Jazz breaking news: Lighthouse, Indigo Kid and Soweto Kinch help Brecon bounce back

Brecon Jazz Festival went back to its roots this year after three years of expansive programming by the Hay Festival team. The slimmed down bill from new festival organisers Orchard, who only got the job in March, still delivered a high quality mix, and revived the Brecon trot in which you dash from one end of town to the other to catch the next gig. Welsh links were well used too, with native piano wizard Huw Warren the festival’s new artist in residence. Indigo Kid, Cardiff jazz graduate Dan Messore’s guitar-led band, impressed on Saturday afternoon at the Guildhall with Trish Clowes’ tenor sax embroidering Messore’s impressive compositions to good effect. And Joe Webb’s promising piano trio at the same venue on Sunday was one of several ensembles featuring other graduates of the Cardiff jazz programme.

Lighthouse also features piano, and with Tim Garland’s (pictured above) reeds and Asaf Sirkis’ percussion joining pianist Gwilym Simcock they are virtuosity in triplicate. Saturday evening in Theatr Brycheiniog saw them playing together exhilaratingly well after recent extensive touring. The way the two composers – Garland and Simcock – work new influences intelligently into their pieces for this trio is a delight.

A packed audience in the cathedral on Sunday afternoon saw Stan Tracey rummaging deep in the Thelonious Monk playbox, and still making new, delightful discoveries, with Bobby Wellins’ lustrous tenor sounding particularly fine in the grand old building. A brisk walk down to the theatre to catch Soweto Kinch’s trio was repaid with a rivetingly intense set. Material from his New Emancipation project was augmented by three rap-free pieces from his forthcoming October release that’s inspired by the seven deadly sins. The blend of Karl Rasheed-Abel’s tensile bass, beats-heavy drumming from Troy Miller and Kinch’s molten alto just gets better, with the leader’s solo excursions rivalling Sonny Rollins for tumbling invention.

Just time then to double back to the Guildhall for a sweatily full house enjoying Sarah Gillespie’s sardonic song writing, enhanced by generous helpings of Kit Downes’ bluesy piano.

All this goes along with street food, 57 varieties of music from fringe performers, and a renewed sense that the festival engages the whole town. With three excellent, well-run venues for the serious jazz, and the vast Market Hall for the likes of Friday evening headliner Dionne Warwick, Brecon has no need of marquees.

– Jon Turney

Photo: Tim Dickeson