Jazz Brugge makes a fine setting for this cavalcade of upcoming local acts, mixed up with some major American presences

The ninth Jazz Brugge combined local Belgian artists with visiting international acts, from around Europe and the USA. The quaintly preserved city of Bruges makes for a scenic location, and encourages cobbled-street tootsie-fatigue. There were three crammed days in the looming modernist Concertgebouw edifice, with sets happening in its three elected stage-spaces.

There’s a reason behind the substantial indigenous presence, as this weekend includes a new manifestation of the long-running Belgian Jazz Meeting, which is now set to be yearly rather than bi-annual. A whole host of festival and venue promoters are invited from mostly neighbouring lands, paying particular attention to the Belgian acts. There are even a handful of journalists present. Of course, Jazz Brugge is open to the general public, who constitute the main body of attendance.

The non-Belgian visitors included Bex Burch, Sélène Saint-Aimé, Naïssam Jalal, Yazz Ahmed, Theo Croker and James Brandon Lewis, most of them playing on the main hall’s stage. Pretty much all of the Belgians present have album releases on W.E.R.F., which is a local Bruges record label (and venue), now celebrating its 30th birthday. It’s certainly one of the country’s most significant imprints, along with the even longer-running Igloo Records.

Your scribe found two of the most extreme combos the most exciting. Dans Kapot concluded the weekend, drawing their audience onto the impromptu dancefloor. Usually this trio of baritone saxophone, guitar/bass and drums operates as a serrated free-groove outfit, Don Kapot, but this festival premiere, ‘I Love Tempo’, found them working with four dancers, directed by Alexandros Anastasiadis (one of the four). The concept is to combine music and movement, with the performers parading into Studio 1, leading their audience to the show. The players strike up around the edges of the studio, the dancers gradually inhabiting the floorspace, interpreting the music and ultimately influencing the sonics. Giotis Damianidis issues fractured electric guitar during one phase, then switches to an insistent bassline pulse for the next. In the end, the musicians also join the dancers in movement interaction, until they magnetise the surrounding crowd, who spill onto the floor for the set’s grooviest razor-funk explosion. We all really need this cathartic abandonment right now.

On the penultimate night, Echoes Of Zoo delivered a climactic set, merging angular Balkan styles with free-honk and Afro-Arabic slithering. This band has become well-established on the Belgian scene in recent years, but would definitely benefit from wider touring. An extensive tenor saxophone solo from Nathan Daems was coated with mild fx, over the snapping funk patterns, with Bart Vervaeck’s guitar more obviously transmogrified into dastardly shape, pointy boots in pedal-switching action. Now, Daems had moved to a slim drum, adding further groove beside this string-solo floor-show.

Working backwards to the opening day, we found another stand-out set. Even longer established is the veteran pianist and percussionist Chris Joris, one of the acknowledged greats on the Belgian jazz scene, here playing with the unusual line-up of violin and cello. These string players inhabit the most extrovert and aggressive stances, filling the compositions with motivation and tension, yet also able to rein back when Joris gets into a meditational state. A massive rack of gear is heavy on the gongs, but Joris also caresses on wooden flute, then strolls to the piano to find staccato patterns, developing imaginary cinematic scenes. Then he plays djembe, along with a single cymbal, followed by a berimbau focus, then a spell on mbira. None of this seems like the dabbling of a show-off: these are miniature compositions that sound carefully shaped. The set peaks when the string duo fully activate as vocalists and performance artists, Joris having chosen all of the most suitable elements to entice.

Going are a trio of drums plus doubled keyboard and electronic clutter, seemingly dedicated to improvisation and atmospheric painting, although their extended piece sounded very much like their recent W.E.R.F. album. Going prefer a linear growth of events, steadily increasing density, embellishment and rhythmic drive, with similarities to The Necks, although arriving more from a rock/minimalism quarter. Drummer Joao Lobo kept to the straight and narrow, with spaced thuds, but there was more adventure in the keys of Pak Yan Lau and Giovanni di Domenico (from Nord to prepared acoustic) and their contrasting sonic choices.

Nabou Claerhout’s Trombone Ensemble have appeared at surely all of the Belgian jazzfests in the last two years, and this is surely a good circumstance, as we’ve watched them refine their multi-hued combination of massed horns (five) and propellant rhythm trio. They have strong tunes, soloists loaded with talent and a continual tension between structure and freedom, a muted ‘bone chorus making curt clips, turning into a honeyed unison. Leader Claerhout always seems to be, fittingly, the trombonist who delivers the finest solos in the gang.

Grand Picture Palace is led by bassist and composer Anneleen Boehme, devoted to preening chamber jazz, the line-up containing a string quartet alongside drums, trumpet, bass clarinet and bass trombone. An a capella chorus introduces the set, leading towards a free-form bass and drums sequence, a swinging cabaret vibe developing when the strings enter. An earthy bass solo invites translucent string parts to buoy a skipping trumpet spotlight. This was a piece called ‘Carousel’, set for their second album, with the bass horns literally lowering the tones.

Vitja Pauwels courted the crowd with a solo set, switching guitars, cocooning himself in effects and looping. He’d be advised not to sing too often, but his set’s best phase was the Saharan blues influenced closer, evocative and mysterious.

Lucid Lucia were the most mainstream Belgian band on show, and it’s perplexing why they’ve changed their name to one that appears to bear no relation to their open jazz funk approachability. They’re slick, but too obviously geared towards having a dance band function.

It’s a good idea to make this festival takeover concept an annual occurrence, and presumably the next ‘24 involvement will link Belgium Booms with weekenders in either Brussels, Gent, Leuven or Liege, or maybe even somewhere more exotic such as Mechelen. Meanwhile, Jazz Brugge will return in its natural state, remaining a strong 2024 festival to attend in its own right.