Alina Bzhezhinska’s Hip Harp shifts into new territory
George Howlett
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
The acclaimed London-based harpist debuted her new band at this year’s EFG LJF with guest horn players and deeply danceable grooves
Much of the live-stream hesitancy among 2020’s concert audiences stems from uncertainties around sound quality. Fortunately for London-based harp star Alina Bzhezhinska, her Quintet’s heady mix of textures is a natural fit for the quirks of this new online world. Captured live in the cosy basement of Chelsea’s 606 Club, the group’s varied string, horns, and drum sonorities blend and balance each other with satisfying ease, always leaving room for the fine details to stay visible centre-stage. While no live audience was present, it’s no struggle to sense how intently the musicians are listening to each other.
The group ran through a broad but ever-coherent set-list, spanning sparse Ellington numbers (‘African Flower’) to spiritually-infused Alice Coltrane classics (‘Something About John…’), with tasteful stopovers in the world of electronic drum samples, and captivating fresh works such as the time-swirling, ever-resolving ‘Meditations on Lockdown’. Fittingly, Bzhezhinska’s 47 strings steered overall proceedings with calm authority and patience, rolling through dense melodic tangles one moment and adding crisp rhythmic flourishes to Tony Kofi’s soprano sax lines the next (not that he ever requires much of a kick-start to get going), while guest trumpeter Jay Phelps provided sonorous solos and harmonic horn-line flourishes.
Concerts cannot help but be snapshots of their own human contexts - and in the pent-up, locked-down isolation of late 2020, I’m glad to have such excellent examples of what can so often go undocumented: dedicated, inspired musicians are continually striving to overcome the hurdles of new tech, absent audiences, and an uncertain economic future – and demonstrating first-hand that the same creative forces are always there, always flowing (as Bzhezhinska enthused to the group towards the close, “guys, you really are on fire...”). Besides, while we’d all love to be able to hear early Bird & Miles in true audiophile quality as well, our record collections - and overall listening lives - are richer for a little variety. I, for one, have rarely heard the harp’s natural harmonics glisten and glide so smooth in a mix...
Musicians
- Alina Bzhezhinska (harp)
- Tony Kofi (sax)
- Mikele Montolli (bass)
- Adam Teixeira (percussion)
- Joel Prime (percussion)
- Jay Phelps (trumpet: special guest)