Nigel Kennedy To Close This Year's Cheltenham Jazz Festival Tonight

While Saturday’s programme was affected by an electricity cut which forced the cancellation of two concerts at the Everyman, once power was restored singer Madeleine Peyroux impressed, leading a strong group performance that featured a talented band with Steely Dan guitarist Jon Herington a guiding light. Earlier the Profound Sound Trio, with free jazz legend bassist Henry Grimes, kept the attention of a busy Pillar Room in the Cheltenham Town Hall. A busy Sunday saw wicked wordsmithery from Michael Rosen and the Homemade Orchestra, on the Main Stage of the Town Hall at the breakfast show and the impressive Subtopia, in the Jerwood Jazz Generation strand, which opened with the jagged ‘Sudoku’. Later in the steamy and very full Pillar Room, the Portico Quartet, newly signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World label, played new material, including the stirring ‘Piano Ballad’ and music from their best selling debut, Knee Deep in The North Sea. Their minimalist hang-led style (derived in part from Steve Reich and Terry Riley) and narrative flow went down well with a rapt audience. Happily, there was opportunity at the Everyman yesterday for the specially commissioned Nikki Yeoh and John Surman duo performance which acted as an opener to the fascinating blockbuster Jack DeJohnette Jerwood All-Stars show which featured the Butch Morris-inspired ‘Conduction No 1’ by Shabaka Hutchings, which stood out particularly along with other new writing from the young band led by the influential US drummer. Last night Dave Douglas played a new piece called ‘Campaign Trail’ in a well-received set, written last year during the US presidential race which he said initially was to have finished in a minor key but now finishes in a major one! As part of the large fringe festival, over in the basement Subtone club, yards from the Town Hall, Pee Wee Ellis led a tight band cooking up some juicy JB funk to delighted dancers young and old, and at the Everyman the evening finished poignantly with leading US clarinettist Don Byron delivering an emotion-laden Thomas A. Dorsey gospel set featuring powerful multi-faceted singer DK Dyson. Read next month’s Jazzwise magazine for a full report on this year’s festival.

- Stephen Graham