Byron Wallen and Nick Ramm dazzle among the duos at B:JazzFest: 22

B:Jazzfest is organised by the Jazzlines team, based at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Their second festival spanned five midweek days, presenting 5pm freebie sets throughout, with a trio of ticketed shows between the Wednesday and Friday. These latter gigs took place on the actual stage of the hall, with chairs placed on tiered platforms, the audience looking out across the vast, vacated space.

Duos were a partial theme, with Bex Burch & Leafcutter John appearing as Boing!, their improvisatory, environmental music alias, then saxophonist Trish Clowes joining pianist Ross Stanley, mixing up originals with tunes by Jobim and Shorter. The most engaging meeting involved trumpeter Byron Wallen and keyboardist Nick Ramm, the pair collaborating since 1995. Even though Clowes/Stanley had already completed an hour-plus set, this double bill of duos turned into an epic session, as Wallen/Ramm embarked on around 90 minutes of the trumpeter’s new Black Flag tune-cycle. It’s effectively a transformed incarnation of works from nearly two decades back, but with video accompaniment, and some illuminating explanations from Wallen, between each highly evocative composition. Trumpet was looped and built up rapidly via a peppery repeat, then soloed over, as Ramm introduced sensitive swathes. The mood was introspective, with a nostalgic melancholy, the keys often way too loud when they should have been more ambient. Ramm moved from Nord to acoustic piano, ‘Twilight’ offering a more conventional nature, as its tune was examined. ‘Lost Souls’ was the most ethereal of all, and ‘Debris’ the most desolate. Even though solemnity ruled, the composite result was strangely uplifting.

One of the best 5pm sets came from the Australian trombonist Shannon Barnett, who’s now living in Cologne. Her compositions straddled strong themes and diverting improvisation, melding the two sides in line down from Albert Mangelsdorff and Paul Rutherford. Old burbling tradition was mixed with sharp, clean agility. Joined by a local trio, Barnett (like many other artists) had also been participating in the adjoining Jazzlines Summer School. Bassist Amy Coates was particularly impressive here, again matching a driving swing action with a spaciousness more usually found within the realms of free improvisation. Barnett displayed a winding dexterity, issuing speedy melodic phrases, savouring certain notes, then smearing them out at length. ‘Bad Friend’ turned into a micro-suite, one of the leader’s many originals, but there was also room for pieces by Carla Bley and Misha Mengelberg.

Bassist Daniel Casimir boasted saxophonist Binker Golding in his ranks, playing around funk and hip hop beats, with the horns remaining determinedly jazzed. All sound levels were too loud, ringing around this voluminous hall. The second set was more direct and energised, with the three-part ‘Safe’ being its centrepiece, Golding soloing fiercely.

The climactic gig involved Alina Bzhezhinska’s HipHarp Collective, presenting the Ukrainian’s third new combo witnessed by your scribe during the last four years, at gigs in Coventry and Tallinn. Now, Bzhezhinska is taking her harp on a hip hop-influenced journey, scintillating over tripping beats provided by her three colleagues on percussion and electric bass. The band was also expanded by guests, including Xhosa Cole (flute, tenor saxophone, Birmingham) and Noushy (vocals, trombone, Glasgow). Also, the local rapper NeOne The Wonderer joined the Collective, as well as bringing on his own band for a couple of numbers. Composers still include Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, but their pieces were convincingly transposed to a beat-driven symmetry. Noushy was also impressive as a communicative singer, especially on ‘Afro Blue’. This set was crammed with so much scene-changing that it flew past with maximum energy, without even mentioning the looming presence of the Ukrainian invasion, as Bzhezhinska moved between steadfast positivity and melancholy mourning.