Cheltenham Jazz Festival Jazzstream 2021

With its event postponed yet again, Cheltenham Jazz Festival made do with two five-hour streams of ‘live’ performance that tantalizingly hinted at what we were all missing. Like most compilations, Now That’s What I Call Cheltenham was a bumpy ride at times but provided a good spread of class acts, promising young talent and must-see takeaways.

The late Chick Corea was certainly one class act, appearing in Lockdown Throwdown, a remotely-compiled video collaboration with Gary Husband that profiled the pair’s multi-instrumental talents (and mind-boggling keyboard collections). Too ‘up’ to be poignant, the short film was a fine celebration of the man whose music also featured in another Gary Husband sequence as well as the joyful collaboration of Tim Garland and Jason Rebello. Both picked the early Corea classic Windows, Husband’s neo-classical duet with flautist Peter Felsh slipping into deconstruction, while Garland and Rebello wove two strong solo readings into a tightly enormous rendition. Both were affectionate tributes to Chick’s compositional brilliance.

Three contrasting sax players impressed, with the charismatic Yolanda Brown trading chops with guitarist Dave Niskin in her tight and groovy soul-inflected set. Altoist and composer Rachel Cohen was a model of cool-with-intent, her rich tone and impeccable phrasing notable in Sonny Rollins’ Freedom Suite. And then there was Idris Rahman’s improvisational trio Ill Considered, whose single, assured piece grew from a Pharoah Sanders-like sunrise call to weave a drum-driven post-punk anthem.

These times are especially hard on young musicians itching to burst forth in their careers, and the Festival rightly gave space to a number of supportive projects including Birmingham Conservatoire’s masterclass octets led by Mike Williams, Arnie Somogyi and Soweto Kinch and the all-female ensemble Rise Up, created by Birmingham’s Jazzlines programme and led by pianist Rebecca Nash.

There was a wealth of talent across these outfits, no doubt a seedbed for future festival line-ups, and surely inspired by the more stage-hardened representatives of Tomorrow’s Warriors on this bill. These were ‘jazz-drill’ pioneer Xvngo (aka KOKOROKO sax player Deji Ijishakan) in a rhythm-heavy duo set with electronicist Master Mac, and tenor saxophonist Maddy Coombs, whose quintet swung nicely through her take on Duke Ellington’s ‘Solitude’ among others.

Bristol-based sax’n’drum duo Run Logan Run also figured impressively across the two-day streams, reflecting their own lockdown series of collaborative on-line gigs. Thus, electro-saxophonists Faye MacCalman and Lara Jones each finished their contributions with spontaneous RLR workouts, individualising the band’s own style with howling multi-layered electronica, pulsing and shifting rhythmic undertows and primal processed sax. There should be a name for this genre – it’s certainly gaining hold across the country.

The Cheltenham experience usually involves being blown away by an unknown ‘discovery’ before seeing the predictable ‘greats’ and this was provided by Portuguese threesome Rite of Trio. Inspired by French writer-poet Antonin Artaud, their Free Development of Delirium was an elaborate composition of tightly written segments with shifting tempos (despite a metronome) and psychodramatic theatricality. Their weekend-opening set was followed by French vocalist Leila Martial spinning a fresh acoustic world from her infinitely flexible voice – another tantalizingly short glimpse of a performer that deserves to be seen in full.

Two final gems: guitarist Chris Montague’s Warmer Than Blood trio (Montague pictured above), who make intricate and accessible chamber jazz. Their elegant phrasing and textures drew strength from restraint; and drummer Jas Kayser and chums closed off the Sunday by whipping up a joyful polyrhythmic post-Afrobeat storm that especially showcased guitarist Jamie Leeming. Both are acts stuffed with musical talent that know exactly where they are going. Hopefully, that will include Cheltenham in 2022.

You can access the Jazzstream online here: Saturday and Sunday

Sunday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYz1FqhiD6M