Joe Armon-Jones, Cassie Kinoshi’s un.procedure and Skylla provide contrasting sonic thrills at JazzStroud Festival

Situated where five valleys meet, Stroud’s cultural hub attracts folk from the surrounding Cotswolds to join the city’s famously bohemian subculture. This convergence provides a healthy mix of young and old (and the occasional dog), as an appreciative audience for JazzStroud’s reliably eclectic and exploratory programme.

Sessions in the Victorian St Laurence Church were suitably atmospheric, with distinctive vocal talents a theme. Afromerm’s deft blend of hushed vocals and live electronica was enhanced by her Theremin-style self-built gizmo, enabling complex spontaneity. Ruth Goller’s Skylla project showed continuing evolution, with Goller’s voice increasingly confident alongside the versatile Lauren Kinsella and Alice Grant. Replacing her usual electronica with piano and string quartet, Bristol-based t l k was simply stunning, her ‘unplugged’ songs revealing a voice of absolute purity and emotional clarity. In a jazzy exception to all this singing, however, saxophonist Matt Carmichael’s quartet’s lively set of segued tunes reflected his Scottish roots. Carmichael’s tidy interplay with fiddler Charlie Stuart and Tom Gibbs’ piano conjured the soundtrack of an avant-garde ceilidh.

un.procedure at the Goods Shed - Photo by Tony Benjamin

From the outside the Brunel Goods Shed appears dilapidated but its cavernous space actually houses an awesome state of the art d&b Audiotechnik PA. Its surround-sound possibilities added to un.procedure’s engaging audio-visual spectacle, whirling electronics surrounding Cassie Kinoshi’s tone-wrenching alto sax as she swooped from high register anguish to low-end determination. The system also brought out the tactile sub-bass of Tony Njoku’s impressive synth onslaughts, in contrast to his gentle piano interludes, and it served Joe Armon-Jones’ dub-derived numbers equally well. That highlight set saw James Mollison’s sax bring an authentic Tommy McCook spirit to the reggae while Armon-Jones’ tunes also ranged away from the Caribbean in a fine blend of tightly-delivered dancefloor energy and proper jazz risk taking.

Joe Armon-Jones at JazzStroud - Photo by Tony Benjamin

The Goods Shed is also a flexible performance space and while a sold-out Armon-Jones gig was presented with the band on the stage, all other nights in the venue were presented ‘in-the-round’. This not only matched the swirling circular sounds overhead but provided an intimate crucible of creativity for many artists, especially the precociously young Tomorrow’s Warriors groups – the dazzling all-female Frontline, and the playfully funky Big Massive – whose performances grew as their sets progressed. Drum-star-in-the-making Romarna Campbell and her brilliant trio of bassist Mutale Chashi and keys master Cenk Esen capped a thrilling opening Thursday night with their spaced out Corea-esque jazz-rock-fusion.  

The d&b system was at its best, however, in assuring clarity for two more complex instrumental set-ups, both featuring drummer Matt Brown. Friday night saw Brown’s horn-heavy sextet 6161 deliver a well-judged mix of old-school acoustic values and contemporary electro-jazz, with Dan Moore’s atmospheric Moog underpinning sweeping Ellingtonian horn chorales. Brown’s energizing creativity and precision assured the music’s drive and he gave the same to the nine-piece Daniel Inzani Band. A versatile composer, the genial Inzani writes both contemporary classical string music and sinuous Ethio-jazz and this set included both as well as Motorik funk and schmaltzy Palm Court. Needless to say the open-minded Stroud audience appreciated it all, as well as the earlier wayward artfulness of Bethany Ley who, like Inzani, deployed a harp alongside electronics and looping found sound in her resolutely whimsical presentation.

Pianist and singer t l k at St Laurence Church - Photo by Tony Benjamin

A thriving fringe programme saw record shops host acts like Rachel Musson’s delicate flute-looping ambience and Unfurl’s free-floating avant-dubstep while Spacejam’s impressive and tireless spontaneous grooves filled the SVA bar, also a host for late-night DJ sets. Throughout the weekend events were well attended and positively received, reflecting the enthusiastic sense of ownership JazzStroud has engendered within its community and beyond.