Review: Han Bennink

Han Bennink Trio and Steve Noble
(Vortex, Friday 22nd April 2011, review and drawings by Geoff Winston*)


Han Bennink (above left) and Steve Noble (right) are both drummers who can play it absolutely straight or wheel off at a tangent.

Their sprightly snare drum duet saw Bennink set a hard, metallic tone, using his sticks on the chair and drum body, then his booted foot on his drum. He whistled nonchalantly, brushes in action, while Noble tapped a massive tuning fork resting on his snare. Noble added a small hand held cymbal and a maraca to vary the range, with a short, hard-headed mallet scraped slowly across the drum skin to produce an eerie, wailing sound. Never to be outdone, Bennink put one stick in his mouth, hitting it with the other, and in their short, final piece ended by hitting the piano strings.

For the Trio's single 40 minute set, Bennink sat behind his full kit, brushes setting a good, driving pace, and then fell back to let his his young cohorts map out the ground. There was a feel of the wartime night club as they manipulated and extended the centrepiece of the set, Charles Trenet's 'La Mer' (apparently written on toilet paper on a train by Trenet!).

Pianist Simon Toldam was deliberate and lightly restrained on the Vortex's Steinway which, earlier in the day, had been appreciated for its rich sonority by Roedelius. Joachim Badenhorst was similarly withdrawn on B flat and bass clarinet - which he often played in its higher register - and tenor sax which he pushed into trills and gargles as Toldam brushed light chains on and off the piano strings. Bennink, ever the showman, threw his sticks out of their plastic bag which he promptly absorbed into his repertoire, clattered a structural steel column, sat on the floor to play one of the venue's marble-topped tables and returned to his snare front of stage onto which he hoisted a bentwood chair before the trio ended on a subdued note with clarinet in Giuffre mode and Bennink raising his sticks to his head in antler style!

New arrivals were, not unreasonably, nonplussed when turned away at ten o'clock, on being told it was all over for the evening.

*Drawings copyright Geoffrey Winston 2011. All Rights Reserved

www.vortexjazz.co.uk

Review: About Group

About Group
(Cafe Oto, Tuesday March 1st, review and drawings* by Geoff Winston)

The intentional ebb and flow to the aural depth and pace of the music was almost schizophrenic. About Group's set was in part a dry run for their forthcoming album, 'Start and Complete' (Domino). Based around Alexis Taylor's lyrical songs, with their hints of pure Beatles homage, and his high-pitched, soulful vocals, some songs were played out snugly in their own right, while others would morph in unexpected directions, invaded by an intense collage of reverb, electronics and distortion, creating a sensation of wading backwards against an onrushing torrent. More like the Beatles in their psychedelic period, and some way beyond.

About Group are a highly resourceful and well-complemented combination. Pat Thomas could flip from a Booker T organ groove to Lonnie Smith flowing piano runs and then reach out to pick at the piano's strings or just play a simple pared down pop tune. Ever attentive, he had strong rapport with Charles Hayward, taut and hunched, who supplied pumped up backbeat and heavy, woozy Parliament-style funk (the only man missing was George Clinton!) before heading off at manic speed or slowing to skim the kit with bright red brushes.

John Coxon and Taylor shared the honours in welding together rolling waves of audio disfunction, complementing Thomas's deft work on keyboards. There were occasional whoops of recognition from a dedicated following, and they finished as they had started with Taylor's 'Married to the Sea', echoing the new album's order of play.



Alan Wilkinson (saxes-drawing above) with the rhythm team of John Edwards (bass) and Steve Noble(drums) kicked off the proceedings with a raw, occasionally raucous set in which Wilkinson's alto screeched, squealed and ululated. On baritone he used its higher range as well as gasping roars from its lower registers, which Edwards picked up on, and Noble responded to with a springy, metallic timbre.

Green Gartside's DJ mix was just recognisable between sets by its inclusion of classic soul numbers, but these were obscured by the ambient sound and probably went unnoticed by the majority in the house. Let's pump up the volume next time!

(* Images copyright Geoffrey Winston 2011, All Rights Reserved)