I recently posted in Bags (after the
review of John Blum's new CD by our own Derek Taylor) the links to a couple of videos I took at this concert and they were warmly received, so I thought I should also post them here.
John Blum is one of the few people I know of who have directly approached and tried to extend Borah Bergman's virtuosic two-hand technique to free jazz piano.
It was a streak of good luck to be able to host this concert, as I told a little while ago to my friend Pat Frisco. I first saw John with Steve Swell's Slammin' the Infinite at the recent Vision fest. I was impressed but didn't talk to him, for some reason. But my friend Remi Álvarez, the sax player who travelled with me, talked to him and a couple of months later Remi told me that John said he was living in Isla Mujeres, near Cancún, 3 hours away from my town. So I googled him and wrote him, and he immediately accepted to play in Mérida at
Unas Letras, where I promote a jazz/improv/contemporary music live series. We rented an upright Steinway for him, and he was very excited when he played, telling us it was actually the first time he played a real piano in México, and that it was also the first time he played free jazz in my country (he plays standards and bossanova in Isla Mujeres).
We paired John with Armando Martín, one of the few guitar improvisers in México and a hell of a player (who coincidently happens to be my best friend
). They blended well IMO, although as everyone knows the combo of piano/guitar is very risky. Armando used effect pedals to provide textures when John was playing his torrential clusters, but he also played clean lines to provide something more akin to jazz melodies. And John was simply breathtaking!
Here are the You Tube links I mentioned, and a few pics of the show. The last one was taken when we were hanging out after the concert, and it's Armando Martín, me, Eugenia Montalván (the owner of Unas Letras, the performance space) and John:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFYVSBmIpQ0
(John Blum solo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMJl_Hb3DU
(duet with guitar player Armando Martín)
Linear Mode
