London Jazz Festival Friday 21st November

Back in London for the second weekend of the Jazz Festival and started the evening at the soundcheck of one of my favourite performers Gilad Atzmon. Here playing his Charlie Parker tribute complete with the strings of the Sigamos Quartet. Having heard Francesco Cafiso play the same set with the strings of Perugia two years ago I am confident to say that this version was every bit as good Frank Harrison, Yaron Stavi & Asaf Sirkis excellent in support (as ever!)

Next door in the QE Hall the soundcheck for the evenings performance was underway. Tom Cawley and Ayanna Witter-Johnson were preparing for their show. I have not seen or heard Ayanna before this and was totally knocked out by her playing and her wonderful voice - but these attributes wouldbe worthless without first class material - the duo have this in bucketfulls! I really would have liked to have heard this show - Tom's piano during the soundcheck was sublime - well worth checking this duo out!

Before Tom & Ayanna came on stage we saw the might of the Jack DeJohnette/Sibongile Khumalo band in rehersal with Edition friends Jason Yarde and Byron Wallen (nice hat Byron!) - with on acoustic bass and voice, Jerome Harris - and on piano Billy Childs. Class act, beautiful songs and Sibongile has an astonishong voice full of soul and deep meaning - again this must have been one of the best double bills at the festival

...the red lead is connected to the blue lead etc etc...

something not quite right with this set up...

should I wear this hat in the gig?

Over in the Festival Hall, the double bill was started by Jose James - straight in from the US of A and warmly received by the capacity crowd - a great soulfull voice and some fantastic piano accompaniement by Robert Mitchell a real star!

After a short break we were back with the musical mayhem of Matthew Herbert - looking like he was auditioning for the role of next baddy in a soon to be made Batman movie - he controlled the big band expertly and the concert got better and better as band and crowd warmed to each other. Eska Mtungwazi looking and sounding superb!

Before heading over to Ronnie Scotts for the last show of the evening had just enough time to catch some of the Live to Europe Radio show featuring Stan Tracey, Tom Bancroft and Neil Cowley - which leads me to coment that we here in the UK must have some of the best most versatile pianists in the world at the moment.

Anyway talking of pianists lets have a great round of applause for the great John Horler, pianist to Dame Cleo for more years that he would care to mention and an outstanding musicican and great composer to boot. After such a frenetic evening is was great to sit and listen to some superb musicians playing superb music - as the old addage says there is many a good tune to be had from an old fiddle.

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