Music

Picture the scene. You enter the Vortex in Dalston. There is a large screen which will be showing a World Cup game. On one side of the stage are three musicians in full team kit; on the other side of the stage you have another trio decked in the opponent’s colours. Before the game starts, the musicians will limber up by improvising over the national anthems. As the game begins, they watch the on-screen action and improvise along with every dribble, pass, tackle, shot, throw in and offside trap. It’s a bit like an organist playing along to a silent movie. The key difference here is that nobody knows what’s going to happen next.

The series of gigs – entitled Vortex World Cup Jazz Ball – starts with England’s match against Paraguay on Saturday afternoon and is being curated by eccentric jazz-punk guitarist Billy Jenkins. Feature continues

‘It’s like the musicians will play to a giant musical score,’ says Jenkins, ‘by following the bouncing ball on the screen.’Will there be ‘Peter And The Wolf’-style leitmotifs? Will, say, Peter Crouch’s appearance on the screen be accompanied by a recurring theme?

‘I do hope so. It depends on how the musicians read the game. Hopefully, the music will represent the national characteristics of each side – we’ve got a few musicians versed in Latin music playing Paraguay, and a few Caribbean specialists in the role of Trinidad & Tobago.’

How literally will they interpret the action?

‘They’ll be representing every tackle, every pass, every shot, every save.
The band will be fading the TV commentary and crowd noise in and out. You’ve also got to watch those off-the-ball skirmishes – just like the footballers, our players will be having little battles behind the referee’s back. And, when the TV shows an instant replay, the musicians will have to play exactly what they’ve just played again, only in slow motion…

‘And watch out for the penalty shoot outs! You’ll have trumpeters against bassists and drummers! That’s where it gets very exciting!’ Jenkins – former schoolfriend of Billy Idol, erstwhile regular at the Comic Strip and the Comedy Store, linchpin of London’s anarchic free-jazz scene
and leader of a ‘real-life’ blues band – has previous form on this. Not only has he made music themed around boxing matches, Crown Green bowling, Formula One racing, and even a game of ‘Tomb Raider’ on a PlayStation, but in 1995 he did a football-themed residency at the old Vortex in Stoke Newington where the band were themed as a team (the bass players were the goalkeepers, the drummer the centre-backs, the rhythm guitarists and pianists midfielders, the horn players strikers). It kicked off with a ska-jazz version of the ‘Match of the Day’ theme and interrupted each manic improvisation with red cards, yellow cards, set-pieces, substitutes and bungs.

Most memorable of all was a gig in a Deptford pub during the 1998 World Cup that coincided with the Iran vs USA fixture, in which Jenkins’s band played the role of the United States (playing Duane Eddy riffs) while Stuart Hall’s tongue-in-cheek world music band Orquestra Mahatma played Iran (ullulating horns, Persian ghazals, hypnotic Middle Eastern rhythms and so on).

‘Jazz is just like football,’ says Jenkins. ‘It’s the most kinetic and spontaneous art form we have. Both of them are about organising joy from chaos. And with both you get two 45-minute sets and a chance to go for a piss during the break. I’m an interested observer of football rather than an obsessive. I am annoyed by how corporate media can use football to dominate social activity – it’s ridiculous that a pub can show a football match on a big-screen to 1,000 punters, yet if the same pub puts on a single folk singer, they can face a £6,000 fine if they don’t have a performers’ license!’

These dates are, Jenkins admits, a response to the huge fall in gig attendances that inevitably occur across the World Cup. ‘I’ve found out, through bitter experience, that it’s virtually impossible to put on gigs during big midweek European fixtures or, especially, during England games. So, we figured, if you can’t beat them, join them.’

This residency follows all of England’s group games and then each of England’s possible games en route to the final. The problem is that watching England play, for most of us, is a terrifying, nail-biting, stomach-churning horrorshow. Surely it’s going to be difficult to enjoy the musical spectacle when you face the prospect of England being humiliated by Paraguay or Sweden?

‘That is a problem,’ Billy admits. ‘In fact there were several musicians I approached to do this who said they’d find it too stressful to perform while England were playing. I’ll imagine that we’ll get a lot of people at these shows who hate football. But also a lot of football fans, who will love it. It’ll be an absolutely joyful cacophony.

‘This is squeaky-bonk improv, but its relationship to pop music is much like, say, a philosophy text book to a Barbara Cartland novel. It is an incredibly skilled discipline, and the squad of players that I’ve assembled for these gigs are among the most skilled in London. That’s the reason I’m not playing – I currently lack the physical and mental capacity to play that kind of music. I’m in a different place. I am not match fit, if you like.’