Jason Palmer previews Michael Janisch's Paradigm Shift at Pizza Dean Street

American trumpeter Jason Palmer (above, Photo Credit: Patrick Hadfield) previews the gigs (and live recording for CD) by Michael Janisch's Paradigm Shift at the Pizza Express Dean Street this Wednesday 4th May and Thursday 5th May, approacing the end of the tour

I’m writing this entry in the middle of Michael Janisch’s Paradigm Shift tour. We are on our way to Derry from Dublin. I’ve been having an absolute blast playing this intriguing music with this extraordinary cast of musicians that Michael assembled. Experiencing this music onstage every night so far has opened my ears to more possibilities in the spontaneous collective creative process. I can thank MJ, Paul Booth (tenor), Esperanza Salding's pianist Leo Genovese (piano, keys), and drummers David Lyttle, who did the early dates, and Colin Stranahan, for that.

The first extensive tour that I’ve had with Michael was in 2009 which was a tour in support of his highly acclaimed debut album Purpose Built (Whirlwind Records). For this tour, we are performing in addition to original compositions by myself, Leo, and Paul; a debut suite of music penned by Michael entitled the Paradigm Shift Suite. This three-part suite, a series of movements composed with each player in the band in mind; is a free-spirited tour-de-force composed from the bass up. Every melodic theme in the suite is born from Michael’s organic approach to improvisation.

This extremely well thought/felt piece showcases everyone in the band to the fullest. One thing that I can say after hearing Michael’s playing within this set of music is that he’s “all over it”!!

A couple of weeks ago there was a clear sign that the music from this suite would turn out to be real treat to play and to take in. Michael sent the band midi files of the music for us to listen to in order to get a feel for the music. I was at home cooking with the midi files on in the background and in walked my wife. She immediately started dancing profusely to one of the quirky, mixed-meter segments of the suite. That was confirmation for me that Michael’s music in this suite never lost sight of music’s original purpose to the human condition. He’s built upon it this go round!

We’ve had a great run of the music and all the audiences have been hugely receptive to the music thus far. Here’s where we’ve been so far and where we’ll be for the rest of the tour:

April 27- The Cross, Birmingham,
April 28- Glasgow Arts Club, Glasgow,
April 29- The Jazz Bar, Edinburgh
April 30- JJ Smyth’s Dublin, Ireland
May 1- Derry Jazz Festival, Derry, Ireland 5pm-7pm (feat. Jean Toussaint Andreas Varady)
May 4- Pizza Express Jazz Club, London (Live Recording) 8:30pm-
May 5- Pizza Express Jazz Club, London (Live Recording) 8:30pm-
May 6- The Lit and Phil, Newcastle, UK 8pm-11pm

I sincerely hope that all of you Londoners can make it out to any or all of the sets at Pizza Express on the 4th and 5th. We’ll be recording live for those sets, so if you’re there, just know that when you clap, your clapping will go on those records.

Cheers,

Jason Palmer

Bookings: pizzaexpresslive.co.uk

Jason Palmer's CD "Nothing to Hide" is on Steeplechase Records.

Review: Esperanza Spalding

Esperanza Spalding (Barbican Centre, Friday 08 April. Review by Fran Hardcastle, photo credit: Roger Thomas)

Esperanza Spalding entered the Barbican stage in darkness, kicked off her shoes and poured a glass of wine. What followed was a short taste of honeyed chamber music for string trio (Jody Redhage, Sara Caswell and Lois Martin). The mini living room set brought a dash of theatricality, but it was a warm, welcoming and original touch, typical of the performing style that allowed her to defy the odds, and to win her the Grammy for Best New Artist.

While the music she performs draws influence from her classical roots, adding inflections of folk and world, the concoction is distinctly creatively fresh. Complex challenging time signatures sound organic. The sweetest songs avoid becoming overtly saccharine by the use of meaty harmony. The occasional use of vocals from Leala Cyr as part of the musical texture added to the orchestration of works like Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Spalding’s characterful voice slipped from soft smoky hues to wild free gut- wrenching cries of emotion. Her mature and heartfelt interpretation of Wild is the Wind belied her 26 years and brought me to tears. Whilst her vocal virtuousity was reflective of early Norma Winstone in the pitch perfect vocalese of Chacarera. On the bass, solos had her flying fingers dance around the instrument, or pulling out a warm sonorous tone with her bow.



Spalding displayed her flair for the dramatic in a captivating performance of Apple Blossoms, taking a seat to perform the song as though narrating a story. Her touching use of body language brought the lyrics to life. The exchange of spoken introductions for monologues building to recitative passages to segue into charts was effective if towards the end, a tad overused.

The highlight of the evening, the vibrant latin tinged What A Friend, saw a welcome opportunity for pianist Leo Genovese to let rip supported by brief spurts of fire from percussionist Richie Barshay. It was a shame there weren’t more chances to hear from these pretty spectacular musicians, but this didn’t mar the rapture of the audience in watching Spalding really hitting it on the bass, revelling in the interaction of her powerful band. Along with Winter Sun, it doesn’t seem far-reaching to liken her writing to Stevie Wonder in the ability to produce jubilant music that lives on in your head long after the performance.

News: reduction in the number of Grammy award categories

Alex Webb comments on the restructuring/downsizing in the number of Grammy Award Categories from next year:

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has just announced a restructuring of the event’s awards categories, bringing them down from 109 to a mere 78. If you’ve ever tried to make sense of the Grammy Awards, this news may come as a relief.

The jazz enthusiast's first reaction may, understandably, be alarm at what this might mean for minority categories, but, in fact, rock and pop that have been most affected. Taking Pop, Rock, R&B and Rap together, their categories tumble from 28 to 14. Jazz has been trimmed too, and next year will have just four categories, down from six:

Best Improvised Jazz Solo
Best Jazz Vocal Album
Best Jazz Instrumental Album
Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album

‘Best Latin Jazz Album’ and ‘Best Contemporary Jazz Album’ have been lost.

Whether these changes are a response to reactions to some of the surprise winners in this year’s (53rd) Grammy Awards is hard to say. In February music executive Steve Stoute, best-known for managing hip-hop artist Nas, took out a full page ad in the New York Times claiming the awards had “lost touch with contemporary popular culture”. He seemed particularly annoyed at the success of jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding: "How is it that Justin Bieber, an artist that defines what it means to be a modern artist, did not win best new artist?" Stoute said.

Esperanza Spalding (above) won Best New Artist earlier this year. Her concert tomorrow at the Barbican Centre is sold-out; she returns on 11 July.

www.grammy.com

Lisa Gee Writes

Since LondonJazz came to being in January 2009, it has included contributions by no fewer than sixteen female writers, approaching half of the total. By contrast a handful of excellent female journalists make up a tiny percentage of contributors to the main UK jazz publications.

Why this imbalance? Taking a dip into the blogosphere, there certainly appears to be a strong pool of aspiring female music journalists. What steps can we take to even the playing field?

Lisa Gee, who wrote an article for the Guardian in 1997 profiling female instrumentalists, updates her thoughts for us.

Writing about two gigs featuring, between them, ten male musicians and one female vocalist, the classically-voiced Trudy Kerr singing with the Geoff Gascoyne band, is, for obvious reasons, a strange choice for the International Women’s Day issue of Londonjazz. Unless, of course, I was planning to bleat about the lack of women in the bands.

Which I wasn’t, because

• the music was fab – and I enjoyed every minute of both gigs
• it was a last minute decision to do it
and
• from a cursory read of Jazz in London, the only female instrumentalist playing in any jazz gig in London that night was Karen Sharp on sax with Jacqui Dankworth at Pinner Parish Church.

My original plan had been to revisit a Guardian article I wrote, in the mid-90s ,about women in jazz and ask the same musicians what’s changed over the past 15 years. But I couldn’t find the piece.

So, instead, I scanned the audience at while listening to the Hans Koller Sextet and spotted crime-writer John Harvey – who wrote the sleeve notes for Hans Koller’s last album. A frequent King’s Place attendee, he noted that there were more women and more young people in the audience than usual.

As he and I were haring off in the midst of the second set (I had another gig to catch, he had a bus and an early morning) I tried to articulate my feelings about why so few women ever write about jazz – one notable exception being the great Valerie Wilmer. Neither of us could, in the short time available, come up with a good reason.

So, while driving from King’s Place to the 606 – where the audience was split pretty much 50-50 and the men talked more and louder – I reflected on the matter.

I started writing about jazz because listening to it was so different to reading about it. Whilst it can deepen listening pleasure to know the history of the form and be able to spot musical allusions, it’s by no means essential. Yet most of the articles I read back in the nineties seemed to focus on the musical genealogies of both jazzers and their tunes. Expert writing for expert audiences. Which is all very well, but it was never going to attract new listeners. And – make of this what you will – virtually all of it was by men. I wanted to write in a way that was accessible to people who knew nothing of the form but who, I felt, would simply enjoy listening to brilliant music.

I asked music journalist and academic Lucy O’Brien for her take. She reckons that “women don’t follow the music in as much detail as male jazz fans.” And, more than that, it’s regarded as “an aficionado subject. There’s lots of store set by knowledge and, to a certain extent, showing off that knowledge.” And, she points out, it’s still the case that “a lot of the top jazz performers are male”.

It hasn’t, in other words, been the done thing to write from the perspective of someone who loves jazz, but hasn’t studied it. It’s always been a tad, well, male and anoraky.

But – as Fran Hardcastle points out, jazz is changing. LondonJazz has 16 female contributors. 62% of the Londonjazz meetup group are women. And some of us are still celebrating Esperanza Spalding’s Grammy victory over Justin Bieber …

Jazz Grammy Award Winners

And the winners are.............

The surprise winner was Esperanza Spalding who beat Justin Bieiber, Mumford & Sons, Drake, Florence and the Machine to the awards for BEST NEW ARTIST.

In the Jazz categories there were awards for The Stanley Clarke Band, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Herbie Hancock (receiving his award above- picture from blogger ElementsofJazz), the Mingus Big Band, James Moody, and Chucho Valdes.

The Traditional Blues Award went to Pinetop Perkins, and Contemporary Blues to Buddy Guy. Mavis Staples won an award for Best Americana Album

FULL LISTINGS OF GRAMMY 2011 NOMINEES AND WINNERS

And here's our London Jazz Festival review of Esperanza Spalding, whose April Barbican gig was close to selling out even before this news.

How the jazz world is changing- Read Donna's story

Donna Mercer lives in Seattle, and is also known as "Elementsofjazz". She works indefatigably for jazz through social media, and thereby helps to build and integrate the worldwide jazz community.

A star. She's thrilled to have been invited to the Grammys this weekend, where - most likely - she will be able to share Esperanza Spalding 's big moment. Here's HER STORY

London Jazz Festival Review (2) Esperanza Spalding

Review: Esperanza Spalding
(Queen Elizabeth Hall, part of London Jazz Festival, November 13th 2010, review by Jeanie Barton)

I sat in a heaving Queen Elizabeth Hall last night to see and hear singer/bassist Esperanza Spalding. Opened by piano virtuoso Zoe Rahman, Esperanza was joined by special guest Gretchen Parlato - I rather felt this might be the Charlie’s Angels of jazz.

Zoe’s solo set shimmered like her long hair, her slight frame and polite demeaner belying her strength as she kicked out powerful numbers like The Stride by Abdullah Ibrahim. The stage was set solidly for the highly anticipated main act.

Having watched Esperanza online, playing at the White House and with Stevie Wonder - I can purport that her charisma is not in the editing. She’s electric. Chamber Music Society, her latest cd is presented as a piece of theatre. With an arm chair and side lamp stage left, she sits quietly in the chair, kicks off her sling-backs and pours a glass of red wine. The trio of Olivia de Prato (violin) Lois Martin (viola) and Jody Redhage (cello) accompany her unwinding; it makes an intimate, civilised and reflective setting. Their intro leads us to Little Fly by William Blake; a commentary on the fragility of the human condition, the gentle string ensemble compounding the delicate nature of the words. Esperanza does not rush; she leaves heart-stopping breaks between hinge points of the song “if I live or if I die…”

The ensemble is joined by Leonardo Genovese (piano) Richard Barshay (drums) and Leala Vogt (backing vocals); they continue with Knowledge of Good and Evil, an instrumental number wherein the voices are indeed instruments – Espeanza’s soaring range is a continual surprise. This project is a crossover, feeding heavily on contemporary classical sounds, I could imagine it as an accompaniment for an art house film or contemporary ballet - perhaps this is why the theatrical setting was introduced? There are no thanks to applause between numbers, just a dignified silence from the performers as between movements in a classical concert. I think this rigidity might have been a surprise to some of the audience familiar with the funky afro Cuban style songs on her previous album.

A stand out number was Apple Blossom, an original song and story by Esperanza about an elderly man visiting the site of his true love’s grave beneath the trees “where they used to go walking”. A song of such melancholy, Esperanza sat and sang like a story teller of yesteryear, leaning forward to touch the ground “But her body lies beneath the apple blossoms.”

There were opportunities to groove and Esperanza showed her sweet grin of elation throughout numbers like Chacarera, drumming the double bass with her hands and dancing – she exudes music and rhythm from her bare feet to her expanded afro. Gretchen Parlato joined Esperansa for the vocal duet Inutil Paisagem/If You Never Come To Me by Antonio Carlos Jobim; accompanied only by bass and Gretchen’s soft clapping, they almost merged into a single musical body – the audience were delighted by this beautiful union, and to hear a popular standard.

The production drew to a close with Really Very Small, all three voices combining in wordless vocalese that echoed the African style harmonies on her previous release. Esperanza mused about her size (she has a tiny frame) but her stage presence and talent combine to make her a giant. As with Little Fly, size is always relative. Everyone connected passionately with this exciting production – as Esperanza sang in Wild as the Wind “Let my love go through your heart” and that is exactly what it did.

Esperanza Spalding will be at the Barbican in April 2011