Having a great morning working through the stack of CDs I bought after last night's concert :banana: :banana: :banana:
Those of you too fusty/disorganised (
) to stay up for a gig ending at 2am in the RAH missed a great and really eclectic evening. Michaelab and I loved it!
So who did we have?
Kocani Orkester - Macedonian gypsy brass band
Ellike and Solo - Swedish folk fiddle and Senegalese kora (
)
Arto Tuncboyacian - Turkish/Armenian percussion/vocal headcase!
Manecas Costa - Ginea-Bissau guitar/harp
Kimmo Pohjonen - punk/krautrock/folk accordion ( )
Jazz Jamaica All-Stars - big band jazz/ska fusion
Clearly the prize for the biggest headcase of the evening is shared between Arto and Kimmo. Arto walked on with a couple of shakers made from what looked like pickle-jars half full of soybeans singing a little wordless ditty that turned into an answering-machine message and then a question-and-answer session with the audience. He then put a kids musical box on the sidedrum (shades of Lee van Cleef) and started a riff with his fingers on a partly filled chamber pot! Later he was joined for a bit more cat-n-mouse with a saxophonist (forget his name). Ace!
As for Kimmo - what a picture! The accordion comes on supported by this mohican/mountain-man in a traditional (well - not quite - it was a sort of mechanistic black and silver) Lapp ankle-length skirt and black DMs, who starts doing slow pirouettes while playing something slightly new-age. Over the next 5 minutes the music and the pirouettes get faster and more furious. Eventually he stops and spends many seconds clearly trying to focus on the madly swimming hall! Priceless!! For the rest of the set he was sitting (well sort of - there was lots of fairly animalistic lurching and writhing going on as well), to allow him to control the looping gear that allowed him to be his own percussion section too.
This CD I got with him on though only has 3 minutes of him - in fairly conventional folk mode - but has some other class tracks from Norway Sweden and Finland. Overall I guess it's fairly laid back, and the first couple of tracks are in a fairly conventional ballad-style. My favourite track has to be the Mari Boine (Lapp - more properly called Sami nowadays - throat-singer) one. This has energy, feeling and trance all in one (even I love the deep bass pedal that underpins the whole thing). I've heard her before with I guess some more extreme stuff I had more trouble with, but this (maybe toned down a bit for more widespread acceptance) is stunning. The track by "Varttina" is also amazing - a runic spell invoked with increasing venom with really tight chorus singing - sort of Finnish gangsta-rap? On the softer side there's (more) accordion-playing from Maria Kalaniemi, but this is beautifully lyrical, and it sings like you'd never have thought possible if you'd only really heard accordion from the "White Heather Club" or English Morris-dancing. Could well be investing in some more CDs of these.
The Swedish/Senegalese duo seems to have a bit of a cult following after, at their first concert, being billed as a double act without ever having met each other. For their first 6 concerts they never rehearsed, but then started doing so after they found they were getting into a bit of an improvisational rut. Interesting, but not entirely sure this worked for me (dreadful feedback problems messing with the balance also didn't help).
The Kocani Orkester were the typical kind of Balkan/Gypsy stuff - basically a village band, but professionals. I have no idea how the drummer got such fast rhythms out of the switch stick in his left hand. I loved the tuba quartet providing the harmony - one standard tuba, and three of the type good-old Dickie Wagner invented (to get a sound half-way between a tuba and trombone). Great fun - but I doubt I'd want a full CD of it.
Now isn't life strange - Michaelab comes from Lisbon to London to hear a concert by a guy who lives....in Lisbon! Manecas Costa left Ginea-Bissau as it plenty of music but no industry to spread it. When he made this CD they had to fly in a studio to Bissau to record it! As the review says, the native music, "gumbe", is a fusion of samba and West-African/Sengalese that is incredibly infectious - it's very difficult to type this as I'm bouncing all over the place to "Djunga Djunga" ATM. They make a point in the notes that, being off the beaten track, this musical fusion is not manufactured but springs from the nature of their culture (unlike I feel a lot of the Mali/Senegal stuff that gets a lot of airtime these days) - and it clearly sounds far more natural. If you like this kind of stuff - you should really get this - and it sounds particularly like a good one for GTM. (Apparently he was at WOMAD too).
The Jazz Jamaica All-Stars were top of the bill, and were fantastic fun (well, for those of us who'd stayed the pace after 3 hours of music/dancing). As it was the Proms - and what does everyone know gets played there? - they started their main set with a slightly jazzy version of "Jerusalem" - but with their trademark ska rhythmic backing - wonderful. They played most of their current CD, 'Massive' (
)web-site here. Did all the usual big-band stuff, but in addition to standards from Hancock, Shorter et al mixed pop tunes e.g. "My Boy Lollipop" or the "Godfather" theme, underpinned everywhere with the ska/reggae/calypso rhythms. Loved the way they'd stuck the drummer in his own plastic cage - clearly he's another nutter (aren't they all) whooping, hooting and yelling as he played - in black tie and tails, natch!!!. My mate commented that he actually looked a bit like a black Stravinsky, but I have to say he looked to me more like "Baron Samedi" from "Live and Let Die" or (very non-PC, sorry) a caged chimpanzee!!! On the CD I like the last 3 tracks the best, and in several places I think the balance needs more spotlight on the soloist, which does tend to get drowned by the rhythm section. Tremendous fun - but maybe the ska beat is a bit too relentless (for me at least) for listening to the whole CD at once. Dean should really have this one (may not be on vinyl though )
Those of you too fusty/disorganised (
) to stay up for a gig ending at 2am in the RAH missed a great and really eclectic evening. Michaelab and I loved it!So who did we have?
Kocani Orkester - Macedonian gypsy brass band
Ellike and Solo - Swedish folk fiddle and Senegalese kora (
)Arto Tuncboyacian - Turkish/Armenian percussion/vocal headcase!
Manecas Costa - Ginea-Bissau guitar/harp
Kimmo Pohjonen - punk/krautrock/folk accordion (
)Jazz Jamaica All-Stars - big band jazz/ska fusion
Clearly the prize for the biggest headcase of the evening is shared between Arto and Kimmo. Arto walked on with a couple of shakers made from what looked like pickle-jars half full of soybeans singing a little wordless ditty that turned into an answering-machine message and then a question-and-answer session with the audience. He then put a kids musical box on the sidedrum (shades of Lee van Cleef) and started a riff with his fingers on a partly filled chamber pot! Later he was joined for a bit more cat-n-mouse with a saxophonist (forget his name). Ace!
As for Kimmo - what a picture! The accordion comes on supported by this mohican/mountain-man in a traditional (well - not quite - it was a sort of mechanistic black and silver) Lapp ankle-length skirt and black DMs, who starts doing slow pirouettes while playing something slightly new-age. Over the next 5 minutes the music and the pirouettes get faster and more furious. Eventually he stops and spends many seconds clearly trying to focus on the madly swimming hall! Priceless!! For the rest of the set he was sitting (well sort of - there was lots of fairly animalistic lurching and writhing going on as well), to allow him to control the looping gear that allowed him to be his own percussion section too.
This CD I got with him on though only has 3 minutes of him - in fairly conventional folk mode - but has some other class tracks from Norway Sweden and Finland. Overall I guess it's fairly laid back, and the first couple of tracks are in a fairly conventional ballad-style. My favourite track has to be the Mari Boine (Lapp - more properly called Sami nowadays - throat-singer) one. This has energy, feeling and trance all in one (even I love the deep bass pedal that underpins the whole thing). I've heard her before with I guess some more extreme stuff I had more trouble with, but this (maybe toned down a bit for more widespread acceptance) is stunning. The track by "Varttina" is also amazing - a runic spell invoked with increasing venom with really tight chorus singing - sort of Finnish gangsta-rap? On the softer side there's (more) accordion-playing from Maria Kalaniemi, but this is beautifully lyrical, and it sings like you'd never have thought possible if you'd only really heard accordion from the "White Heather Club" or English Morris-dancing. Could well be investing in some more CDs of these.
The Swedish/Senegalese duo seems to have a bit of a cult following after, at their first concert, being billed as a double act without ever having met each other. For their first 6 concerts they never rehearsed, but then started doing so after they found they were getting into a bit of an improvisational rut. Interesting, but not entirely sure this worked for me (dreadful feedback problems messing with the balance also didn't help).
The Kocani Orkester were the typical kind of Balkan/Gypsy stuff - basically a village band, but professionals. I have no idea how the drummer got such fast rhythms out of the switch stick in his left hand. I loved the tuba quartet providing the harmony - one standard tuba, and three of the type good-old Dickie Wagner invented (to get a sound half-way between a tuba and trombone). Great fun - but I doubt I'd want a full CD of it.
Now isn't life strange - Michaelab comes from Lisbon to London to hear a concert by a guy who lives....in Lisbon! Manecas Costa left Ginea-Bissau as it plenty of music but no industry to spread it. When he made this CD they had to fly in a studio to Bissau to record it! As the review says, the native music, "gumbe", is a fusion of samba and West-African/Sengalese that is incredibly infectious - it's very difficult to type this as I'm bouncing all over the place to "Djunga Djunga" ATM. They make a point in the notes that, being off the beaten track, this musical fusion is not manufactured but springs from the nature of their culture (unlike I feel a lot of the Mali/Senegal stuff that gets a lot of airtime these days) - and it clearly sounds far more natural. If you like this kind of stuff - you should really get this - and it sounds particularly like a good one for GTM. (Apparently he was at WOMAD too).
The Jazz Jamaica All-Stars were top of the bill, and were fantastic fun (well, for those of us who'd stayed the pace after 3 hours of music/dancing). As it was the Proms - and what does everyone know gets played there? - they started their main set with a slightly jazzy version of "Jerusalem" - but with their trademark ska rhythmic backing - wonderful. They played most of their current CD, 'Massive' (
)web-site here. Did all the usual big-band stuff, but in addition to standards from Hancock, Shorter et al mixed pop tunes e.g. "My Boy Lollipop" or the "Godfather" theme, underpinned everywhere with the ska/reggae/calypso rhythms. Loved the way they'd stuck the drummer in his own plastic cage - clearly he's another nutter (aren't they all) whooping, hooting and yelling as he played - in black tie and tails, natch!!!. My mate commented that he actually looked a bit like a black Stravinsky, but I have to say he looked to me more like "Baron Samedi" from "Live and Let Die" or (very non-PC, sorry) a caged chimpanzee!!! On the CD I like the last 3 tracks the best, and in several places I think the balance needs more spotlight on the soloist, which does tend to get drowned by the rhythm section. Tremendous fun - but maybe the ska beat is a bit too relentless (for me at least) for listening to the whole CD at once. Dean should really have this one (may not be on vinyl though )
. I think I have to withdraw the penultimate sentence of that post though - I've now played it straight through twice and am having to try hard to stop it going on a third time. :boogie: BTW can't remember whether it was mentioned on the site, but they got the BBC "Best Band" Jazz Award in 2002 - although some (not me) may question that accolade since Stacey Kent got "Best Vocalist" at the same time.
but eventually the steward relented.
