Thanks for posting this, Frisco.
Interesting other info too. Braxton in trio with Parker and Hamid/Graves. Like to hear that too!
Apparently the concert can be heard on bbc 3 (unfortunately i am lacking internet music capabilities presently.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazzon3/pip/6ir82/
Here another review including Ornette's.
John Fordham
Wednesday July 11, 2007
Guardian
The refurbished Royal Festival Hall got its first taste of jazz
courtesy of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, two vigorously
surviving founding fathers of the explosive 1960s avant garde. Alto
saxophonist Coleman is 77 now, and pianist Taylor 78, but neither man
is any nearer to planning a show's precise course, let alone
showcasing a "legacy". Taylor was exploring a first-time partnership
with the sax virtuoso and composer Anthony Braxton, while Coleman
(whose gait is slower, but whose sound still cuts through a room like
a flame) played the following night with a typically idiosyncratic
lineup - him, his son Denardo on drums and three bass players. Both
shows brought standing ovations.
After a prologue of reciting his vivid sound-poetry and rattling
shakers offstage, Taylor began in duo with his empathetic
percussionist Tony Oxley. The famous rapid-fire chords and lightning-
bolt treble clusters still surfaced in bursts, but as rejoinders to
fluid, rippling, even tender treble melodies. Bassist William Parker
then played an unaccompanied bowed solo that sounded like a choir of
ghostly voices.
The rest of the evening had Taylor, Parker, Oxley and multi-saxist
Anthony Braxton on a single, seamless, mostly improvised jam, full of
dynamic contrasts and idiosyncratic, on-the-fly logic. Taylor
scrambled inside the piano lid while Braxton played a single,
quavering, circular-breathed note. Braxton played raucous, guttural
alto-sax lines while the band unleashed a steady, rolling thunder.
Close to the finish, Oxley launched a cymbal feel that was almost
swing, while the others ascended to a collective typhoon ended by
Taylor's peremptory, that's-it chords.
Coleman's gig was just as fast-moving, though with more references to
a skewed jazz time, and to funk. Bassist Charnett Moffett provided a
furious backdrop of fast jazzy walks and wailing electronics, while
Tony Falanga contributed a classically articulated counter-melody.
Falanga also quoted the Rite of Spring's opening passage, and Bach's
first cello suite, just for Coleman's mercurial alto to pick up the
themes and play with them. Several Coleman classics then followed,
including the anthemic free-funk melody from Dancing in Your Head,
and the Monkish blues Turnaround; there was also some exquisite slow
ballad playing, and an infectiously rocking groover close to the end.
Taylor and Coleman are unequivocally still there for the music,
however it turns out. The audiences sensed they were present as jazz
history was being celebrated - but still being made, too.
Having been to both gigs i would personally give the Taylor/Braxton
one 5 stars and the Coleman one 4 stars
Linear Mode
