Archie Shepp and Get The Blessing light up Saalfelden Jazz Fest

The town has a couple of small hotels and a very quint and old centre. Of course, I could easily also be describing Brecon – a town I know and have loved for many years. The other obvious similarity is that for one weekend a year the whole town is taken over by an international jazz festival.

Fans flock in from far and wide to immerse themselves in what looks to be quite an intimidating programme of music – from mid-morning until 2am there are almost non-stop concerts – 28 over three days – plus four concerts as a warm up on Thursday evening – 32 shows in total. Free concerts take place in the Town Hall Square (under canvas) there is a smaller venue (Short Cuts) for more intimate shows and the larger Saalfelden Congress centre for the main shows. A few concerts are also organised for venues that are reached by Ski-lift – offering stunning views of the town and valley below. The festival is well known for its avant garde leanings but there was an excellent mix of jazz genres to keep everyone happy and get the place buzzing.

The highlight of the Thursday night shows (apart from an amazing sunset) were Nels Cline and Marc Ribot (pictured above) – two exceptional guitarists who are certainly leftfield in their styles and approach. The concert comprised two extended numbers – the first on acoustic guitars and the second, on electric. The conversation between them was fascinating, like a married couple arguing and then making up, both using multiple effects to create soundscapes from ambient to heavy metal. Friday saw both guitarists in action again.

Eyebone is drummer Jim Black’s latest project (above) – a trio featuring Nels Cline and Austrian Wurlitzer player Elias Stemeseder – a hard heavy sound with Cline mashing his guitar sound with anything that came to hand and Black pounding out a heavy rock beat on the drums. All three players wore black and had an emblemised tape line from their eye down to their elbows – machines maybe, but not as we know it.

Later Ribot played a solo concert ‘Protest Songs’ in a wry take on the genre, with some no more than comic ditties, others quite poignant and thought provoking – he’s is a man of many talents, his singing voice somewhere near a mid career Neil Young, his humour certainly more Frank Zappa.

Which leads on to the very excellent Young Mothers, playing their first European date. Led by Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, the rest of the band come from Austin, Texas. A strange but fascinating combination of musical styles and ideas that would canyon between free improv, rap, death metal and relatively straightahead jazz – a bit like Elephant9 mixing it up with Kenny Garrett. Stefan Gonzalez was excellent too, doubling up on vibes and drums as well as adding death metal-style vocals; they are far cry from anything currently around and well worth catching live.

Saturday was a day of huge contrasts with beautifully lyrical concerts from cellist Erik Friedlander, first playing his music ‘Claws & Wings’ with Sylvie Courvoisier in majestic form on piano, then back again later with his Black Phoebe project featuring Shoko Nagai on piano and accordion and Satoshi Takeishi on percussion. There was a Satoko Fuji solo piano concert so full of emotion there were tears in the audience. Ben Goldberg, Muhlbacher’s USM and KAZE gave the middle ground leading up to the Henry Threadgill Ensemble that was the main event (pictured below) – a concert in remembrance of Butch Morris.

Threadgill conducted, well he pointed and nodded a lot, while the band, notably Jason Moran and David Virelles both on piano were outstanding. However, the first composition did linger rather too long and ultimately became predictable, whereas the much shorter second piece was trademark Threadgill and brought the concert to a fitting climax.

The late concert was a piece of genius programming by artistic directors Michaela Mayer and Mario Steidel. Roy Paci and his band Corleone (he comes from Sicily as will become clear) base their musical ideas around the seedy goings on of the Mafia, Paci (trumpet & flugelhorn) mixing styles from Ska, Punk, free Jazz and unsurprisingly, funeral marches to tell musical stories of the deadly deeds done cheap in his home land. Whilst this may all sound very depressing in fact the opposite is true – the music is full of life, humour and some outstanding playing - especially guitarist Alberto Turra that made this show a real highlight and a great relief after the Threadgill experience.

Sunday had a brilliant progression of shows from good to outstanding. The Sylvie Courvoisier trio very kindly played earlier than programmed due to the late arrival of Get the Blessing (not the bands fault, their plane was delayed) Playing here her more usual style of free jazz with Drew Gress (Bass) and Kenny Wollesen (drums) the band were brilliant and surely Courvoisier must be one of the best female improving pianists around.

Get the Blessing (picture top of page), probably one of the least well known bands to the Austrians at the festival, certainly left with a huge number of new fans – Jim Barr’s quirky humour and thumping groove based bass lines won instant approval – add in the dual attack of Pete Judge (trumpet) and Jake McMurchie (sax) and world class drummer Clive Deamer, all left audience very impressed.

The final show of the festival was outstanding in all respects – Joachim Kuhn with his regular trio (Majid Bekkas, guembri and vocals plus Ramon Lopez, drums) were joined by Archie Shepp (pictured above) to play tunes from their collaborative 2013 album Voodoo Sense. Shepp is playing probably better now than he has done for many years – controlled, imaginative and exciting. The synergy with Kuhn (one of my favourite pianists) was stunning – second skin would be a better way to describe them than second sense – such an intimate understanding of each others playing was a joy – never more so than on ‘Nina’ taken from their duo album Wo-Man – a beautiful ballad played sublimely.

This is a great festival with a long history (this was the 35^th edition) It is very well run and has excellent programming – top class jazz in a stunningly beautiful location – a three day pass for everything costs from €142 or if you want the VIP experience (food and drink included plus meet the bands) it’s €300 for the weekend or €125 per day. I’d say by most festival ticket prices that’s a bargain!

– Tim Dickeson (report and pictures)

For more info go to www.jazzsalfelden.com