This was the 15th edition of the Punkt Festival, but my first experience of this unique festival. The invitation to attend came as part of an expansion of the festival, both in the range of music presented and the number of venues, and as part of its international focus and presentation of partner Punkt festivals in different cities round the world. This year the music took in a range of genres, including what we might call ‘chamber improv’, ambient music, experimental rock and a concerto for the Japanese shamisen instrument and full orchestra, and however we define the music of the Swedish piano trio Rymden (Scandinavian jazz?). But, as is probably well known, the core of the festival is the Live Remix, the immediate follow up of a particular concert with the use of samples of that concert to create a new piece of music.
This year the festival used a number of different venues. The festival clearly has as a defining feature a willingness to present a wide range of music and a lack of interest in genre labels. However, the programme with its range of available venues had this year a policy of putting particular types of music into the venue most suited to it. Thus what I have called ‘chamber improv’ was presented in a black box venue in SØlander Art Museum, the ‘ambient music’ sets were in the Domkirken, the Cathedral, the ‘experimental rock’ was in the Kick Scene club and the final evening with the orchestral piece, Rymden and Kim Myhr’s guitar and percussion based piece took place in Kilden, the relatively new concert hall.
The festival thus seems to have an openness to different genres and an acceptance of their differences rather than a rejection of genre labels. It brings these genres together and shows how they overlap through the use of the Live Remix.
There were many highlights in the concert programme; on the first evening vocalist Sidsel Endresen interacted with the violin and double bass duo Vilde and Inga, five members of the Ensemble Modern interacted with festival co-director Jan Bang on laptop. The highlight of the evening, however, was the set with Samuel Rohrer’s Dark Star Safari that featured Jan Bang’s vocals with their attractive, rather melancholy feel. On Day 2 in the Cathedral we had a stunning solo set from Ståle Storløkken on the cathedral organ and a beautiful, if slightly overlong, vocal composition performed by the Trondheim Voices.
In the Kick Scene club we had two powerful and loud sets of experimental rock, the first from the young Drongo group from Kristiansand, a band with three keyboards, two guitars, electric bass and drums, and the second from the Thurston Moore Group. The latter set was very structured with a series of transitions from one passage to another signalled by Moore with the other members of the group poised waiting for the cue.
In the Kilden concert hall the concerto for the Japanese shamisen instrument composed by Dai Fujikura and performed by Hidejiro Honjoh and the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra was a little underwhelming with the shamisen, a three stringed guitar/banjo type instrument, perhaps lacking the breadth of sound needed to match the orchestral writing. Kim Myhr’s You | Me group with four guitars, all doubling acoustic and electric guitars, and three percussionists created wonderful layers of music, repetitive but powerful enough to resist the ‘minimalist’ label. Finally, the set by Rymden, the Swedish trio with Bugge Wesseltoft, Dan Berglund and Magnus ÖstrÖm was the one that came closest to a jazz approach based on tunes, all announced, and all featuring solos from the members of the group.
The Live Remixes took place immediately after the main concert and on the same stage. The festival directors, Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, led three of the six remixes, either individually or working with other musicians, and the other three involved invited individuals or groups. I enjoyed all the Live Remix sets, but was unsure about the focus of these sets. Some built an intriguing set of music that referred to aspects of the concert sampled to create a fascinatingly coherent version of that concert. The Remix by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré with Arve Henriksen and Eivind Aarset that drew both on the organ set by Ståle SorlØkken and that of the Trondheim Voices is a case in point, producing what was for me some of the most beautiful music heard during the festival. The Remix of the shamisen concerto by Jan Bang and featuring Sidsel Endresen was less obviously linked to the concert, but nonetheless created a set of music that reflected the original. Also less obviously linked, at least in my ears, were the remixes of the Drongo set by Simen Løvgren, that of the Thurston Moore set by the Supersilent trio, and that of the Kim Myhr set by Pål- Kåres Elektroshop. Each of these remixes presented interesting electronic music that was successful in its own right and certainly captured the spirit of the original. But I was left wondering what the parameters of the Live Remix are. How far should they draw on the original? Is it sufficient to create something original that does no more than reflect the vibe of the original?
A couple of observations: I found Fiona Talkington’s introductions very informative, especially those on the first day when she conducted a brief Q&A with the musicians. Secondly, the festival was dominated by guitars, keyboard and drums. Not one group had a saxophone!
The Birmingham Punkt Festival with the two co-directors, Jan Bang and Erik Honoré and a mix of British and Norwegian musicians will take place at Birmingham City University from 18th to 20th March.
The photographs above were taken by Petter Sandell
I was there for the first night of the residency and loved the energy and the sheer joy of the quintet. It seems to be directed by Alex Hawkins at the piano strongly supported by John Edwards on the double bass and the intricate patterns woven by Moholo at the drums. The form of the two sets the quintet played was based on seamless moves in and out of the strong South African melodies, and a movement between these melodies and the passionate improvising of the two reed players, Shabaka Hutchings on tenor sax and bass clarinet, and Jason Yarde on alto sax. The interplay between the two was a key part of the wonderful atmosphere created by the band. As I recall, the band played in both sets one long passage including various tunes interwoven with the improvisation before pausing and concluding the set with one or two shorter passages.
By contrast, the music of the Five Blokes is much more fluid with the constant movement between the tunes and the improvisation that really keeps the listener anticipating quite rapid changes from one to the other. The changes seem to be cued either by Hawkins at the piano or by certain drum patterns from Louis Moholo. All this gives the music a freshness and an excitement that is very special.
The season begins on Tuesday 17th September at the Lamp Tavern with a Fizzle double bill featuring a duo between Andy Woodhead on piano and Hannah Marshall on cello and a quartet featuring four young improvisers: Filippo Radicchi, drums, David Sear, trombone, Alex Astbury, trumpet and bass and Lee Griffiths saxophone.
With these interests in mind, it was fascinating to hear Romain Dugelay at the recent Jazz Connective meeting in Łodz describe the history of the Grolektif collective of which he was a co-founder and the reasons why it had ceased to exist. The collective was set up in 2004 by a group of musicians recently graduated from the jazz course at the Lyon Conservatoire. The first year was devoted to developing repertoire for the bands that members of the collective formed, the second year was devoted to developing original material for the bands. After three years the collective had sufficient funding to support 10 bands and a label, but urgently needed their own venue to provide regular playing opportunities. Thus in 2007 the Grolektif Collectif along with a second collective, the Polycarpe Collectif, helped establish Le Périscope venue in Lyon, actively participating in building and creating a space suitable for creative music. This is now a thriving venue that promotes up to 130 concerts a year in the area of creative music, i.e. jazz, improvised music, hip hop, rock.
A visit to Ronnie Scott’s this week to hear a new project of Nikki Yeoh’s based on the music of the French Algerian composer Maurice El-Medioni and featuring a trio with Shirley Smart on cello and Demi Garcia Sabat on drums has led to a reflection on my part on the nature of audience reaction. The trio was appearing as part of Ronnie Scott’s International Piano Trio Festival and an added bonus was the appearance of the Bokani Dyer Trio in the opening set.
This very satisfying experience and the visit to Ronnie Scott’s led me to spend the following evening listening to the recently issued double Cd (Bill Evans: Evans in England on the Resonance label) of Bill Evans playing live with his trio with Eddie Gomez on double bass and Marty Morell on drums at Ronnie Scott’s in December 1969. The music on the CD is very different from that which I heard live at Ronnies; it focusses on Bill Evans’ reworking of show tunes such as Stella By Starlight, Our Love Is Here to Stay etc, though the interaction between the members of the trio and the freedom of the bass and drums was the forerunner of the integration at the heart of both trios I heard at Ronnies.
for Peter Bruun’s All Too Human, a quartet with Bruun on drums, Marc Ducret on guitar, Kasper Tranberg on trumpet and Simon Toldam on keys. This was a fantastic concert with a strong focus on Bruun’s compositions. The language was essentially that of free jazz, but within the context of a structured approach involving rather more composition than improvised solos. Bruun gave a fascinating insight into his writing process when he introduced one tune by telling the audience that the composition came directly from his transcription of a solo by Ducret that Bruun had heard at a concert given by Big Satan, the band that Tim Berne leads with Ducret and Tom Rainey. There had been a certain amount of banter about the tune with Tim Berne claiming – I assume in good humour – that the tune should really be his, and Ducret being unhappy at playing a tune based on a solo of his that he felt had several mistakes.
small room with a large dining table in the middle with places set, candles on the table and everything seemingly ready for a banquet. The musicians were all dressed in white robes with a black sash; they entered the room one by one and invited several members of the audience to join them at the table and have a glass of wine. There then followed a series of musical events around the table and then on the table carefully avoiding any contact between the robes and the candles. The music moved from vocals to passages led by percussion to some free playing. I loved the approach of creating a situation for music very different from that of the concert hall, but I remained uncertain about the actual music. Much of it was excellent, but I still felt something was lacking.
Steve Ajao and the Blues Giants, one of the favourite bands with the audience, and it will take place in the Main Hall rather than on the foyer. Symphony Hall’s Chief Executive, Nick Reed, will be there to outline the plans for the development of the foyer, which will be closing this month as part of the Making An Entrance project. The entrance and the foyers will be refurbished so that there will be a new foyer space specially designed for live music.
It all began 15 years ago when Birmingham Jazz of which I was then Chair agreed with Symphony Hall to run a series on the foyer. The first gig featured the Bryan Corbett Quartet and we were delighted that a large crowd turned up for this first gig and even more delighted that they have continued to come regularly over the 15 years. I well remember that first gig: Bryan Corbett is a brilliant player and his group got us off to a tremendous start playing top class jazz that was accessible to an audience many of whom were just tipping their toes in the water with jazz. That night, A R Rahman, the well-known composer of music for Indian films, was in town conducting the CBSO, and it was very pleasing that many South Asians came early to that concert, either deliberately to hear the jazz, or catching it just by chance, but seemingly enjoying it.