The Cheltenham Jazz Festival has has always presented a wide range of jazz and genres of near-jazz music in the main festival. But for those who like their jazz at the more adventurous end of the spectrum, there is no substitute for the programme at the Parabola Arts Centre (PAC). Now programmed for the first time by Alexandria Carr (albeit with support from Tony Dudley Evans who has run it for several years), the programme promised to continue the spirit of adventure that has always characterised the venue.
Friday evening, in what was a rather rain-sodden Cheltenham, saw a full house happy to be indoors to enjoy the rather sunny Caribbean-infused music from Sultan Stevenson. With fine tight support from double bassist Jacob Gryn and drummer Joel Waters, Stevenson played music from his excellent recent debut album “Faithful One”. He uses a wide dynamic range, moving seamlessly from soft and lyrical through to those strong punchy McCoy Tyner influenced block chords. He also has an entertaining line of patter in selling his albums, and his range of homemade hats. A good start to the weekend.
The second event in the PAC was very different. A packed stage saw an 18-piece ensemble from the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, conducted enthusiastically by their musical director Mark Armstrong, and featuring some really fine soloists. The music was created by pianist Nikki Yeoh and was accompanied by visuals on a large screen behind the band.The first extended piece was Speechmik X-ploration which comprised short poems in different languages delivered by talking heads (literally just heads shown reciting on the screen). These were then repeated accompanied by piano notes following the cadence of the words, and then the band picked up those cadences in the full composition. Meanwhile the graphics manipulated those pictures of the heads and mixed them into a range of abstract images.
The graphics on show were really interesting, so much so that at times I found them distracting me from the music, but at others they really enhanced it – I’m sure this varies from person to person.
The second piece was tribute to Ian Carr’s Nucleus. Carr had been a teacher and mentor to Nikki Yeoh, and her enthusiasm for his work shone through in the music. This was an exciting arrangement, with several excellent young soloists, with graphics built around the album covers released by Nucleus.
An excellent end to the first day in the PAC.
Peter Slavid broadcasts a programme of European Jazz on mixcloud.com/ukjazz and various internet stations
One Response
I really enjoyed seeing Sultan Stevenson live at Cheltenham. I bought a copy of his brilliant debut album a few months ago and was so intrigued I purchased tickets for this performance. Truly didn’t disappoint! A superb young pianist and his band members were fantastic also! I hope the festival will include him on the programme for next year as I’d love to see him again in future.