A November to Remember

AFTER opening our Autumn programme with a great series of gigs, from the tumultuous free jazz of The Thing to the brilliant contemporary bop of the Julian Siegel Quartet, we’re gearing up for a November mini-series of staggering quality and tremendous variety.

Matters kick off on 3rd November with the award-winning Scottish saxophones & trumpet quartet Brass Jaw, who were a huge hit when they appeared at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival in 2010. On that occasion they performed in St Mary’s Church, and demonstrated how adept they are at using the acoustics of unusual spaces to enhance their performance . . . so we’re setting them an equal challenge by putting them on in the library at Newcastle’s Lit & Phil, so they can bounce their sounds around the book stacks and the wrought iron balconies.

A week later, again at the Lit & Phil (but this time in the dedicated concert room), we have the Convergence Quartet, bringing together young players from Canada, the USA, and the UK, all of whom share an interest in exploring the territory between the composed jazz heritage and the challenges of free improvisation. Front man Taylor Ho Bynum plays a 100 year old cornet, frequently evoking the sounds of the very earliest jazz brass players, but bending this into shapes more reminiscent of free pioneers like Don Cherry and Lester Bowie.       

If Convergence are the new generation of innovative jazz players, the duo who come to the Lit & Phil on the 18th are near-legendary veterans. Seventy-two year old New Yorker Charles Gayle is widely considered to be the inheritor of the legacy associated with Albert Ayler and late Coltrane, although his recent switch from tenor sax to a plastic alto also emphasises the continuity with Ornette Coleman. He’s joined for this unforgettable gig (the only performance outside London) by Dutch drummer Han Bennink, who was part of the group of musicians who began to forge a distinctive European approach to improvisation in the mid-‘60s. Combining total freedom with driving swing, he’s the perfect partner for Gayle.

Finally in the November series (and again the only non-London gig) we move across the Tyne to the Sage for ‘Enescu re-Imagined’, with downtown New York meeting contemporary classical in a daring re-interpretation of the works of Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu. With an octet including trumpeter Ralph Alessi, viola player Mat Maneri, bassist Drew Gress and former Miles Davis percussionist Badal Roy, this would be a staggering group regardless of the repertoire, but their exploration of the harmonic bridges across the genres promises to be a real revelation.  

That’s November out of the way, but there’s barely time to draw breath before we hit a straightahead vein in December. Guitarist John Etheridge brings his ‘Trio North’ to Newcastle Arts Centre on the 1st, and then we end our 2011 programme in upbeat manner with Paul Booth’s Organ Trio at the Corner House Hotel on the 8th. It’s been a great year - our banner proclaims “The Best in Jazz since 1966”, and we continue to trawl the world to make sure that boast is justified.

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Of course, none of this would be possible without assistance from our funding bodies, and we are deeply grateful to the Arts Council, to Jazz Action, to the PRS Foundation, and to Newcastle and Gateshead Councils, all of whom make an invaluable contribution to our work either through cash grants or through support in kind.