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 Sunday 16th

I spent all of Sunday at the shows on the South Bank - flitting between the QE Hall and the Festival Hall. First up was a great show featuring Tommy Smith conducting his own youth Jazz Orchestra - and very entertaining too. The second part of the concert featured the might of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra playing the music of Steely Dan - being a long time Becker & Fagan fan I can tell you this was stupendous stuff - Graeme Scott on guitar as cool as a very cool thing in a freezer! Plaudits for them coming to play - up at 4 to catch a plane at 6 and all this after playing a 2am gig last night.

Meanwhile over the walkway, Gary Crosby and friends were playing for anyone who wanted to have a go at singing prior to the show at the Ballroom at the Festival Hall - very good it was too - there are some surprisingly good closet vocalists out there!

The show at the Ballroom was a riotous affair with a stage full of singers all bursting their lings to give it up for the fantastically appreciative audience (OK probably all relatives!) but it was a terrific show, brought to a wonderful climax by Lianne Carroll at the piano - great fun to be on stage and great fun to watch.

Back in the Purcell Room Rudresh Mahanthappa and Vijay Iyer were getting their soundcheck underway - slight problems with Carlo De Rosa's bass amp delayed things a little - but what I heard was certainly very powerful.

John Cumming catches up with Rudresh!

Last thing for the day was the double bill in the QE Hall. Featuring a first half of extraordinary music from Russians Alexander Balanescu and Evelina Petrova, on violin and piano accordion.

Humorous, tense, passionate, romantic and quite dark this set had it all. Balanescu's playing quite superb and with Petrova's voice an instrument in itself this was great - an audience member was so moved he came on stage to give Petrova a bunch of flowers!

Last on stage were Richard Galliano and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Galliano no stranger to these shores but for Rubalcaba this is a rare performance in the UK. The set was in three parts - Galliano played a set solo, followed by a solo set from the Cuban pianist and finally the pair took the stage together. Gonzalo's set was as intense a set as I have ever seen from a pianist - every note was meticulously planned and played and the music seemed to fall from the tips of his fingers. The duet was tremendous with Galliano listening and replying to Rubalcaba's path and then taking over and leading - a real ebb and flow of ideas - they were so into the music that they overrun their allotted time - the sound desk jumping up and down to remind them of the time!! A great well balanced show