Here’s a surprise: a band based in Berlin performing a programme based mainly on the poetry of Wilfred Owen at a club in Vienna… But perhaps no more surprising than the fact that the instigator of a recent Netflix film of the classic German novel “All Quiet On The Western Front” should be Scottish. This concert was a reminder of power of Owen’s poems.
The title of the programme, and also of Azolia’s album released in 2021 on the Jazzwerkstatt label, is taken from Owen’s preface prepared in advance for his collected poems (although he was sadly killed before the actual publication, just a week before the armistice): “This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.” That concept came through clearly in the performance.
Azolia has a very focused and chamber-like sound: Belgian-born vocalist Sophie Tassignon is joined by German-American Suzanne Folk, doubling both as a second vocalist as well as on alto saxophone and clarinet, Lothar Ohlmeier on bass clarinet and tenor sax, and Swiss bassist Andreas Waelti. Folk’s saxophone playing sounded frequently like wordless vocalise. With such a stripped down, and almost acoustic lineup, the power of the poems carried well and was certainly not stifled by the relatively large size of the Porgy & Bess Club. The drumless band didn’t lack drive and energy, due to the hard-working Waelti, who was able to give a momentum without losing a melodic sense.
The choice of poems was not constrained to Owen’s war poems and included the likes of “Shadwell Stair”, about a ghost on the banks of the Thames, and also the reflectiveness of ‘Futility’. All heard through the prism of two vocalists in close harmony, or on the interplay of the two reed instruments, contrapuntally intertwined. Composition credits were shared between the two vocalists.
Meanwhile, in addition to the main focus on Owen, the group included appropriate new songs by Tassignon and Folk themselves, as well as a powerful version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Dream Within A Dream”, a foretaste of a new project perhaps?
Set list:
1. The Roads Also
2. Shadwell Stair
3. Happiness
4. Futility
5. The Wave Has Passed (Sophie Tassignon)
6. Storm
7. Greater Love
2nd Set:
1. She Will (Susanne Folk)
2. On My Songs
3. Song of Songs
4. Not About Heroes
5. A Dream within a Dream (Poe/Susanne Folk)
6. The Voices at Shore (Sophie Tassignon)
7. Asleep
All lyrics by Wilfred Owen, except where otherwise stated.
