So as I said in a previous post, its the London Jazz Festival at the moment, and boy is there a lot going on!
I was unfortunately unable to get tickets to Herbie Hancock, such a bummer, would've loved to go, and also didn't manage to get tickets to Chick Corea, which I would also have loved to have heard, but hey, again, they were sold out.
So, I hear you say, what did you actually get to go and see? To be fair, not that much in the end, but the stuff I saw was sheer quality. I managed the other day to get to hear again Take Six and an amazing guy called Cleveland Watkiss, who was just brill. He had this electronic foot pedal thing, the same that Freddy LaFont from Vocal Sampling used at the World Choral Symposium recently, which allows you to record something and then loop it straight away. He was just amazing! We'd got there a little late but we managed to hear quite a few numbers (I went with Ira and Jean) and although I don't know what they were, they were just captivating, as you heard him lay down each layer one after the other. Just lovely.
Then we heard Take Six, who as usual, were just brilliant. They've put out a new album now, called 'The Standard', which is a collection of mostly Jazz and some RnB standards, but to be honest, they didn't perform all that many from that album, preferring to stick to some of their older stuff (which we were very happy about). The funniest moment was when they did a trip down memory lane and the young bloke did his Michael Jackson impersonation, which was very good and very, very funny. They are just so talented, so musical - and I enjoyed every second of the performance.
Then today I went up town to catch a bit more jazz, and saw the wonderful Tokyo Chutei-Iki, a 10 piece Baritone Saxophone ensemble, performing at Foyle's Bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Oh my goodness, how fabulous were they! I've never heard anything quite like it... Just astonishing - I had absolutely no idea you could do that with a baritone saxophone! Here's a few pics I managed to sneak on my phone...
Then on Sunday, being the Festival finale, although I had missed getting tickets to Chick Corea, I managed to get a ticket to hear the Bireli Lagrene Trio and Martin Taylor. It's quite funny how I managed to get these tickets, because I knew that Major Mingay and Neil were going to be going up to hear them, and had tickets, but I hadn't got any and didn't really want to gate crash - so I happened to mention to Neil that I thought I would maybe go up and see if I could get a ticket. He told me the row they were in, and low and behold, the only seat left in that row was right next to theirs! So I snapped that up real quick...
Anyway, Martin Taylor was on first, he's a guitarist with just the most beautiful touch, his music was beautiful. The write up in Time Out advertising this event went like this:
Dream double bill for guitar fans featuring our own internationally acclaimed solo guitar virtuoso Taylor and phenomenal French gypsy jazz master Lagrene. Both pay tribute to iconic jazz violinist (and their old boss) Stephane Grappelli in the 100th year of his birth. Taylor opens with a unique duet with himself (using pre-recorded parts) creating beautifully interwoven lines, before the sparks fly in a frantic gypsy jazz guitar face-off with Lagrene.
I have to say they were right, it was a 'dream double bill'. Taylor played on his own for a bit, amazing improvs, and then Lagrene came on and improv'd with him - so clever his music was, cleverly weaving snippets of famous tunes in and out of his improv, it was just wonderful. And then the trio played, again that was amazing. They were finally joined again by Taylor for the big finale and received 2 encores.
What a fab festival!
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