The reliably eclectic biennial Bristol New Music festival returns for a long weekend at the end of April (25th-28th). As usual, there are shows in venues large and small, this time round including the newly refurbished Bristol Beacon and the equally splendid new space at the deconsecrated church nearby, The Mount Without.
Most of the music is genre-fluid and unclassifiable – that is part of the point. But along with all the other interesting stuff there are a nice clutch of gigs this time round that could sit in a jazz, or at least jazz related category, if you insist.
They include the blues-growly improviser and artist Lonnie Holley who shares a bill with Elaine Mitchener and Jules Reidy at the Lantern Hall in the Beacon on Thursday night, and alto saxophonist, vocalist and masterful sound collagist and story-teller Matana Roberts, who will deliver a solo set on April 27th in the matchless acoustic of St Georges hall, in a show that also includes Maggie Nichols improvising in duet with drummer Don Johnston and contemporary ensemble Apartment House. (Holley and Roberts also have dates at the London’s Roundhouse on April 26th).
Then Sunday night at city centre club Strange Brew sees a triple bill of Ahmed – a new quartet of Pat Thomas (piano), Seymour Wright (alto saxophone), Antonin Gerbal (drums), Joel Grip (double bass) exploring the work of bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik – and Ruth Goller’s inimitable Skylla, along with American singer Josephine Foster.
That’s just one strand in a programme that offers a dizzyingly varied weekend for anyone with ears open to work outside the realms of genre-defined sounds.
