Ralph McTell and Wizz Jones, live at The Beehive, Honiton, 10th February, 2017, gig review

Memorable

Ralph McTell and Wizz Jones each have their individual legendary status, and playing together there is such a depth of talent and experience to provide. And they did. In summary, the two hours of performance were delivered as a charming, anecdotal narrative of their individual and shared musical roots and experiences, illustrated then by the songs, either independently or shared. Each continually conveyed genuine humility as well as mutual appreciation, and at this purely personal/personality level, the two were engaging, warm, humorous, and also instructive about musical history, from songwriting and songwriters to guitar techniques.

One pervasive impact from the night, for me at least, was a sense of history and context. Without overstating – indeed, far from it – a few of the songs reflected poignantly, and sadly, on current events, for example the performance of Willy Guthrie’s Deportee about Mexican migrants working in the USA and then sent back home once their hard work and exploitation of that had been completed,

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?

Another, Pete Seeger’s He Lies in American Land, tells the story of an immigrant man, husband and father, who travels on his own from Europe to work in Pennsylvania, in McKeespot making steel, but dies before his wife and family arrive to join him. As McTell and Jones didn’t need to extrapolate further to make the broader, contemporary relevance, I won’t, but when this Seeger song was song, the weight of current events made the performance resonate with sadness, and more,

  

Ah, my God what is this land of America?

So many people travelling there
I will go too for I am still young
God the Lord will grant me good luck there

Wizz Jones at 77 still plays a mean guitar, and this came to the fore on his solo of Mance Lipscomb’s ‘Bout a Spoonful [which made me recall my comments here on Dixon’s song performed by Cream], an authentic sense of the blues brought alive in his playing. Another sweet song he played was Night Ferry, and he also played When I Leave Berlin, recounting then and throughout the gig his and Ralph’s time playing in Germany, and also recounting how Springsteen played this at his Berlin gig in 2012, without acknowledging Wizz as the writer. He did so with a laugh, and I think it was a genuine dismissal from a genuine great.

Ralph McTell at 73 also played some gorgeous guitar, a great blues on his The Ghost of Robert Johnson, and once on his 12 string. The highlight of his on the night, and I am astonished I didn’t know the song – but I do now, and throughout this morning with repeated listens – was the beautiful From Clare to Here. McTell’s voice has over the years settled to a resonating bass and it was wonderful to hear the fulsome delivery live. Both he and Jones told anecdotes of how they came across songs of theirs [as with FCTH] in songbooks stated as traditional Irish songs. Again, in that shared humility which ran throughout the night, they expressed complete satisfaction with this.

A memorable night.

Scroll down just beneath this for videos of two great performances.

The Iain Ballamy Quartet - The Bristol Fringe, 19th October, 2016, gig review

Jazz Revelations on the Curve

Today has been a revelation. I have been on the arc of the curve. The learning curve. The jazz learning curve.

I went to an excellent Iain Ballamy Quartet gig last night at the wonderful Bristol Fringe and have spent most of today educating myself further on so many of the musical experiences I had there.

I knew a little of Ballamy, some from my YouTube research as I knew I was going to see him, and a little from memory of him being in Loose Tubes which I recall being a loud and lively jazz ensemble that I saw and recorded from a TV programme in the early 1980s. Last night he played a set of covers with a great trio in support – songs whose names I just can’t remember because of sieve-qualities in my noggin – but his playing was distinctive in its mellowness and the many rolls rather than outbursts that seem to be his style. There was a warm rapport with the fine support - Mark Whitley on drums, Percy Pursglove on double bass, and Jim Blomfield on electric keyboards – and each had moments of soloing that always impressed, not least Pursglove when he suddenly began to play flugelhorn [hadn’t seen that coming] and blew us all away [I know, I’m sorry….].

Indeed, this is where much of my further YouTube and other research went today: finding out about Pursglove and listening to music of his from Far Reaching Dreams of Mortal Souls here, as well as Blomfield and music from his Wave Forms and Sea Changes here, Blomfield delivering some knock-out solos during the night. Mark Whitley has been harder to track down, but his range of rhythmic foundations for last night’s music was impressive, including, as Ballamy praised so genuinely, his use of brushes.

What I liked particularly about Ballamy’s playing was the breathiness of it at times which reminded me of Benny Golson who I reviewed here recently. As I have said, there were no eruptions of sound but the virtuosity was in its delicate, maybe even understated gentleness for most of the time, though a long number that played on a pulsing staccato rhythm by all the guys was hypnotic as well as lively.

My further research on Bellamy today introduced me to his electronic work in the ensemble Food as well as Molecular Gastronomy. One piece Becalmed with a favourite of mine Nils Petter Molvaer introduced me to more of his extensive work across contemporary jazz work. It just seems such a privilege to see this kind of talent at a small and intimate gig in Bristol.

And this is where I will mention the surprise of the night but in the context of my abject ignorance. Norma Winstone was present and in the second set she got up on stage and performed two numbers with the band, How Deep is the Ocean and Lional Hampton’s Midnight Sun. 

I hadn’t heard of Winstone and am quite ashamed to have learned today of what a jazz vocal legend she is, a contemporary of Julie Driscoll and clearly influential as an artist in the 60s and 70s and throughout her career. I am listening to her 1972 album Edge of Time as I write this, and I have been listening to other powerful work with Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor, especially Azimuth. And much more thanks to YouTube. Last night she did some trademark scatting, and now in her 70s, she displayed a sure tone and empathy with the band. On the one hand my ignorance is irrelevant as I couldn’t help but recognise and enjoy her talent, but on the other I would like to have known at the time what a privilege this was too on a night where live music entertained so thoroughly.

As I typed that last line I have been listening to the track Erebus from her album: astonishing! The vocal scatting and screaming within the big band crescendo is electrifying. One of the greats, and another line learned on the glorious never-ending curve.

Zoot Money - The Bull's Head, London, 30th June, 2016, gig review

The Heat is 73 and Risin'

Zoot Money and his band of equally mature members gave a consummate performance to characterise the stonkin’ seventies [most of them] and I don’t mean the decade. Wow, these guys rocked, and such a cliché hits the big nail on the Bull’s Head.

Wordplay over, it was a privilege to see Zoot [to name a few musical liaisons: Alan Price; Alexis Korner; Alvin Lee; The Animals; Eddie Harris; Kevin Ayers; Kevin Coyne; Humble Pie; Long John Baldry; Spencer Davis; Thunderclap Newman] and at 73, soon to be 74, he absolutely thrilled with his energetic presentation of the blues and jazz, ranging widely from Ray Charles to Chuck Berry to Alexis Korner to a guy from Suffolk [which appealed to my friend and me, school mates from Ipswich] although the song attributed to him was actually written by a Scotsman, as Money tells us at its end, and instead it’s the next song that is by our Suffolk songwriter – it was hard to keep up, the songs and glorious solos pounding out were a whir of wonder.

Zoot is a gracious, generous band leader and clearly adores as well as enthuses as the band play their various parts. My musical education continues to expose me as the dunce, not knowing the history of the great players contributing – Al Kirtley, who Zoot acknowledged taught him how to play the piano, not that he will ever be as good [and reading Al Kirtley’s blog today he is as complimentary the other way, saying he couldn’t compete with Money’s organ playing prowess] guested on a number – and it was superb; Bobby Tench on guitar [Freddie King; Van Morrison; The Jeff Beck Group (as Bobby Gas); Ginger Baker; Humble Pie; Streetwalkers]; Nick Newall on saxophone and flute [The Kinks; Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band] and bassist Paul MacCullum who – I wasn’t going to mention but it was clearly a chair malfunction and nothing else – fell over during one number, quite dramatically, but kept playing, the pro’s pro. I’d appreciate some help on the other saxophonist [M Crescent…?] who played superb tenor solos. The guest drummer [Steve? Give me a break, I was having a great time] filled in brilliantly on the night, another one of the ‘Bournemouth’ boys from where so many hailed and/or played back in the day.

Highlights of the night were all the solos, including Money on keyboard [he really only played his Hammond the once, it seemed], but also and memorably Zoot’s singing: such a reverie of emotive R&B/blues, his voice rising and falling and screeching and growling and expressing every joyous emotion in the lyrics and playing. Stand out song was Wild Women and Desperate Men, written by Alexis Korner, and as Zoot tells us, Korner never played it live but he did now. Watch the video I will post after this, with MacCullam on bass.