Jazz, and some Spring Cleaning by Roots of the World
If you are feeling like the dust of life is clinging to you a little too much, or that the Spring sunshine hasn’t quite lit up the darkest corners of your seasonally affected self, the forthcoming Gateshead International Jazz Festival could be just what you need.
Art Blakey, once said that “Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life”, and this aforesaid festival will truly spring clean the spirits.
Now in its tenth year, the festival has become the U.K’s biggest jazz festival under one roof, offering huge diversity to the confirmed jazz lover or the jazz curious as this preview will show.
Urban grooves and electronica provide an infectious cross genre start on the festival’s opening night. Texan producer/pianist Robert Glasper crosses the boundaries between jazz and hip-hop, with his quartet, “The Experiment” playing a late night set. Earlier on that evening, super cool brasilero Ed Motta brings jazz funk to Gateshead. His current output is influenced by 70s soul and Steely Dan. The sound of County Durham is not ignored as the music of “Prefab Sprout” gets the jazz treatment. Django Bates, acclaimed UK jazz composer, Sweden’s Norrbotten Big Band and jazz saxophonist, Joakim Milder, perform a suite, created by Milder around Prefab’s legacy.
Ros Rigby, Performance Programme Director at Sage Gateshead describes the line-up for the festival as “our strongest ever”. The diversity marking day one keeps on going into the remainder of the festival.
Saturday sees Hall One host a jazz supergroup; Argentine pianist Leo Genovese, who has an avant-garde background and grew up amidst the psychedelia of 1970s Brazil , plays with Grammy award winning jazz bassist Esperananza Spalding as members “The Spring Quartet”. Later on that evening, Courtney Pine, jazz multi-instrumentalist, provides a very different offering with a mix geographically based in the Carribean with mento, ska, and calypso.
I earlier refererred to Art Blakey. The living connection between that colossus of bebop drumming and the festival is Jean Toussaint, who played in Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. These days Jean, saxophonist, has a quartet and you can catch them on the Saturday at 2p.m.
There are too many performers to mention as with all festival overviews. I won’t touch on everything, so do please visit Sage's website.
I will close with my eye being particularly drawn to Sunday in Hall Two. Bill Frissell, guitarist and composer joins his trio to explore country, folk and blues through jazz to begin a perfect way to spend a Sunday. Punk determinedly squeezes itself under the accommodating roof that is jazz. Sunday afternoon sees the experimental British jazz band, Polar Bear, throw punk, hip-hop and classical music into the mix, whilst the sonically thrilling local world/roots/fusion band Hannabiell and Midnight Blue close the festival. They are joined by local quartet “The Waal” providing a contrast based in jazz, folk, Scandinavian and Eastern European influences.
Hear tracks from musicians featuring at the festival on April’s “Newcastle Roots Music Radio” out April 1st and on “The Roots of the World Show” on Hive Radio on March 16th at 5pm.
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