# Photos: A mini-season of London-Berlin collaborations, set in the intimate A-Trane club: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/11/08/photos-a-mini-season-of-london-berlin-collaborations-set-in-the-intimate-a-trane-club-video/
- Published: 2017-11-08T22:30:35+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**For his third and final edition of Jazzfest Berlin, the veteran English music 
critic Richard Williams programmed a strong contingent of British artists, as well
as commissioning several new works from Stateside composers. **

As artistic director, he also initiated a mini-season of London-Berlin collaborations,
set in the intimate A-Trane club, which is a 15-minute stroll from the main Festspiele
concert hall. The first two nights introduced the Lido club as a festival venue.

![Картинки по запросу Steve Lehman's Sélébéyone](https://i0.wp.com/slehman.s3.amazonaws.
com/uploads/photo/image/66/medium_Selebeyon.Promo.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

To the east side of the city, in Kreuzberg, it created a mostly-standing, informal
atmosphere, with Shabaka & The Ancestors and Steve Lehman’s Sélébéyone making strong
appearances, establishing South African and avant-hop territories, and beginning
a marked emphasis on jazz divergence at this year’s Jazzfest. The passing of Muhal
Richard Abrams, at the beginning of the festival, hung over many artists, as each
of them revealed their own stories of how his influence had pervaded their development.
The opening night at Lido was dedicated to his memory.

![Картинки по запросу Shabaka and The Ancestors](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/
Zb285fQjty8/maxresdefault.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

One of the most ecstatically received sets was played by Empirical on the main stage,
making their Blue Note rooted 1960s-style jazz sound almost revolutionary, with 
its direct proximity to the classic American style. So many other Jazzfest acts 
had been taking the music to satellite zones, but these be-suited Londoners delivered
a show of tightly-controlled post-bebop complexity, using the old guidelines as 
a basis for launching off into their very 2017-style soloing extremities. Empirical
flirt with nostalgia, while living on the edge of experimentation. Negotiating a
nervous, twitching, runaway ‘Anxiety Society’, they not only reflected Brexit struggles,
but also cut through the morass of generally downer global news developments, wriggling
triumphantly out of this messy sphincter of woe.

On a more alternative level, the first of the Berlin-London Conversations involved
Jean-Paul Bourelly (guitar), Frank Gratkowski (reeds), Orphy Robinson (vibraphone)
and Pat Thomas (piano), with these last two (known as Black Top) also operating 
their tables of sampling electronics. The improvisations inhabited an unusual zone,
loaded with jittery lo-fi Jamaican and American vocal cut-ups, shot through with
stuttering electro-beats, spiralling fuzz guitar and the sometimes sidelined Gratkowski’s
bittersweet alto patterns. Thomas got into some atonal ragtime piano, and Gratkowski
bent notes like Lol Coxhill, this quartet reminiscent at times of his Recedents.
Bourelly loosed powerchords at low volume, vocalising like Billy Jenkins, as Thomas
got a case of the pitch-bending wobblies, Monk fragments spliced and diced, paused
then raced. This was a boldly alternative improvising incarnation.

![tyshawn sorey](https://i0.wp.com/jazzwisemagazine.com/images/NOV2017/tyshawn_sorey.
jpg?resize=640%2C427)

The fest’s artist-in-residence was Tyshawn Sorey, drummer, percussionist, pianist,
trombonist, composer, improviser and constant shades-wearer. Perhaps his best set
was with his trio, as each member softly began, one-by-one, making glacial progress
across a Morton Feldman landscape of true minimalism. Sorey demonstrated his control
over the tiniest vibes shimmers, celeste tinkles, and then the deepest big bass-
drum thunder, or scraping huge gongs slowly out of their slumber. He also led a 
large conduction ensemble (in the post-Butch Morris parlance) and played a duet 
with reedsman Gebhard Ullmann.

![Картинки по запросу René Urtreger](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/g-3HwUDR5lg/
maxresdefault.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

One of the greatest jazz movie soundtracks is by Miles Davis (and indeed, it’s one
of the trumpeter’s finest albums), for Louis Malle’s_ Lift To The Scaffold_ (1958).
The pianist** **René Urtreger is the sole surviving member of the quintet who recorded
that score and, following a screening at Cinema Paris, the 83-year-old appeared 
in person, to play, and to be interviewed by the festival’s artistic director Richard
Williams. Urtreger began with a set of tunes by Cole Porter, Dave Brubeck and Duke
Ellington (“to make my cold hands warm”, he quipped), delivered in an outgoing, 
confident manner, with a bold, detailed flow. Urtreger has an open, bright sound,
prettifying into an amber glow, negotiated with a melodic traipse. Following ‘Polka
Dots & Moonbeams’, he sat down with Williams, and told the world about sharing a
room with Miles, and how Davis had an affair with his sister. Urtreger also played
with Lester Young when he was in his early twenties. He’s dapper and witty, not 
afraid to deem Monk a great composer, but a lousy pianist (ahem), and to affably
dismiss Michel Legrand’s efforts at being ‘jazzy’. Urtreger was candid and enlightening
throughout, stepping back to the piano to close the afternoon with a rendition of
Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Con Alma’. It was a heartwarming joy to learn about this key 
historic personage, while Urtreger is still around, playing, and full of beans.

![Картинки по запросу Amir ElSaffar](https://i0.wp.com/pirecordings.com/cms/img/
artists/artist_82_500.jpg?w=640)

The US trumpeter Amir ElSaffar premiered ‘Maqam/Brass Resonance’ in the modern Hohenzollernplatz
church, whose long, arched sides hosted the horn section before they promenaded 
to join the drums and tuba on the stage. Drawn out tones fed on reverberation, and
the horn patterns accelerated and overlapped, as they moved through the piece’s 
various developmental sections. A Balkan wedding skip backed a writhing saxophone
solo, breaking down into a free-er passage with sparse hand drumming, then into 
a maqam-style processional. The players returned to the arches unexpectedly, then
presented a rousing conclusion back at the front of the stage.

![Картинки по запросу Kit Downes](https://i0.wp.com/s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/
photos/2010/kitdownes_600x346.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

The next afternoon, in another modern church, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial, Kit Downes
played its mighty organ, showing an impressive restraint, finding fresh sounds, 
delicate in their avoidance of bass thunder, but investigating a risky-sounding,
juddering pipe-coughing when he did head down to the lower depths. We feared that
he might bust this hallowed instrument. Following a mysterious set by Trondheim 
Voices, awash with real-time sonic shaping, as they wafted around the pews, Downes
played along with this all-female Norwegian group, at the afternoon concert’s conclusion.
Perhaps they could even have worked out a more extensive collaboration.

![Картинки по запросу Nels Cline Lovers](https://i0.wp.com/mdessen.com/wp-content/
uploads/2017/04/nels-lovers-ucla.jpg?w=640)

From churches to clubs, cinema to concert hall, Jazzfest had all the locations covered,
and with hip hop, Indian free-ness, electroacoustic collage, South African jazz,
avant easy-listening (courtesy of the excellent Nels Cline Lovers project), and 
the Brazilian retro songbook (with the return of Monica Vasconcelos), it had many
musical spheres to pass through in highly successful fashion.

![Картинки по запросу Monica Vasconcelos](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/vUDQHZto6fQ/
maxresdefault.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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