Samstagabend ging es dann wieder in der Roten Fabrik mit einem Dreier-Ticket weiter. Den Auftakt machte das Tom Rainey Trio feat. Ingrid Laubrock & Mary Halvorson. Gemischte Gefühle im Voraus, Rainey hatte ich noch nie live gehört, Laubrock und Halvorson verschiedene Male (teils zusammen, auf der Bühne, z.B. bei Braxton am diesjährigen Taktlos) und gerade mit Laubrock bin ich nicht immer warm geworden, mit Halvorson zuletzt - das Duo mit Stephan Crump, das erst gegen Ende des kurzen Sets aufwachte - auch nicht immer so sehr wie davor. Aber gut, die drei legten los und es war von Beginn weg klar, dass das ein tolles Konzert würde. Halvorson spielte zupackend und direkt wie ich sie schon lange nicht mehr gehört habe, Laubrock solide und ebenfalls zupackender als ich sie bisher gehört habe, die beiden gaben den Tarif vor, dahinter Rainey als eine Art Hexenmeister, der manchmal wie an unsichtbaren Fäden das Geschehen zu steuern schien. Sein Spiel ziemlich direkt und hart, aber auch trocken und immer wieder beeindruckend in seiner Feinheit trotz meist hoher Lautstärke. Ein sehr tolles, überraschend intensives Konzert - und schon bis dahin ein Gipfel der aktuellen Schlagzeugkunst (wenn man noch die beiden von Guy mitzählt): Ramón López, Lucas Niggli, Joey Baron, Pierre Favre, Tom Rainey.
Dann gespannte Erwartung auf das zweite Set, den eigentlichen Grund, weshalb ich an dem Abend doch hin ging: Craig Taborn, solo am grossen Steinway-Flügel. Und verdammt, das war eine Offenbarung, definitiv das ganz grosse Highlight des Festivals! Er schien anfangs auch noch einmal die Möglichkeiten des Instruments auszuloten, und tauchte dann immer tiefer ein, rauschhaft, mit unglaublichem Sog. In den intensivsten Momenten knallte er auch mal den Unterarm auf die Tastatur, schien über dem Klavierhocker zu schweben, stapfte mit dem Fuss ... man dachte da und dort an Cecil Taylor, aber auch an Ellington und die ganze Jazzpiano-Tradition. Wirklich grossartig!
Den Abschluss des Abends machte das Loriot-Perovic Notebook Large Ensemble, ein zehnköpfiges Ensemble um den Bratschisten und Komponisten Franz Loriot sowie den Komponisten und Arrangeur Manuel Perovic. Vier Bläser (Lina Allemano-t, Silvio Cadotsch-tb, Sandra Weiss-as/bsn, Joachim Badenhorst-ts/cl/bcl) treffen auf vier (mit Perovics gelegentlicher Akustikgitarre fünf) Streicher (Loriot-vla, Deborah Walker-vc, Silvan Jeger-b, Dave Gisler-elg), dazu Schlagzeug (Yuko Oshima) und immer wieder auch etwas Gesang ... das ergab manche klanglich sehr schönen Momente, auch ein paar gute Soli (v.a. Badenhorst fand ich klasse, aber auch Weiss hatte sehr gute Momente), der Chor-Gesang schien etwas verzärtelt, aber als Idee hat mir auch das gefallen. Das Problem lag anderswo: die Schlagzeugerin hämmerte nur Rock-Rudimente, das ganze Set lang, mit heiligem Ernst, Blick hoch in den Himmel gerichtet, selbst als sie mal eine Art Solo hatte gab es nichts als die steifsten, langweiligsten Beats. Mag sein, dass das zum Konzept der Gruppe gehört, aber das ergibt für meine Ohren das Problem, dass auch Jeger am Kontrabass völlig hintansteht, dass die ganze Combo rhythmisch äusserst uninspiriert wirkt, leblos geradezu - und das Ganze wirkt dann trotz der tollen Streicher- und Bläser-Sections oft steif und platt, da nützten auch hübsche Harmonien nicht mehr viel.
Posts mit dem Label Craig Taborn werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Craig Taborn werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Susie Ibarra Trio, Co Streiff Sextett - Rote Fabrik, Zurich, 28 March 2007
Saw a great and a lousy concert last night (double bill):
Susie Ibarra Trio w/Craig Taborn & Jennifer Choi - everybody by now knows uub's got a crush on her, I assume, and indeed she was terrific, very sophisticated approach, great groove, and a beautifully tuned set of drums, really a sound of her own ... but, BUT ... the other two were just so talkative, fake, boring - bullshitting all the way, nothing felt in there, all just made up facade ... really annoying, and mostly pretty ridiculous, pathetic, Taborn doing boring neo-/pseudo-romantic stuff, and Choi helping him making sure the music didn't breathe once in a 45 minute set ... no space, no sense for pacing, a totally misled concept. The tunes all sweet and often almost like what's called "Salon-Musik" over here, muzak of the worst kind, all beautiful surface and nothing below that - and no, irony was NOT involved.
Misguided in the sense that they don't know what they actually do there - bullshitting in what I assume is more or less the Harry Frankfurt way of defining it...
Second was the Co Streiff Sextett - she's a local alto/soprano sax player and the Sextett has its second CD "Loops, Holes and Angels" just out on Intakt. The band includes another reeds player, Tommy Meier (tenor sax & bass clarinet), Russ Johnson on trumpet, a local bass/drums team (Christian Weber & Fredi Flükiger), plus Ben Jeger on piano, accordion, farfisa and some other old synthesizers. They played a superb set, lots of the music being really group-music, not about egos and solos, but more about creating colours and grooves, doing a tune from Mali, some almost highlife like material, and lots of other great things, you can hear much of jazz history in there, from basic blues to Sun Ra and Roscoe (both of whom were covered on their first disc, "Qattara", also on Intakt) and Fela Kuti (nothing of his on disc, but they do some in live shows, not last night, though). Anyway, this more than made up for the pastiche banality of the Ibarra trio...
Again let me stress that Susie Ibarra is a master percussionist, no doubt about that, just she ought to do different stuff... and Taborn is quite interesting and good when playing with Tim Berne... but then again his own disc "Junk" (?) on Matt Shipp's pretentious label is pretty boring, too ...
--
PS (May 2016): I don't consider "Junk Magic" on Thirsty Ear "pretty boring" any longer - hope one is allowed to fix ones own mistakes or correct old misjudgements as time passes! The Ibarra Trio didn't get any better in hindsight though - was it deceived love? ;-)
Also, of course Thirsty Ear was never "Matt Shipp's label" in a sense that he owned it. Yet with the "Blue Series" he curated, he had a major impact on the label when I got into avantgarde jazz initially.
Susie Ibarra Trio w/Craig Taborn & Jennifer Choi - everybody by now knows uub's got a crush on her, I assume, and indeed she was terrific, very sophisticated approach, great groove, and a beautifully tuned set of drums, really a sound of her own ... but, BUT ... the other two were just so talkative, fake, boring - bullshitting all the way, nothing felt in there, all just made up facade ... really annoying, and mostly pretty ridiculous, pathetic, Taborn doing boring neo-/pseudo-romantic stuff, and Choi helping him making sure the music didn't breathe once in a 45 minute set ... no space, no sense for pacing, a totally misled concept. The tunes all sweet and often almost like what's called "Salon-Musik" over here, muzak of the worst kind, all beautiful surface and nothing below that - and no, irony was NOT involved.
Misguided in the sense that they don't know what they actually do there - bullshitting in what I assume is more or less the Harry Frankfurt way of defining it...
Second was the Co Streiff Sextett - she's a local alto/soprano sax player and the Sextett has its second CD "Loops, Holes and Angels" just out on Intakt. The band includes another reeds player, Tommy Meier (tenor sax & bass clarinet), Russ Johnson on trumpet, a local bass/drums team (Christian Weber & Fredi Flükiger), plus Ben Jeger on piano, accordion, farfisa and some other old synthesizers. They played a superb set, lots of the music being really group-music, not about egos and solos, but more about creating colours and grooves, doing a tune from Mali, some almost highlife like material, and lots of other great things, you can hear much of jazz history in there, from basic blues to Sun Ra and Roscoe (both of whom were covered on their first disc, "Qattara", also on Intakt) and Fela Kuti (nothing of his on disc, but they do some in live shows, not last night, though). Anyway, this more than made up for the pastiche banality of the Ibarra trio...
Again let me stress that Susie Ibarra is a master percussionist, no doubt about that, just she ought to do different stuff... and Taborn is quite interesting and good when playing with Tim Berne... but then again his own disc "Junk" (?) on Matt Shipp's pretentious label is pretty boring, too ...
--
PS (May 2016): I don't consider "Junk Magic" on Thirsty Ear "pretty boring" any longer - hope one is allowed to fix ones own mistakes or correct old misjudgements as time passes! The Ibarra Trio didn't get any better in hindsight though - was it deceived love? ;-)
Also, of course Thirsty Ear was never "Matt Shipp's label" in a sense that he owned it. Yet with the "Blue Series" he curated, he had a major impact on the label when I got into avantgarde jazz initially.
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)