Post by Sordel on Aug 5, 2018 5:15:21 GMT -5
Night Nine: Trigger, Craig Taborn and Brian Marsella Trio
The indoor concert for the early evening was Trigger: a completely new band to me, but one that has been kicking around performing Zorn over the last four years. This power trio performed extracts from the Bagatelles and Apparitions (which, I had to check, were recorded by Moonchild on Ipsissimus). All three band members are young guys, with bass guitarist Simon Hanes jumping around like a complete prat for the entire concert. Less important than their stage demeanour, though, was the playing, which was raw, compact and very much in the spirit of early grindcore. Several audience members fled early due to the abrasive style, but the pieces were played with precision as well as energy. As a curtain-raiser for the night, Trigger was very successful.
Notwithstanding my scepticism about the Highsmith trio I had high hopes for Craig Taborn's solo set since his Book of Angels disc is one of my favourites. Sure enough, he proved very suited to the Bagatelles, providing highly contrapuntal accounts of the thornier material while teasing the lyricism out of the “rosier” material. This was acoustic jazz of a high, if somewhat cerebral, order and reframed the Bagatelles after so many rock performances over the course of the festival. The set felt shorter than its half-hour running time.
Like Rodrigo I am a Marsella true believer but he still had something to prove coming after such a fine show of pianism. Still, Marsella is a force of nature and he works so well with Dunn & Wollesen that I just felt like I was listening to a great jazz trio from the get-go. I was a little concerned that the Bagatelles would not suit them as well as the Book Of Angels material with its more defined musical characteristics, but you could argue the opposite: that the abstraction worked better with the pianists’s virtuosiy because there was less of a line of demarcation between the improv and the base material. I must confess that my mind did wander a little before the end, but the encores were without a shadow of a doubt the best of the entire festival: an unaccompanied piano piece with a very Middle Eastern cast with some beautifully phrased lines at the top of the keyboard; followed by the riot of stylistic allusions that Rodrigo has already mentioned. Overall the evening concert brought jazz back to the forefront of the festival for its penultimate evening and made a strong case for the Bagatelles to be released on disc.
The indoor concert for the early evening was Trigger: a completely new band to me, but one that has been kicking around performing Zorn over the last four years. This power trio performed extracts from the Bagatelles and Apparitions (which, I had to check, were recorded by Moonchild on Ipsissimus). All three band members are young guys, with bass guitarist Simon Hanes jumping around like a complete prat for the entire concert. Less important than their stage demeanour, though, was the playing, which was raw, compact and very much in the spirit of early grindcore. Several audience members fled early due to the abrasive style, but the pieces were played with precision as well as energy. As a curtain-raiser for the night, Trigger was very successful.
Notwithstanding my scepticism about the Highsmith trio I had high hopes for Craig Taborn's solo set since his Book of Angels disc is one of my favourites. Sure enough, he proved very suited to the Bagatelles, providing highly contrapuntal accounts of the thornier material while teasing the lyricism out of the “rosier” material. This was acoustic jazz of a high, if somewhat cerebral, order and reframed the Bagatelles after so many rock performances over the course of the festival. The set felt shorter than its half-hour running time.
Like Rodrigo I am a Marsella true believer but he still had something to prove coming after such a fine show of pianism. Still, Marsella is a force of nature and he works so well with Dunn & Wollesen that I just felt like I was listening to a great jazz trio from the get-go. I was a little concerned that the Bagatelles would not suit them as well as the Book Of Angels material with its more defined musical characteristics, but you could argue the opposite: that the abstraction worked better with the pianists’s virtuosiy because there was less of a line of demarcation between the improv and the base material. I must confess that my mind did wander a little before the end, but the encores were without a shadow of a doubt the best of the entire festival: an unaccompanied piano piece with a very Middle Eastern cast with some beautifully phrased lines at the top of the keyboard; followed by the riot of stylistic allusions that Rodrigo has already mentioned. Overall the evening concert brought jazz back to the forefront of the festival for its penultimate evening and made a strong case for the Bagatelles to be released on disc.