Music

Tuesday November 20 | Wednesday November 21

Tuesday November 20

Mike Flynn's early highlights from the opening days of the 2007 LJF

Charlie Haden

Four days in and the 2007 London Jazz Festival is proving itself once more as one of London most seismic music events. Mainly due to the fact so many of the world’s great and good musicians converge on the capital for the best measure of jazz’s global health – and based on what I’ve seen so far it’s in very good health indeed. There were emphatic opening night successes in the shape of the luminous vocal marathon that was 'We Love Ella', with Liz Wright making all go weak at the knees with her devastatingly beautiful, deeply musical voice, and the thudding brilliance of bassist Charlie Haden and Quartet West – a band to die for, with Ernie Watts’ tenor in ebullient and blistering form; likewise pianist Alan Broadbent was equally staggering – the bar was set high from the off. Feature continues

Larry Harlow

The late night shenanigans at the live Radio 3 ‘Jazz On Three’ broadcast – where the hard-pressed music PRs, musicians, liggers and jazz wiggers of all persuasions gathered for free beer and pizza – were no less exciting either. The frenetic atmosphere that had been building to this first night spilled over into a feverish sense of letting it all hang out. With a scorching set from Larry Harlow’s reduced Fania band, still boasting seven members of his 17-piece orchestra, it was the turn of guitarist Charlie Hunter to become the talking point of the night, hot-footing it over from his gig at the Pigalle. The only man who can simultaneously play fat funk bass lines and scalding jazz blues guitar on the same instrument – a hybrid custom-made seven-string guitar – his grinding jam band funk/trip hop mash up was so incredible he actually silenced most of the crowd, who gawped and grooved in equal measure. Make sure you see him next time he hits town.

The music continued unabated over the weekend: trumpeter Jon Hassle taking things deep into electronic noir with his new band, Larry Harlow let it rip at the Roundhouse, while the Southbank’s Ballroom swung back into action after being sorely missed for the two previous years. Great free sets from Beth Rowley, Kinetica and Five Funky Fellas really helped to spread the festival atmosphere to the general public. Bad weather and faulty tube lines put paid to my Sunday night plans – thanks TFL, not – but pianist Chick Corea and the mind-blowing banjoist Béla Fleck were utterly mesmerizing last night. Not the showy virtuoso display you might have feared in the least; Corea and Fleck were on the last night of their tour and they were supremely tight. With sympathetic composing styles – full of spiky pointillistic rhythmic and harmonic figures – this was music making of the highest order.

Despite Corea’s formidable rep as a pianist’s pianist, it was Fleck’s unique mastery of the banjo that impressed most. The epitome of the relaxed virtuoso at the height of his powers, he pulled reams of music from this most unassuming of instruments – he even managed to play a little ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ with his nose… Fleck is very special and a new true giant instrumentalist with even greater things ahead. The only quibble with the gig was they left the house lights up on purpose – perhaps to suggest this was just a casual jam and we’d all turned up at Corea’s house to hang out and listen. Well, personally speaking I don’t really like looking at the audience, and it was surprisingly hard to focus on the stage with so much stuff in the peripheral vision – it just felt a bit wrong. Yet both Corea and Fleck seemed so relaxed, and were in turn so engaging by the end it hardly seemed to matter.