Jazz breaking news: Nicolas Simion Funks It Up The Transylvanian Way
Thursday, November 25, 2010
“Where on earth are Taraf de Haïdouks when you need them?” you could almost hear Johnny Depp cry if he had been in the audience, after Nicolas Simion took to the stage last night at the Jazz Café for the first time in London after a brief foray in Plymouth, earlier in the week.
After the crowd had given the Romanian jazz saxophonist’s quartet a rousing reception and many of them had even danced round the room in a joyously ragged circle, all that was needed next was Depp’s favourite Romanian folk troupe to whip the crowd into an even greater frenzy, stuff the licensing laws, play all night and take the party on to the streets of a chilly Camden.
Not that Simion – with classic post-Wes Montgomery groove merchant Norbert Scholly on guitar, impressively nimble acoustic bassist Sebastien Boisseau and useful drummer Lieven Venken – is any slouch.
Playing most of the first part of the set on soprano sax and really carving out a folk-rooted Eastern sound within a post-bop framework, Simion moved into his own later on during some very affecting tenor numbers that recalled Yusef Lateef and the late Charlie Mariano.
The Transylvanian Jazz album recorded in Cologne last year has added accordion, violin and cimbalom and it would have been great to have these evocative textures to add to the mix live. But Simion, whose past work has included appearances with the likes of Lee Konitz, Tomasz Stanko and Lonnie Plaxico, has superb stage presence and a narrative gift as leader, and he and the band plus the audience certainly know how to enjoy themselves. The latter part of the set vamped into a Transylvanian funk section, if that isn’t too outlandish a concept, which really got things moving. Let’s hope Simion comes back soon.
– Stephen Graham