Birmingham’s Symphony Hall plays host to orchestral sounds, Caribbean steel pans, Indo-jazz and free improvisation

Now in its third year, the B:Jazzfest is looking fully established, as an indoor summer 5-dayer at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. Most days featured two gigs, usually with a free admission 5pm set and a later ticketed performance. The B:Jazzfest scope isn’t particularly international, but rooted in the UK, with a strong presence of local talent.

Charlotte Keeffe’s Right Here Right Now Quartet is dedicated to improvisation, but not without the presence of premeditated compositional structures. As with many acts today, the division between those tactics are increasingly smeared. Keeffe plays trumpet and flugelhorn, joined by guitar, bass and drums. The leader sends out a caustic solo, soon followed by her cohorts, skins pounded, strings sulphurous. A pattern develops where a fanfare statement is alternated with group action, sheet music present, but diversions sounding likely. Keeffe has a bassy, gruff tone, like a clump of frosted barnacles have set up home inside her horn. A sprightly theme emerges over a swaggering groove, segueing into a freer section, fluttering, bowing, and with bass-toned padding on the guitar, which soon turns into a lyrical solo, incongruously inching in. By this time Keeffe has chosen her flugel, but she uses it to break up the slowness and re-establish spiky abstraction. Many phases are traversed in her music. Keeffe’s tune titles and governing concepts are frequently poor, but her music harnesses the surrounding energy. ‘1200 Photographs’ opens with one of her best solos, then ‘Sweet, Corn’ has no wasted flesh, boasting a lean theme.

Most of the gigs happen in the spacious Symphony Hall first floor bar, with a resultant relaxed atmosphere, but Olivia Murphy’s Jazz Orchestra played inside the actual concert hall, set up on the stage, with the audience also seated up there, in front of the chorus rows. Keeffe had stuck around to be part of the trumpet section, and the ranks were also augmented by several players from the Birmingham scene, as well as a London core. This was Murphy’s return to Symphony Hall after a successful 2022 debut of the Orchestra. Most of the material is original, but several pieces are original arrangements of compositions by other composers.

Murphy comes onstage, toes the microphone lead to the side, and sets up a fast finger-click, prompting some instant swing drama. Her conducting style is almost like expressive dancing, delicately pointing at baritone saxophonist Alicia Gardener-Trejo for the evening’s first solo. This is chased by swift statements from trumpet, trombone, piano and alto saxophone, showcasing much of the 18-piece band straight away. Murphy’s hand signals are very distinctive, clearly communicating nuance to the players. She’s almost entering the realms of shadow puppetry shapes!

A darker, bass-heavy sound develops, with baritone, bass and ‘bone all working together, as Murphy draws circles in the air to extend solos for longer than the planned duration. Gardener-Trejo switched to bass clarinet later, maintaining the low end palette. Another Birmingham player impressed, as Dave Sear negotiated a nimble trombone solo. An arrangement of ‘The Time Has Come’, by Mike Gibbs reveals the Murphy big band lineage of influence, which also runs back to Gil Evans and forward to Maria Schneider, with a smudge of Kenny Wheeler. These are the leaders in this narrative, lyrical field. The first set closed with an unusual reading of ‘Rehab’ by Amy Winehouse, clearly recognisable but filled with imaginative phrasing quirks from both the band and singer Becca Wilkins. The second set revolved around ‘The Sister Suite’, penned during the last nine months, its sections named after various birds, but with these beaks symbolising larger scenarios. The third part has a slow, purposeful tread, horns sprinkling in accordance, Keeffe taking another solo, then a fuzzed guitar rearing its head over bold horns.

David Ijaduola’s Lucumi Project opened the Thursday programme at 5pm with one of the festival’s best sets. This drummer-leader performed a work that had debuted at the Vortex in 2022, utilising the skills of three steel pan players, along with trumpet, tenor saxophone and six-string electric bass. Ijaduola has toured with kora player Sona Jobarteh and Afrobeat bandleader Dele Sosimi. He also plays the steel pan, but elected to drive the band from his drumkit for Lucumi. In this music, the pans are more integrated into a jazz style than the audience might expect from past experiences. Ijaduola conjures a movie theme feel, rising enthusiastically with a sparking trumpet solo. The pans sometimes sound, collectively, like a giant Hammond organ, locking into the funk, verging on an Afrobeat pulse. Ijaduola is also an admirer of bassist Marcus Miller, including his ‘Juju’ and ‘Run For Cover’. Not surprisingly, the slap bass abounds. The second set moved into Fela Kuti, then ‘Afro de Cuba’, the pans now reflecting a composite sound of salsa piano vamping and timbale punctuations. This was a fine new form of fusion, taking the steel pan into exciting new realms.

Arun Ghosh was the most well-known artist at B:Jazzfest, unusually playing the 5pm freebie show on the closing Friday, completely livening up the audience right at the beginning, as is his special skill. The band featured tabla, bass and drums, opening with ‘Hope Springs’ and ‘Sister Green’, changing the aura from buoyant to calming, but only until the barefoot Ghosh jumped into his audience ‘hanji’ singalong number. Constantly moving around the stage, dancing as he plays clarinet, Ghosh cuts a charismatic figure, gesticulating to communicate the heart of his music. ‘Surrender To The Sea’ is another slow and thoughtful tune, but ‘Five Ways’ (not far from Birmingham’s own Five Ways) brought back a bouncier beat. Ghosh asks the crowd what they want to hear, and some unimaginative being shouts out ‘Take Five’, but when the band immediately honour this request they turn out a slinky tabla variant.

The unusual factor with B:Jazzfest is that it runs throughout the week, avoiding the weekend, but this doesn’t seem to have any adverse effect on the audience numbers, which were healthy for most of the sets.