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Maria Schneider Orchestra + Portico Quartet
Wed Jul 9
- Recommended
This event has finished
Barbican Centre, Silk St, London, EC2Y 8DS
© Dani Gurgel
By Mike Flynn

Posted: Mon Jun 30
On the face of it this pairing of maximalist and minimalist twenty-first-century jazz groups – the sweeping grandeur of Maria Schneider’s 20-piece orchestra contrasting sharply with the sparse lyricism of Portico Quartet – appears accessible and obviously mainstream. Hardly the stuff of a two-fingers-in-the-air musical rebellion, you would think, but you’d be wrong. Both these artists have carved out their own audiences (and revenue streams) through brains and ingenuity, rather than bone-headed bad attitude. It’s ironic that normally hard-up jazz acts should be showing a way out of the miasma of falling CD sales or a potential future where music is free. Portico famously busked their way into South Bank legend; shifting 8,000 CDs before anyone waved a record deal at them, simultaneously building a feverish following of young would-be jazz heads.

Schneider’s years of studying composition under revered big band composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer and iconic Miles Davis collaborator Gil Evans have given her an enviably deep grounding in her art. Yet it’s her recent Grammy-winning albums – ‘Concert in the Garden’ and ‘Sky Blue’ – that have shone a light on her own determinedly indie spirit, released as they were via the ArtistShare label. This is the revolutionary aspect of her approach, raising revenues through her fans (that serve as shares in each new project), has enabled her to independently fund each project while retaining ownership of the work, then share in the profits if (and so far, when) it’s successful. These fans also get extra music, behind the scenes interviews and a sneak peak inside the studio sessions, as the artist shares the entire creative process. Whether vocally-challenged popstrels or production-line indie bands would feel as happy to reveal all like this is another matter. In Schneider’s case it would all be for nothing if the music itself weren’t so affecting. Packed with an evocative wanderlust, there’s a deeper melancholic beauty in her music, which is itself at the heart of the best American jazz.