and blues and with his Italian brass section went down excellently with the home crowd - St Louis Blues, Basin Street Blues and Smile were great and the band were allowed plenty of space to show their stuff. Like Bill Frisell, Sanborn is re-discovering his roots and influences.


Later at the Midnight show Stefano di Battista and Flavio Boltro let rip and ran through a succession of hot numbers that the home crowd 'whooped and hollered' after every solo (and quite rightly too!). This is a great band - lets hope it comes to the UK.

We ended the evening at the 1am show with Joe Locke in the Rocco Paulina - this is a fantastic quartet, drummer Jonathan Blake is outstanding - one of those drummers who gets maximum sound from minimum exertion, with his low set kit his hands just rock from side to side to great effect. The whole ethos and purpose of this band seems to be of maximum enjoyment of both musicians and audience and having now seen two shows they are really succeeding.