Umbria Jazz Festival 13th July

Monday at the festival and the first of three shows by Joe Locke, Dado Moroni and Rosario Giuliani. Joe has played at Umbria Jazz for the past four years and his contribution to the festival is now legendary. Playing and recording these three days with two excellent sparing partners in Giuliani on sax and Moroni on piano - this is a vibrant expansive trio with all three sharing the writing duties. The Cd which will come out on Agea will be well worth investigating - the trio are playing very contemplative music with excellent searching solos from all three.

On the main stage we had a very special show featuring two great exponents of the piano. On the left was Chick Corea, a pianist who's carear needs no introduction on on the right Stefano Bollani a hugely talented pianist (he won the jazz musician of the year prize at the North Sea Jazz Festival a few days ago) who is an electric a personality as he is a pianist. His style swings widely from classical to free improv but he never fails to impress or entertain.

playing a mixture of standards and self penned tunes the pair kept a constant conversation of music through the evening, with humour, inventiveness and sheer mastery of the instruments - this was pure magic. It could be said that they never let rip and 'rocked' for want of a better word, but they kept total control of what they were doing and made the music the event, not the players.





The midnight show on the other hand was a riot of up tempo (latin)beat music. Richard Galliano joined by regular companion Gonzalo Rubalcaba on piano, Richard Bona on bass and Clarence Penn on the kit. It may have been past midnight when the show got under way but the sheer vitality of the music had the whole audience swaying with the beat and the excellent soloing from Galliano, Bona and Rubalcaba. A great show, and the audience would have kept the band in the Morlacchi all night had they been allowed!

London Jazz Festival Sunday 23rd

So last day of the festival, and back at the South Bank for a whole series of free concerts and some rather special headline events too.

First off at the Clore Ballroom was a 'BBC Introducing' show featuring some new and not so new bands on the scene. The Mighty Jeddo, featuring Daniel Crosby and chums started proceedings with a set that could have easily marked the beginning of judgement day. Daniel drumming like he only had 10 minutes left on this earth and he was going to use that time to to hit his drums as often and as hard as he could. Ably assisted in his task Shabaka Hutchings on sax and the excellent Peter Edwards on keys this band were taking no prisoners - they even had a go at good old Tizer - whatever next!






...well whatever next was Chris Sharleys new project Trio VD (I'm reliably informed that stands for Valentines Day)...

Playing quirky angular music with lots of spikey bits and plenty of energy, live this trio sound vibrant and happening. Edition have the demo Chris and the band recorded and we are in talks about a possible release when the album has been recorded, we are very excited!

The sets ate the Ballroom continued with Robert Mitchell and Pete Warehams Final Terror and very good they were too (as I was told)..

I moved over to the Purcell Room to catch Andy Sheppard preparing for his 'Melody Gainsbourg' show - featuring a star studded cast of Nguyen Le and Angelo Bruschini on guitars, Michel Benita on Bass, Seb Rochford on drums and Ma Chenka on vocals.

The line up were sounding pretty good in rehershal, Le playing some super delicate little runs on guitar and Andy sounding suitably sexy on saxes. Ms Chenka's vocals having been honed o years of Gauloise and (probably) late nights was just perfect!

Next door in the QE Hall Bireli Lagrene and his trio were also adding a little Gallic flair to the surroundings and with the addition of the great guitarist Martin Taylor sounded like the audience here were set for a very good evening of guitar virtuosity.

So for the big show of the night back to the Festival Hall for the much anticipated show of the festival - Chick Corea and John McLaughlin. The set began with a duet between Chick & John, a quite reflective piece, and then the rest of the band joined them on stage for a much more up-tempo vamp with some fine soloing from McLaughlin and Kenny Garrett (when they got his radio mike working!). As usual photographers only got to stay for the first 2 tures and so reluctantly I had to leave. It looked set to be a vintage performance!

To round off the weekend and the festival I went with fellow photographer David Redfern to Ronnies for the Laurence Cottle big band featuring Claire Martin. This was the perfect antedote for a hectic weekend with some really nice playing from Martin Shaw, Mark Nightingale and Nigel Hitchcock. Claire was on excellent form especially for Laurence's arrangement of Soft Cell's 'Tainted Love', which took on a whole new meaning in her version. A great way to end a frenetic week of Jazz in what has been a great London Festival.