New York beat poet Barry Wallenstein joined Mike Hobart’s Urban Jazz Collective on Tuesday for an evening of verse and jazz at the Vortex.
With its emphasis on adventurous programming and bids to redress the gender imbalance permeating current mainstream jazz summits, this two-day fest was a tonic to those seeking a genuinely leftfield option.
Anyone bold or foolhardy enough to essay a career in jazz would be advised to start young, and commence building themselves an audience as soon as they can.
Bobby Wellins is unique; a near contemporary of Rollins, Shorter and Roy Haynes, he’s a representative of the generation who discovered modern jazz, introduced it to the UK and have nurtured it ever since.
Stan Sulzmann stepped in for an indisposed Bobby Wellins on Saturday night at the Vortex, with a quartet comprising players from different generations: more familiar names Ross Stanley (piano) and Tim Giles (drums) were joined by rising star Connor Chaplin on bass.
The two evenings that we visited the Palatia Jazz Festival this year were spent at Limburg Abbey – a 9th Century ruined abbey near Bad Dürkheim which is on the edge of the Palatinate Forest in western Germany located roughly half way between Strasbourg and Frankfurt.
As Fletch’s Brew steamed through two sets at the Vortex, the appropriateness of the allusion in the name to Miles Davis’ electric period Bitches Brew became increasingly evident.
As the audience waits for the Robert Glasper Trio to take the stage, J Dilla’s instrumental hip-hop classic ‘Donuts’ plays through the P.
I’m tempted to paraphrase the old musician’s joke about not knowing that there were two 12 o’clocks in the same day when contemplating the Cadogan Hall’s summer-long Out to Lunch series.
Such is the quite breathtaking beauty of one of Italy’s most picturesque and charismatic cities, a place of winding narrow streets, sloping piazzas and architecture with history etched into every brick and door handle, it is easy to forget that this is also the location for an intensive and inspiring jazz course.
