Koma Saxo’s complex-funk sparkles at JazzFest Berlin’s hybrid live and streamed 2021 edition

Oddly enough, Jazzfest Berlin’s move from its long-accustomed home at the Festspiele theatre was not due to virus-related demands, but rather the ongoing renovation of said venue. This meant that the new-ish Silent Green was used for a second year, dominated by its grand-scale concrete slope down to an old mortuary-space, underground music now being presented in its natural home...!

In 2020, the Jazzfest was locked down at the eleventh hour, becoming an entirely online happening, but this year it was allowed a fairly robust audience, once entering through the rigorous vaccinated/recovered/tested documentation filter. Silent Green was home to the majority of performances, but with two outside theatres and a church also involved. Scenes Of Now was the festival subtitle, involving connections with artists in three cities that offered travel challenges: Cairo, Johannesburg and São Paulo. A couple of artists actually managed to appear in person, with the touring South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini playing solo, and the Egyptian guitarist Maurice Louca leading his Elephantine ensemble. Otherwise, the artists from these cities either sent pre-filmed works, or engaged in a livestream hook-up from a partner venue, as with the multiple bands beaming in from the Johannesburg club Sognage.

Each evening at Silent Green there were between two and four actual live combos playing in the main space, with additional acts appearing at the Kuppelhalle on the same site. As it happened, some of the greatest sets of this four-dayer had strong Berlin connections. Koma Saxo might only feature a lone native German, in drummer Christian Lillinger, but half of its Scandinavian majority are resident in Berlin. Bassist Petter Eldh elected to play electric for this gig, augmented by a carpet of effects boxes, plus an MPC set-up. It’s clear that Koma Saxo can exist in multiple forms, mostly acoustic, sometimes with a guesting vocalist, but for Berlin they possessed a much harder, subhuman low-end monstrousness. A bedrock of dancefloor pulsation, but with a lean, virtuoso horn-stabbing mesh in the 1970s free jazz fashion. The resultant sound was therefore commercially viable while co-existing with a challenging carapace-of-squall. Another addition to the band-norm was the Finnish saxophonist Mikko Innanen, mostly favouring his sopranino of surgical-stitching precision. Fierce tenor competition was provided by Otis Sandsjö and Jonas Kullhammar. Koma Saxo’s exhilarating complexity makes their funk nigh on undanceable, so the seated crowd could simply twitch-and-dream of their desired moves. The third fresh aspect was finding Lillinger in this blizzard of avant funk, adding his own hyper-tinkering, runaway clockwork percussion details to the brew, at lightning speed.

As usual at Jazzfest, the Albert Mangelsdorff Prize was awarded, this year going to the veteran pianist Aki Takase. Doubtless ignited by this win, her Japanic combo delivered a particularly wired set of complicated, free-organised dynamism. Takase played at peak level, with her stepson DJ Illvibe scratching glitch-amplifying vinyl in a totally jazz-steeped manner, his rhythmic constructions aping the lines we might usually hear on a horn. Daniel Erdmann responded on his actual soprano and tenor saxophones, revealing an innate rapport with Takase’s jagged, rollercoaster piano solos. The band slashed a vivid line between aggressive excitement and ironic humour, balancing between instinctively staged phases of meditation and explosiveness.

Sets of this quality were difficult to come down from afterwards, as either filmed or livestreamed material would invariably follow very soon after the last notes struck. When a prime live set climaxes, the audience has a natural desire to take a break, to socialise and wander around. Right now, sitting and watching a livestream, communally, is the very last thing we desire. Perhaps the Jazzfest film/stream input should have existed in a separate chamber? Nevertheless, many in the audience appeared quite rapt, even if relaxing into conversation, and there was one tingling moment where we glimpsed the outside vistas of verdant Johannesburg, right outside the door of the Sognage club. A further pair of positive points: i) the streaming had multi-view screens on all four walls of the hall, and ii) the South African artists in particular brought a welcome contrast of funky earthiness and joyousness to the proceedings. Your scribe never personally had much time for livestreams in 2020, but he does believe that they hold a positive force for those who relish them, and are a fine facilitator of global transmission for venues. See how many clubs are continuing to stream, now that they’ve learnt the process?

The February print edition of Jazzwise will feature another Jazzfest Berlin review, tackling a different selection of artists...