A poetic Aja Monet and majestic Abdullah Ibrahim are among Jazztopad’s hypnotizing highlights

In football speak festivals such as Jazztopad have strength in depth. Miss the first half of the ten-day event in Wroclaw, a charming city in south west Poland – as I did due to a clash with the London jazz festival – and the second can still offer much to make you chant with joy.

News of excellent sets by Linda Fredriksson, Sarah Murcia & Mat Maneri, Michael Bates’ Acrobat and Lutoslawski quartet, one of Europe’s leading string groups, who also appeared with pianist Kris Davis, may have drawn a slight pang of regret, yet that soon went away. South Korean drummer Sun-Mi Hong and Scottish trumpeter Alistair Payne were a revelation. Both based in Amsterdam where they have developed an advanced chemistry in the past few years, as heard on their Live At The Bimhuis album, they make music that can be as probing and shape-shifting as it is thematically clear and emphatic, with, most importantly, no sense of one player threatening to dominate the other. Payne has a broad, fulsome tone and phrasing that can be as expansive as it is concise while Hong is wonderfully light of touch but also wholly dynamic, as if she is sometimes purveying her fluid rhythms with brushes even though she is using sticks. The result is a performance that moves seamlessly from fine lyricism to otherworldly soundscapes. This set takes places at Mleczarnia, the basement club with candlelit tables and an intimate atmosphere that also hosts jam sessions into the wee small hours that feature talented Poles, clarinetist Mateusz Rybicki and trumpeter Kuba Kurek as well as Australian drummer Samuel Hall, joined by various members of headline bands happy to play in their downtime  

Another fine duo Canadian clarinetist Francois Houle and American guitarist-oudist Gordon Grdina makes music that has a wide textural and emotional range, from lamentation to jubilation, exemplified by a piece such as ‘Soro’, a dedication to an Ivoirian musician who benefitted from community solidarity following an accident. The duo creates an interesting form of’ ‘art song;’ full of melodies that are elegantly pared down and also elaborately latticed, with the deeply haunting oud quarter tones providing both a sense of solace and gravitas.

Those qualities are also heard in Californian poet Aja Monet’s mesmerizing set at the Narodowe Forum Muzyki (NFM) the splendid multi purpose concert hall just a short walk from the club Monet is a notable new link in a long chain of African-American storytellers that includes such as Nikki Giovanni, Wanda Robinson and Dana Bryant and her sensuality of timbre, melodic inflections and thought provoking comment on social justice and all the dizzying paradoxes of contemporary humanity are well received. The simple but striking visual prop of flowers festooning her mike and the instruments of her band members is also effective, but the players themselves, drummer Justin Brown, pianist-trumpeter Javier Santiago and bassist Michael Collier are excellent, creating grooves that are deeply soulful and robustly funky, really catching fire on the outro jam ‘Working Class Musician’.

Not that we needed extra proof thereof but the brilliance of players like Collier, a notable new Chicagoan, comes into its own during the jam sessions both at the aforesaid Mleczarnia and in private apartments, a longstanding Jazztopad tradition. Seeing him move from a freely improvised situation to tightly regulated South Indian Carnatic beats with members of the group Saagara (pictured above) was impressive. Their collaboration with Polish alto clarinetist Waclaw Simpel went down well at NFM though his use of vocals and electronics was not entirely on point, partly because at times the fine details of the extraordinary percussion – above all Aggu Baba’s small but astoundingly potent kanjira, a tambourine like device with a mighty bass and treble range – was drowned out.

However, the closing concert by South African piano legend Abdullah Ibrahim (pictured above) was all sumptuous sound. The acoustics of the main hall served his majestic touch to a tee. At 90 years-old Ibrahim is an entirely precious living link to times past, and with the tragic loss of first Quincy Jones and Roy Haynes a few weeks prior to his appearance there was an added edge of expectation, for nobody knows how much longer he will keep performing. After a slow walk to the piano he settled down immediately, and his touch was quite gorgeous, the familiarly soothing, caressing chords, sometimes rolling fifths, creating a dreamlike groove that his role model Ellington would have surely enjoyed. Having said that the half-century’s worth of individuality Ibrahim has created has now made him his own reference and he appeared to quote liberally from his vast songbook or present pithy variations on timeless anthems such as ‘Water From An Ancient Well.’ The set had moments of gamboling energy and passages of deeply emotive chorale-like lyricism that reflected a mastery of narrative as well as the mechanics of the piano. After a poised ballad encore Ibrahim departed like a true guru, sage and prophet, who would not be a stranger in any land of his choosing.