b-flat acoustic music + jazz club, Berlin-Mitte. 4 June 2024. Part of Jazzwoche Berlin.
It’s only June and there’s still plenty to play for, but this one is already in the running for my gig of the year.
Last night was the Berlin album launch for Cuareim Quartet’s “A Jazz Story” at b flat, as part of Jazzwoche. I loved the album which came out in February, reviewed it for The Arts Desk, took the first opportunity to make it my album of the month in the Europe Jazz Media Chart, and it also found its way into my Downbeat Critics’ poll nominations. But, as ever, a long-awaited first opportunity to hear them live delivered more.
The ways in which the players energise and provoke each other become understandable when you can actually *see* them. Viola player Olivier Samouillan makes some of the greasiest sounds you will ever hear coming from a viola, but the facial expression which accompanies them, goading, snarling, explains exactly what he is doing. To see quite how agile and versatile Guillaume Latil‘s cello playing is you have to see the superhuman speed with which his left hand moves up and down the fingerboard. And to understand the chemistry of the interaction between the two South American violinists Rodrigo Bauzá and Federico Nathan and the multiple ways they have of deranging yet supporting each other, you have to be there. This is badly-behaved string quartet playing as its own art-form. Without a single sheet of printed material in sight. They live this music and there are no barriers to communication. Phenomenal
I start to really wish I had found out about them earlier. Cuareim Quartet has already existed for a decade, and their bag of tricks seems bottomless. For example, when they played their encore last night, they jumped into another world they also completely inhabit which is the Latin American bolero tradition, the stuff that everyone sort of knows and loves from Buena Vista Social Club without knowing that it’s a tradition or that it’s called Bolero. Both of Cuarem’s violinists are from South America, and all that playing-through-tears with a melody is completely natural and irresistible.
Buy the album or look out for them.
