American jazz stars return to Europe for Moers Festival

In 2020, the Moers Festival uncompromisingly presented its complete programme as an on-site livestream-cum-broadcast, slickly filmed by the French-German Arte television network. At that time, they were completely in the vanguard of online lockdown presentation.

We never would have guessed that a year later, for its 50th anniversary edition, this hallowed, and highly alternative German weekender would still be presenting its line-up from a heavily restricted situation. This year, the concept was to divide the schedule between the accustomed Eventhalle, with no public audience allowed, and a second stage, Rodelberg, outside in the park, and also without much of a physical audience. Except that three days before the festival opened, the local state authorities abruptly switched the rules to allow a fleshly crowd-limit of 500 for the evening park concerts. Suddenly, Moersfolk were able to witness their first live music in the city for over a year.

In another first, this was the weekend that the Americans returned to Europe. None of the booked Stateside artists pulled out at short notice, and they were all radiating a confident excitement, newly vaccinated, and travelling to play. Some of them hadn’t gigged in over a year, particularly as NYC had remained completely closed to live performances since March 2020. Here we had John Scofield, Fred Frith, Ava Mendoza, Gerald Cleaver, Joe McPhee, Hamid Drake, Myra Melford, Drew Gress, Joey Baron, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and alto saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos’s five-piece Strictly Missionary. Also on site were Brad Mehldau, David Murray (pictured below) and the Talibam! twosome of Matt Mottel and Kevin Shea, who were already resident around various European parts. In fact those latter pair are this year’s Improvisers In Residence, spending an entire year in Moers.

It’s not often we have the chance to witness a David Murray gig in recent years, and for Moers the tenor saxophonist presented his new trio with bassist Bradley Jones and drummer Hamid Drake. This is a setting which allows Murray the maximum showcasing for his extended soloing, each journey tending to ascend towards his signature high-note crying, notes blending into a sinuously vocal expression of joyous invocation. It was exciting to catch Drake in a more rhythmically conventional, linear space, although only ‘conventional’ when compared to his more usual abstract free improvisations. This was one of the evening outdoor gigs in front of an audience.

The electric bass player Jamaaladeen Tacuma is also rarely sighted live onstage in recent times. He forged his reputation with Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, and has lately been playing with Marc Ribot’s Young Philadelphians. Tacuma appeared on the sunny park stage, in the afternoon, but without that 500-strong crowd. This didn’t make him shy in funking up the avant slap attack, along with additional narration, singing and audience encouragement, creating a kind of alternative dance abstraction. Sporting a turquoise cap, vari-hued shirt and yellow trousers, Tacuma looked like someone grown in the park, capering around his big circle of effects pedals. He delivered a slap-tastic ‘Showstopper’, from his classic solo debut album on the Gramavision label, then intoned the Leon Thomas lines from ‘The Creator Has A Master Plan’, continuing on with the Pharoah Sanders tune itself. ‘Dreamscape’ was an extended groove, calming into the ballad ‘Bird Of Paradise’. It only took one lone dude to funk the field!

In the Eventhalle, Brad Mehldau gave his solo pub pianist set, electing to play almost all standards, with an emphasis on The Beatles songbook. It was the most dignified, poised pub session (with zero drinking) we will ever experience! He dismantled ‘I Am The Walrus’, but still adhered to its general structure, followed by the less-heard ‘Your Mother Should Know’. Mehldau successfully sidestepped from Neil Young to John Coltrane, then played an original, ‘Remembering Before All This’, which was born early in the pandemic. By its conclusion, Mehldau had amassed a potent intensity, weirdly magnified by the large green balloons surrounding him onstage. It’s a ballad, emanating a strange power, this feeling continuing with the closing ‘Golden Slumbers’, another Beatles number.

There were also some inspired freely improvised sets by UK artists, with bassman John Edwards outstanding in Decoy and a pan-European quartet, the former outfit featuring Alexander Hawkins, unusually on Hammond B3 organ. Pianist Pat Thomas led the [ISM] trio and Fred Frith joined two different groups.

The Moers experience is always incredibly diverse. The festival’s roots lie in free jazz, but nowadays its programme is also rife with extreme rock, electronics, systems folk, and modern classical forms, with not-so-much-jazz highlights including the Ethiopian outfit Fendika (Han Bennink guesting), percussionist Will Guthrie’s gamelan ensemble, UK/Ugandan percussion combo Nihiloxica, and a large ensemble reading of Julius Eastman’s ‘Femenine’.

Moers Festival is available to watch on the Arte Concert website until the end of June

There will be another Moers Festival review in the August print edition of Jazzwise, featuring a different selection of artists...