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!

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.

Sonny Rollins, Charles Lloyd, Bill Frisell, Miroslav Vitous, Joe Locke

The Sonny Rollins 'Saxophone Colossus' tour played in Perugia last night and like Vienne last week Rollins was in excellent form - here playing one long set - of the same material - and as in Vienne to the delight of this large stadium crowd.

During the afternoon I saw two excellent and contrasting concerts. Bill Frisell, looking relaxed and happy to be back playing in Perugia (he is doing several concerts here over the course of the festival). Exploring the 70's and 80's popular music songbook, playing exceptional guitar moving from lush hypnotic rhythms to heavy rock distortion the set was full of surprises - not least a beautiful version of 'What the world needs now' - stunning.

Soon after and on a completely different note (if you will pardon the pun) Ramberto Ciammarughi (Piano), Miroslav Vitous (Bass) and Fabrizio Sferra (Drums) played a suite of music that was a tour De force both for Ciammarughi and Vitous - at times intense, dense layers of sound followed by cool soothing passages all kept neat and tidy by Sferra'a sensitive drumming.

Later (much later!) in the Rocca Paolina Sala Cannoniera (a venue deep inside this ancient fortress) Joe Lock and his band, who have a residency here, played a great set of Locke originals and standards (including one by Sonny Rollins, who was still playing in the main arena).

Locke is the supreme master of the vibes, extracting every tone and nuance he can from the mallets and the keys and his flamboyant playing style is a joy to watch - not for Joe the head down eyes closed introspective playing style of so many great musicians.

Last concert of the day (or morning by now) was Charles Lloyd playing with a great band of Jason Moran (Piano), Reuben Rogers (Bass) and the great Eric Harland on the drums.

This was a terrific set with Lloyd playing forceful sax and really sensitive and haunting flute, in contrast to Rollins style earlier in the evening, Lloyd had an edge to his sax that drove the band on - Moran's piano playing is always a delight and in Lloyds company he made the most of the space he had and made for himself.