Steve Lehman Octet live in Moers 2010

The internet media says: "pioneering, exciting, explore idiosyncratic sound, highly listenable, contemporary classical music, urban rhythms, striking new harmonies, sound very alien yet satisfyingly beautiful, academic jazz at its best, fresh, personal, unique, furious concentration, doggedly intense, unvarnished gutsiness, intellectual heft, fidgety beats and haunting counterpoint, tension between structure and spontaneity, clinical attention to frequency and overtone, knockabout post-bop avant-garde, perfectly ultramodern gesture, strong curiosity and identity, unique, thoroughly modern music, elusive style similar to rare true love or even passive/aggressive acquaintance, spatial alto, fresh and inventive progressive sounds, new, innovative music, intricate writing, brave journey into the future of jazz."

I didn't get it. I had read a lot about Lehman's octet, I had heard two or three songs from the latest album, and I really like Fieldwork (even the old one before the arrival of Tyshawn Sorey). But I didn't get it. The concert Lehman's Octet played in Moers was a gush of water rapidly passing by. It didn't touch me, didn't make me wet, didn't carry me away. I maybe didn't even get to the shore of this stream, but just beheld it through a slight layer of fog or through a stained window. Yes, I had read Lehman's introduction to spectralism on Destination:out, yes, I understood what all these long notes from the brass players meant, these notes that were popping up at seemingly odd moments of(f) the beat and introduce spectral harmony to jazz. I think the experience was overcharged. Though being theoretically prepared, my sensory organs couldn't grasp it and my brain couldn't make sense out of it. The wild and rhythmic groove from Sorey's drumset was sweeping, yet to me it felt like the peep-peep-peep from the other players was detached from that. The overall impression was: cold. The concert left me cold. And, while I have assembled random quotes of appraisal from reviews and blog posts, even in all these highly positive articles one could find the words, that are closer to my experience: "artificially created phrases, cold, rational and geometric, overall darkness, abstruse".
Lutz Eitel found this gig spectacular. /// edit 2010/06/02: see Lutz's comment below - there was some misunderstanding and misinterpretation of his usage of the word "spectacular". ///

A few days later, back home, I re-listened to a few of the pieces. Maybe the yeast is growing now? It seems on record I could get access to this more easily. I'm still not as enthusiastic about it as the internet buzz crowd, but the relationship between me and the Lehman octet might keep growing. As long as this relationship hasn't reached adolescence, I'll stick with Fieldwork. And I'm really not certain, if Lehman's spectralism would thrust jazz into the future or if it is merely a footnote. /// edit 2010/06/02: When thinking about the complicated music of Mr. Lehman again today, Shakespeare's famous line came into my mind: "a tale full of sound and fury / signifying nothing". ///

P.S.: Articles often mention as teachers and influences of Mr. Lehman: Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, George Lewis. But Threagill is warm, Braxton is flexible (amphibic?). Yes, George Lewis and Steve Lehman might be related in coldness.

(Shine on you crazy tuba cone)

The Steve Lehman Hype on the internet:
The interview buzz: By Jason Crane on his Jazz Session programme. A German podcast with some interview snippets at the Jazz Thing magazine's website - part one and two. By Josh Jackson on WBGO (plus a review in the Checkout New Music programme).
The blog buzz: Undomondo, Time Out New York, New York Times Playlist, A Blog Supreme, New Music Box.
And certainly the review buzz: Allmusic.com, Allaboutjazz.com #1 and #2, New York Times.
Already mentioned: Spectralism introduced by Mr. Lehman himself on Destination:out.

Carlo Mombelli & The Prisoners of Strange live in Moers 2010

The name of Carlo Mombelli's group was explained by the presenter before the concert: He said, Mombelli had played with big names of the South African music scene (like for instance Miriam Makeeba), but whenever he led his own groups, people felt them somehow strange. After a while the (mainstream) music business didn't want to produce or feature him anymore, so he became a prisoner of the label "strange", that had been stuck on him. It is important to stress that this story only works within a mainstream music business context - there's nothing strange to Mombelli's music in the context of Moers festival. The contrary is true: Within this Moers context his music sounded a little bit pop-oriented - which doesn't mean at all that it was bad music. The first and most obvious feature of the group's sound that attracted my attention was the lack of a harmony / chord instrument like guitar or piano. This was partly compensated by some synth-effects and loops triggered by Mombelli's bass and echos added to Marcus Wyatt's trumpet microphone. Furthermore Mombelli's way of playing the bass was often reminding of the Jaco Pastorius way - a way that needs to breathe freely and might be disturbed by chord instruments. I especially liked the overtone harmonics that he created with extended plucking or muting techniques on the bass strings. Justin Badenhorst's drumming was pertinent and Siya Makuzeni's singing very expressive - see a blogosphere appraisal of her skills at Free-quency.
And for Marcus Wyatt's trumpet playing I think I could use Kenny Wheeler as a reference point: just imagine a Kenny Wheeler who uses some of the above-mentioned electronic echo-processing techniques.
So much for the technical side of it. What made the set work so well was the spiritual side though. There was serenity flowing through it all the time. There were no extreme actions taken - they just didn't seem necessary -, yet still the musicians didn't avoid argument or to make a clear point. Sometime in the second half of the set Mombelli made some spoken statements too with a rather high and very tender voice. A voice you wouldn't associate with a bass man, but then again it made sense within the group's aesthetic. That was music to make people happy without blocking their ability of thinking. Music speaking to body and soul. Blogger Julia Grabsch loved it, too. Blogger Lutz Eitel didn't - so it goes (but his reference to Jon Hassell is true - he came to my mind as well).
After the show there was a rush from the audience area to the CD selling stand. It was a commercially smart move of Mombelli to tell people that the CD's not available in Europe yet.

There's a feature on South African jazz this week on the excellent Jazz Collection programme of public Swiss radio - it's downloadable (for four weeks at least - after that it can only be streamed, which is certainly also "downloadable" if you can handle streams) and there's a pdf sheet with info on the music played on the programme, all of it in German, but the music certainly speaks an international language. The programme also contains one piece of Mombelli and one piece of Marcus Wyatt.

Sanne van Hek's Network of Stoppages live at Moers Festival 2010

First and foremost I must be grateful to Sanne van Hek for something that's got nothing to do with her own concert at the Moers festival. I was telling you the day before yesterday what a revelation Tobias Klein was to me and that I liked every sound that came out from his instruments. Well, Klein was suggested to the morning sessions curator by Sanne van Hek. Without her suggestion the festival would have been poorer. But now to Mrs. van Hek herself.
She has already been staying in Moers since February as she was appointed to be this year's improviser in residence. A nice idea, modelled after other artist- or writer-in-residence prizes and probably quite enriching for the year-round cultural activities of this little town (I can't follow these activities though, as I'm living too far away). So, she started her activities a few weeks before the festival already - check the little interview on the official festival-blog. I thought I once saw a nice little video about her work as improviser in residence on a blog, but now I cannot find it anymore. It was really fun to see how she invited a group of kindergarten kids to her living room and started rocking loudly with her Black Napkins trio in this intimate setting. Some kids had to cover their ears and threw amused or bewildered glances at each other. The good thing about this residency is to give us people a chance to experience not just a concert as the ready "product" but also the artistic process and development of ideas - either in person or in writing.
The concert itself has been best described by Mr. Eitel already (see link to Plushmusic below), I don't think I could add anything substantial to it. Just a few remarks, though: Her trumpet playing is of a simple and mostly very melodic beauty, though not entirely original - it seems she's drawing a lot from Scandinavian sources. Her true strength in my eyes is not this trumpet playing but the conceptual outlines and designs of settings for improvisation.
And especially in the beginning it was great visual joy to see Koenrad Ecker grooving away - never saw any musician headbanging while sitting behind a laptop, but Ecker was getting close to that.
And I wish I had heard a bit more from Benoît Delbecq - the piano got a bit lost in the mix.



The usual links lead to Sanne's Myspace site and her blog and certainly to Plushmusic.

This concert actually is well-covered on Youtube, in short little snippets at least:

Super Seaweed Sex Scandal live in Moers 2010

A few weeks before the festival I became a Facebook friend of Super Seaweed Sex Scandal and could therefore hear about their happiness to be booked in Moers and then expand the whole thing into a little Europe tour. And sometime towards the end of the concert alto sax player Nonoko Yoshida adressed her thanks to the festival's artistic director again for booking them. That's all quite understandable: They're a young group - both from the players' age and from the mere 9 months they are playing together. In advance it was always stressed that they came together in New York's The Stone which is curated by John Zorn. That's no wonder, because there mere mentioning of that name describes the group's aesthetic quite well. They're not as wild and grindy as early Naked City (or Fantômas, which also sprang to my mind in the beginning of the concert), they add some more melodic/folky lines and let them breathe without hammering them down just a few seconds later, but they are after all certainly somewhere in the same galaxy. Their handwriting was not epigonal, yet somehow a bit shivering. I guess that's a bit lack of experience. They could make it clear what they wanted to say, but they didn't make their statements in a certain, definite way. It's good to see that Moers gives people like these a chance to experiment, experience and develop - not only for the main stage concert but also by splitting the group members up and let them play in the morning sessions.
What we could see here in the main concert was a young group full of potential. They could develop in a very positive way if they keep searching for their own voices and free themselves more and more from the John Zorn / Mike Patton patterns. But to my impression the decision isn't made yet - it's also still possible that they'll burn like moths getting to close to the light and become a mere footnote in the voluminous book of wunderkinder. Only time will tell... I wish them the best.
Before the concert started I told my wife about the Facebook messages I read from Super Seaweed Sex Scandal. I asked her to advice me after the concert if I should stay a Facebook friend of them or should quit the friendship. We both agreed after the concert that I should stay their virtual friend.

P.S. 1: I think this Youtube video shows a performance of the piece that also opened their gig in Moers.

P.S. 2: My wife with her synaesthetic mind for music saw insect images during the concert. She suggested the band to rename into "Super Insect Sex Scandal"

P.S. 3: I nearly forgot it - certainly you should also check out what Lutz Eitel wrote about John Zorn, Curlew, Dr. Nerve and the young guys.

P.S. 4: A poster.

P.S. 5: Kunst im öffentlichen Raum:

A Saturday Morning Session at Moers Festival 2010

The good thing about a good festival is, that you're very satisfied to see some of your favorite artists, but it wasn't a good festival if you couldn't discover something new. All the artists participating in the morning sessions were 100% unknown to me before I heard them perform in Moers. And the first morning session that we attended brought such wonderful discoveries.
There were always three performances going on at the same time, and knowing none of the musicians we felt free to pick one randomly. We don't know what we missed, but we liked the choice we made. The line-up of our sessions was Tobias Klein on alto sax and bass clarinet, Eve Risser on piano and prepared piano, Justin Badenhorst on drums, Viljam Nybacka on electric bass and John-Dennis Renken on trumpet. They had been mixed together by Angelika Niescier, a saxophonist who curated these sessions - and who later joined in to perform with the group as well. We had heard Risser as Donkey Monkey the day before and her playing here proved to be even stronger, more imaginative and versatile than the other day. I overheard somebody else from the audience saying that he hadn't been aware of the "pianistic qualities" of Risser before he had seen her acting in this context. Viljam Nybacka was switching between horizontal and vertical approaches to his electric bass, often using a spoon, sometimes a violin bow or other utensils - Frith-like. Justin Badenhorst played very thoughtfully and supportive to the other players. John-Dennis Renken came in with a strong and clear trumpet tone and names Cuong Vu and Arve Henriksen among his influences on his website. And now I kept the best for the end of my list: Tobias Klein was absolutely my favorite best new discovery of the whole festival. He's got everything: Most extended techniques, unusual sounds from his instruments, groove if wanted/needed, unassuming modestity and collegiality, fluency and dexterity and a high amount of instant inventiveness without any hesitation. Absolutely wonderful. How come such a wonderful musician is not famous in the jazz/improv-world? He absolutely deserves a wide attention! And why wasn't he booked for the main stage? Well, anyway, from the first day on we then saw him in every morning session - three times on the whole. Really couldn't get enough of him.

So, please check out his Tobias Klein's myspace page and allow yourself to get infected, too. After that you could also visit Eve Risser, Viljam Nybacka, and John-Dennis Renken.

Miss Platnum at Moers Festival 2010

(more pictures here)

On the one hand it seems to be common sense that this was the worst act ever booked in Moers. The lady who sold breakfast in front of the morning session hall was complaining about the Miss Platnum gig every morning. "Das ging gar nicht", she repeated again and again. Some don't even consider this gig to be worth speaking about. And somehow rightly so. It WAS the worst thing I saw in Moers during any of the four festivals that I have visited. Yet, there are things that could be said about it:
1) Miss Platnum is a purely commercial dancefloor music act.
2) Look at the photo below: There ARE quite a lot of people partying to this music. So there obviously IS an audience for this music in Moers.
3) We could even put Miss Platnum into a Moers tradition: Ivo Papasov played here in 1990, Fanfare Ciocarlia played in 1998, the Boban Marković Orkestra in 2001, Brotherhood of Brass in 2004 - and then Balkan beats went electronic with the appearance of Balkan Beat Box last year. Miss Platnum is the last and lowest point in this list, which we could actually read as a constant decline. I love Papasov and the the mentioned Fanfare, felt Boban and the Brotherhood were acceptable but a bit mediocre... actually I'm sometimes in the mood for listening to Balkan Beat Box, they are actually quite original, so I could say to invite them to Moers makes some sense, as well. And Miss Platnum? She doesn't make sense in the context of the previous festivals, but she might be a bridge to what is coming up.
4) It seems decided that next year the Moers festival as we used to know it will be cut by reducing the days from 4 to 3. I heard of plans that the fourth day then would be filled with a separate non-jazz, non-improv, commercial one-day festival. The parties involved in the organisation of the festival hope to relieve the financial problems with this. (That's strange, though. Press statements have it that Moers Festival this year had more visitors than ever before and that the tent was sold out every day. So even if they book more commercial acts in the future, they wouldn't get more people into the tent. Does that mean they're going to install a bigger tent next year? And if they have a commercial monday in the future, they will certainly be able to charge a high price to the monday visitors - but isn't that extra profit reduced by the need to pay higher salaries to the commercial musicians? Hmm, probably they will count on selling media rights then...)
5) So, Miss Platnum should be a guest for a commercial monday in the future. Though it is to be bemoaned that the Moers Festival would be shortened: If the future festival would put all commercial acts onto the Monday schedule, old-style Moers fans would be saved from harrassment like this... hopefully.
6) After 1) to 5) it isn't really necessary to mention it anymore, but... Besides the low quality of the music the sound quality and mixing of this concert was really lousy. At least as far as I could tell, because we left after the third or fourth song has been played and saved our energy for the coming days.
7) Somebody says, Miss Platnum brought "rhythm and movement" to Moers. But imho others rhythmed and moved better.

Colin Stetson, Matana Roberts & Shahzad Ismaily at Moers 2010

(More photos of the performance)

One day after this concert I overheard the conversation of two old jazz-fans. One of them said that the physical presence and power of Colin Stetson (a rather small man compared with his bass saxophone) was certainly impressive, but the musical skills of the man are hard to evaluate. There's not much reference for people who chose the bass sax as their main instrument. The man who made this statement was obviously rather doubtful. I'm not. The pumping circular breathing are a solid foundation and at the same time prove a sublime sense for rhythm on Stetson's side. Somewhere on the web I read that he liked to play solo bass sax concerts in front of rock audiences who were waiting for their standard so-called alternative rock breed. Some audiences were pissed off. Too bad. They shouldn't be.
Matana Roberts was playing abstract melodies on top of Stetson's rumble. The AACM signature was quite clear. The approaches of both sax players were very different, but they worked together and made sense out of it.
And then there was Ismaily. I've seen him three times during this festival, this concert being the first time. None of the three performances of Ismaily made sense to me. I was disturbed from the interplay between Stetson and Roberts by his drumming. I'm sorry to say that. Ismaily seems to be liked by many musicians whom I like - otherwise why should they all play with him? - and he must be a very nice and kind person according to the way he smiles. But I just wasn't able to see his musical merits in here... To me he seems to be like a man who spoiled himself by wanting to play too many instruments. Maybe he should abandon the drums and concentrate on his other strengths. We'll get back to this topic again later...

For now, check Lutz Eitel first, as usual, then...
the websites of Colin Stetson, Matana Roberts and
finally again the German concert promo.

/// I've edited this post a bit on 3rd of June. The verb "hired" has been replaced by something more fitting - as suggested in the comments below by Ryan on 28th of May. I've also tried now to stress that everything I said is my personal perception, impression and idea of the gig. The old version of this post was expressing things in a way that could hurt some feelings, which was not my intention.

Donkey Monkey in Moers 2010

(More photos of the performance)

Donkey Monkey is a piano/drum-duet of the French pianist Eve Risser and the Japanese drummer Yuko Oshima. The name expresses the unrest that is to be found in their music - though the monkey element was seemingly stronger than the donkey element. Anyway, Risser's playing was quite nice, oscillating between traditional and modern piano jazz styles - it reminded me of Aki Takase's homages to W.C. Handy and Fats Waller, but Risser's playing is more fluent than Takase's - and therefore more "normal". Yuko Oshima played with a mostly brutal, heavy attack - and thus destroyed quite a bit of the music. I'm not against loud and heavy music - I'm a rocker at heart -, but in this case the drums seemed to hammer down all the interesting lines of the piano. Yuko Oshima's really not a bad drummer though - some of her work in the morning improvisation sessions was more versatile and highly communicative with her co-players. But in the Donkey Monkey thing on the main stage her playing was rather minded on effect than on interplay.

See what Plushmusic's Lutz Eitel says about this concert.
See Donkey Monkey's MySpace-site.
See the promo text of the concert in the virtual Moers Festival magazine (in German).
See the band info on their label's website.

Palle Mikkelborg / Terje Rypdal in Moers 2010

(More photos of this gig here)

Lutz Eitel has written something on every concert he saw at this year's Moers Festival on the Plushmusic blog. Maybe I'll do so too. I disagree with him rather often. In some cases it seemed to me, we've been to totally different concerts. Sure, matters of taste are not discuss-worthy, and I haven't acquired any stage of higher wisdom in music matters. I accept, I appreciate different views. So I wouldn't write against Mr. Eitel, but complementary to his writing in the ideal case.

Anyway, in the beginning we're quite in accord: Terje Rypdal's project was good, Palle Mikkelborg sounded like electric fusion Miles Davis (well, not all of the time, but often at least). The sound mixing was not ideal, electronics drowned out the whole wind section. The wind section was used in an untraditional style, not in a typical big band way. The composition on the whole was a well-varied, well-balanced set of story-telling music. I don't know which of the drummers Mr. Eitel meant when he spoke of the disability to play funky or get into swing. It is right, the drummer from the Bergen Big Band was rather unimpressive. But Paolo Vinaccia, who was a surprising second drummer (not announced in the festival programme and booklet) did a fine job with every task he had to accomplish. Which is something that cannot be said of the following drummers in this first festival night...

Also have a look at the photos from the festival on my wife's blog.