Jazz breaking news: Richard Bona And Ari Hoenig Trio Wrap Malta Jazz Festival With Fret Burn And Fireworks

Held in the breathtakingly picturesque setting of Ta’Liesse waterfront under the centuries old fortifications of the Grand Harbour at Valletta, the festival, now in its 20th edition, took on an added visual and sonic dimension courtesy of the religious feast fireworks that erupted above the illuminated shorelines of the three linked cities: an architecturally rich triptych that makes up this absolutely spectacular historical location, the deepest natural harbour in the Mediterranean.

Bona’s newly enlarged band, a truly international bunch that emanate from three corners of the globe, is custom built for festivals such as this, mixing his angelic, almost folksy Cameroonian songs with a showman’s grasp of delivering the sonic punches just where and when they’re needed. And punch this band most certainly do with a wide-angle Weather Report-meets-early Earth Wind And Fire onslaught with the Zawinul influenced keyboard voicings of Etienne Stadwijk and the high-register trumpet of Washington-born Lee Tatum Greenblatt propelled by the leader’s stupendous bass chops.

Earlier the Ari Hoenig Trio drew gasps with its innovative, left-field interpretations of Coltrane’s ‘Moment’s Notice’ and Art Blakey’s ‘Moanin’, the latter featuring the audacious talents of new guitarist Gilad Hekselman, clearly a monster in waiting, while Hoenig played the melody on rack and floor toms with a conniving combination of mallets and dampened hand strokes.

Each night of the festival, that ran from 15-17 July, had its own unique musical contrasts in both flavour and dynamics. The opening session offered the unpredictable switchback time, melody and mood changes of The Bad Plus’ all new original set-list followed by the jazz-rock bombast of the Mike Stern band with Randy Brecker guesting and an all-star rhythm section of Dave Weckl and Chris Minh Doky primed to shift the 24-degree night time temperature even higher. Stern has taken a leaf out of John McLaughlin’s recent book and rediscovered the joys of locating number 11 on the gain control and setting the controls for the heart of the sun, or in this case the moon whose shimmering crescent was reflected in the harbours inky depths.

Friday night’s honours went to Joshua Redman’s Double Trio whose galvanic earth-shifting drive gives the leader a challenging, roller coaster platform to blast forth from. Dropping the intensity for a moment his lonely, desolate soprano on ‘Little Diddy’ echoed around the distant ramparts and citadels before the set climaxed on Gil Evans ‘Time of The Barracudas’, with both bassists and drummers going for broke. Literally in the case of Gregory Hutchinson, whose bass drum gave way under unrelenting pressure only to be replaced with his floor tom, played by foot and hand until it too beat its last. Esperanza Spalding had a job on her hands standing in the shadow of the Joshua spree but won over the audience with a passionate performance that pulls off the not insubstantial task of playing propulsive acoustic bass lines while pouring her body and soul into an animated vocal on, what else, Coleman Hawkins’ ‘Body and Soul’, before venturing off into the bossa-orientated environs of early, acoustic Return To Forever where her voice takes on hues of Flora Purim and Dianne Reeves.

Spalding also comes with her own secret weapon, keyboardist Leo Genovese, whose imagination and facility on both acoustic and Rhodes piano, not to mention a fondness for brain-melt analogue synth skronk and dive-bomber prog dynamics marks him out as another rising star to watch. London audiences will get the chance to see Esperanza and her accomplished foil at November’s London Jazz Festival, though not in as quite a magical location as Valletta’s Grand Harbour on a melting Malta night.

Story and photo – Jon Newey