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Jazz em Agosto 2010
In magnitude if nothing else, Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble was the keynote event of the fest. Key to the sound and structure of the sprawling 19-piece band's sound was the real time processing of the instruments...
Lisbon, Portugal
August 6-15, 2010
If music-making were as simple as putting things in a box, a review of Lisbon's 2010 Jazz em Agosto festival might go something like this: The duo of
John Surman
saxophoneb.1944
Jack DeJohnette
drumsb.1942
Evan Parker
saxophone, sopranob.1944
Han Bennink
drumsb.1942
Louis Sclavis
woodwindsb.1953
Frode Gjerstad
saxophone, altob.1948
It's not as easy as that, of course, but making music is a matter off filling space, which is all that's in a box before it's filled. The festival could be looked at more methodically, of course, by pointing out for instance that while the median and mode band sizes were both three, the big band's of Gjerstad and Parker brought the mean average up to 5.4. Here we can see the stronghold staked by the trio over the course of the two long weekends, along with an intimation of the diversity in workforce numbers, even if still it does little to characterize the diversity of actual music produced.
And it was a diverse program to be sure, with a variety of approaches to setting structures for improvisation, or to letting the improvisation flow freely, on display. Not to mention allusions to classical and heavy metal, as well as The Carpenters, an engaging lecture on source materials within the jazz tradition by music scholar Francesco Martinelli and documentary films on Bennink (Hazentijd) and
Albert Mangelsdorff
trombone1928 - 2005
In magnitude if nothing else, Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble was the keynote event of the fest. Key to the sound and structure of the sprawling 19-piece band's sound was the real time processing of the instruments, especially impressive in the surround-sound of the Funda??o Calouste Gulbenkian's open-air theater. Sounds occurring onstage were thrown to the back of the space, setting the audience squarely within the sound field from the opening electronic wash against objects bowed by
Paul Lytton
drumsb.1947
This is, or at least for the moment, the avenue by which Parker the improviser has positioned himself as composer. He created the ensemble and environment, and shaped both in real time. Sitting at the front, facing the ensemble, Parker arranged the elements as they were created. When the acoustic instruments came in, it was subtle with a steep ramp, avoiding the "weirdness as intro" cliché, they integrated elements seamlessly (abetted by the integrated circuitry). The band blurred both time and space until trumpeter
Peter Evans
trumpet
Ned Rothenberg
saxophoneb.1956
The other big band appearing at the festival was similarly multi-national, combining acoustic and electronic instruments and led by a saxophonist. Gjerstad's 13-member Circulascione Totale Orchestra was like a static storm, the leader walking around the large stage, whispering instructions, bringing in players one by one and staging different little events. Drummer
Louis Moholo-Moholo
drums1940 - 2025
Sabir Mateen
saxophone, tenorb.1951
Bobby Bradford
trumpetb.1934
Paal Nilssen-Love
drumsb.1974
To repurpose a
Brad Mehldau
pianob.1970
Breaking the improv trio mold imposed here was the powerful amalgam Steamboat Switzerland, who hit like a Deep Purple / Ruins hybrid with an attack so fierce it took a couple minutes before variants could be discerned. (And this was played from scores!) A few minutes later, they started slowing, started stopping, toned down and played a two-note run about 150 times. There just aren't other bands like them. Dominik Blum, playing a Hammond through a Lesley cabinet, had a fantastic way of accenting the clacking of the keys, as if putting rivets through the notes. Marino Pliakis might be best known for playing electric bass guitar in
Peter Brötzmann
woodwinds1941 - 2023
The art of the duo was represented by a pair of pairings, both fairly rambunctious and each arriving at mixed results. John Surman and Jack DeJohnette were halfway to a trio with their playing augmented by the sound-processing of Surman's son. They opened with soft percussion and synth, DeJohnette slowly waving a microphone over the cymbals, complementing Surman's ethereal keyboard. When he moved to the drum heads, he revealed synth pads activated from the kit but as they progressed they slowly, almost unnoticeably, gave way to a sax/drum duo, and then started to build up again. DeJohnette looped and reverberated thumb piano, Surman folded in voice samples, electronic echoes still hovering in the air. The whole structure became an unusual double arc, a sort of oval where electronics ebbed as the blowing flowed and then grew and recessed again, and they grew to sound like a duo with noisy neighbors.
If Surman's son was the third member of that duo, a backstage ladder was the third in Janssen and Bennink's duet. Bennink appeared with just a single snare drum (as well as the stage floor, the underside of the piano and the piano bench), while Janssen played quick and clean piano lines, tossing in jazz standards and bits of Bach. It was a one-way street, Janssen setting up pins for Bennink to knock down, appeasing him with swing or initiating themes that Bennink would often ignore or overpower, but Janssen at all times remained firm. The differences between them is what made it work, made clear in the solo section each took. Bennink, of course, is an excellent jazz drummer with a propensity for interjecting and undermining. He pummeled and squawked through "Salt Peanuts" before Janssen, who has worked with the Kronos Quartet and the Schoenberg Ensemble, and has composed for opera, played a soft and elegiac ballad met by the clanging of a ladder Bennink found backstage. One can argue that Bennink is distracting—humor always changes the mood (and is usually used for that purpose)—but the sound of drumsticks rolling across the stage alongside treble piano trills wasn't comic relief, or at least not only that. It sounded quite beautiful, and intentionally so, produced by a guy whose job is knowing how to make sounds.
Sclavis brought his "Lost on the Way" project, a set of music inspired by Homer's Odyssey. The reeds of Matthieu Metzger and the leader were pushed by an unusual back line of drums, solid-body 6-string bass guitar and amplified acoustic guitar. The guitars, largely unadorned by effects, created a sound that felt loud but uncostumed, providing a natural setting for the reeds and creating. They built a full sound of five players, a group sound carved not be clever reimagining of their instruments or electronic manipulation of their output, or for that matter by the compositions, so much as it was their taut musicianship.
Another peak in the festival was the appearance of Sol 6, a nicely gender-balanced version of Luc Ex's new project (which goes in member count up to Sol 12 at times in case anyone's tallying). As such, it seemed a nice reflection of his former anarcho- outfit The Ex. Three men in the rhythm section, three women playing the melody instruments, at least by traditional divisions. But Sol 6 worked smartly moving in and out of traditions. They worked steadily between open improv and old songs, and if the fluctuation grew predictable the outcomes never were. They played free stomps and mute, metered melodies and rollicking grooves and interspersed within those were songs by Charles Ives,
"
data-original-title="" title="">Erik Satie, Bertolt Brecht and 
Burt Bacharach
composer / conductor1928 - 2023
Photo Credit
Joaquim Mendes
Tags
Jazz em Agosto
Live Reviews
Kurt Gottschalk
John Surman
Jack DeJohnette
evan parker
Han Bennink
Louis Sclavis
frode gjerstad
Francesco Martinelli
Albert Mangelsdorff
Paul Lytton
Peter Evans
Ned Rothenberg
Louis Moholo-Moholo
Sabir Mateen
Bobby Bradford
Paal Nilssen-Love
brad mehldau
Peter Brotzmann
Erik Satie
Burt Bacharach
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