Yesterday I went to a jazz festival for the first time ever, the 13th annual Jazz à Liège festival.
The most annoying thing about it was the overlapping of so many concerts (5 halls), resulting in mass migrations in-between songs, which must have been quite odd for the performers. Aldo Romano commented from the stage "You're leaving already?" So many concerts were squashed together, that one felt frustrated about having to hop from one to the other.
For me, the unquestioned highlight (among what I saw) was Louis Sclavis's "L'affrontement des Prétendants" quartet. I listened to Sclavis for the first time about a week ago. I had somewhat avoided him because I thought that he played difficult free jazz. How wrong I was! The concert was great, François Merville laying down free-wheeling grooves, while Sclavis and trumpeter Jean-Luc Cappozzo played beautiful unisson themes. Cappozzo was very nice, going from a big, fat jazz sound to free blurts. I walked into the concert from a completely disappointing Chris Potter set (in a WAY too big hall, the sound was lost. Then again, I'm not really into his music anyway, though I love the Dave Holland Quintet), and the difference was stunning. Also compared to much of the other stuff I heard, Sclavis's music seemed so much more alive.
My second-favorite was the "gyspy jazz" Rosenberg Trio (two guitars and bass). Started out with a few inevitable Django-isms such as "Nuages", sticking to the conventions of the genre, but producing really warm, dancing music. Then they branched out a little, playing Santana's "Moonflower", a couple of interesting originals, all three veering into a more Spanish sound, and very nice renditions of Ellington's "Caravan" and "Flamingo", which took them back to more swinging gyspy jazz.
Aldo Romano's "Because of Béchet" quintet (two tenor/soprano saxes, piano/organ, bass and drums) was pretty good too, playing some updated Béchet standards. I'd seen the quintet on Arte's "Paris Jazz Clubs" series and needless to say, seeing the music was much more interesting in the flesh.
An interesting event was BB Connex, the meeting of Belgian and Hungarian (from Budapest, hence the name) musicians. The Hungarian bassist, Christian Lakatos, was only 13 years old! He took a completely fearless solo at one point, going for all kinds of stuff, eliciting laughter of delight from his much older band-mates. Saxophonist Steve Houben, the leader of the group, and his son Gregory on trumpet, formed the front-line, played deliciously soft lines together, backed by the Hungarian rhythm section.
Today's (2nd and final day) highlight will undoubtedly be Steve Coleman's 5 Elements, whom I've never seen live. I'm especially curious about the two groups pianist Benoît Delbecq is in. A few other things to see, I'll let you know how it pans out.
French readers will be able to check out my "official" report at
Citizen Jazz
http://www.jazzaliege.be
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