Cologne Jazzweek bursts with multiple choice gigs for packed and heavily varied programme

Cologne Jazzweek takes over the city for a literal seven days, inhabiting multiple venues, indoors and outdoors. Many of the gigs happen in the western part of Cologne, revolving around two of the city’s chief jazz venues, Stadtgarten and The Loft, in the Belgisches Viertel and Ehrenfeld areas. The more central zone of the city, to the east, also provided key venues, such as the Kölner Philharmonie and WDR Funkhaus. There was a proliferation of gigs, most of them taking place simultaneously, so that attendees could map completely different trajectories, according to tastes. This third edition maintained a preference for the more extreme ends of jazz and improvisation, but there were still several acts of a more mainstream nature, performing in the larger concert halls.

The Jazzweek facilitated particularly strong international connections, inviting artists from other lands to collaborate with local Cologne players. This meant that it was possible to witness musicians in very different settings, day by day.

On the opening Saturday and Sunday everything revolved around Stadtgarten, mostly on its open air stage. The Saturday evening sets by trombonist Shannon Barnett and saxophonist Philipp Gropper were ticketed, but Sunday brought a full schedule of free admission performances, also using the indoor stages of Stadtgarten, as well as two nearby churches.

Barnett is an Australian living in Cologne, inviting New Orleans singer, reedist and accordionist Aurora Nealand to make her quartet a quintet. The leader’s ‘bone, and the soprano/tenor saxophones all took strong soloing turns, with bass and drums stoking in suspension. Nealand kept it stripped and sharp, rhythm team pushing pugilistically. The horns frequently jostled and interacted on the wing, before dismantling their own structures. Nealand is quite a talent, singing and playing accordion on the third number, while Barnett uses a rubber mute and tenorman Stefan Karl Schmid became tight-lipped, near duck-calling. He also took the next tune higher, after a horns-only introduction turned into a heavy propulsion, Nealand’s soprano flying off once again, her tone highly developed, her phrases very agile.

Gropper’s Philm followed, the combo comprising Elias Stemeseder (upright piano/M-Audio), Robert Landfermann (bass) and Oliver Steidle (drums). Jabbing, floating, halting, sloping, fidgeting and jittering, the four still maintain a loosely stilt-walking progress, as an eel-funk slipperiness evolves. Philm slide together syncopation and abstraction, as Berlin leader Gropper slithers freely, developing a dogged pattern of repeats. This is one of Germany’s best bands.

The greatest Sunday set came courtesy of the mysterious T.ON meets HxH, down in the  Christuskirche basement. T.ON is the Cologne trio of Matthias Muche (trombone), Constantin Herzog (bass) and Etienne Nillesen (snare drum). HxH appears to be the guesting Stateside cellist Mariel Roberts, an exceptional solo performer. This is some of the most cuttingly limned free music we’ll hear all year, exulting in its spacious sparseness. A percussive cello body-knocking and a teeming scurry from bowed bass were punctuated by a catarrh unblocking from the muted ‘bone. Herzog crafts a light throb while the others hover, Muche moving his upper body like a sipping woodpecker. The foursome emit swollen drone textures, beautiful in their harmonic resonance, down here in this spiritual dungeon. The bass sounds like a very large dragged comb, the trombone makes isolated blasts, and the introverted power-resonance grows between the four.

An early arrival was recommended for the free-entry Aki Takase and Han Bennink set, as the latter’s first hit sent two drumsticks flying under the piano lid. Both players still possess remarkable energy and thrust, now that they’re in their veteran years, and this was notable for being the best Bennink performance witnessed by your scribe for around a decade. His rhythmic invention was incredible, as well as his visual wit, and his sharp timing. Takase is also vigorous in her attack, as Bennink pauses to loosen his tie, the pair becoming quieter. He snaps his towel around the kit, as an olden retread sounds on the verge of ragtime, with free frills. Bennink sits on a cajon that boasts a big rattle. “Sorry, wrong festival”, he quips, after a John Bonham outburst. The encore is a dandy version of Fats Waller’s ‘Handful Of Keys’.

The Loft took care of an even more out-there sequence, selling out its tickets due to the venue’s limited space. Do Yeon Kim plays the Korean gayageum, which is similar to the Japanese koto. She appeared in both sets, first in bassist Nick Dunston’s Spider Season trio, with trombonist Kalia Vandever, and then in another trio with Florian Herzog (bass) and Lesley Mok (drums). This was something of a New Yorker night.

Spider Season set up a simultaneous busyness, Kim forcefully striking her strings to an almost worrying degree, as her instrument looked quite fragile. She used a tiny bow to savagely saw, joined by Dunston’s own bowing, as well as vocalising in a ritualistic manner, making harsh bass-end hits on her gayageum. Vandever swarmed her trombone, but she was mostly inactive compared to the other two. All the better when she offered an extended solo near to the close. The second trio’s set was less successful, largely due to the increased role of Kim’s vocal stylings, which often seemed histrionic compared to the instrumental sounds. Herzog and Mok set up a sombre undertow, with mallets, brushes and sliding strings.

The second Loft night featured another double bill, also sold out. The Copenhagen drummer Kresten Osgood led a trio, but seemed to be in an ornery mood. It might have been humour, but it seemed bad-tempered, particularly when he was dishing out orders to his comrades. Osgood was quiet, with sudden crashes and tiny tattoos, trebly plinks and clusters, using his fingers on the skins, then tiny sticks, Wilbert de Joode on the lachrymose bass-bowing, the duke of visceral.

Aki Takase and Alexander von Schlippenbach played the second set, mixing solo and two-at-the-keys sections. Takase was more focused on linear progressions, making occasional digressions into peacefulness. Schlippenbach magnified this quality when he joined, hunched over the treble end of the keys, but then switching positions with Takase later, for a pointillistic caper. From delicate drips back to an overflowing river, the pair of them flowed together in whichever direction was taken.

For each night’s last climax, it was good to go downstairs to the Jaki club-space in Stadtgarten, once again with free admission, packing the joint out. Superposition is a Finnish outfit with powerful saxophones fronting, courtesy of Linda Fredriksson and Adele Sauros, both also leaders of their own bands. Their horns hovered over speeding bass and drums, sometimes calmy slowed compared to the beats, saxophones making much of their nestled harmonic status in the spread.

The next evening, Wanja Slavin led an all-star bunch that included Shannon Barnett (again), Percy Pursglove (trumpet/flugelhorn), Ruth Goller (bass) and James Maddren (drums), all of whom stood out more than the band’s actual leader, whose saxophone playing was much better than the parts when he soloed on over-loud dated-sound keyboards. Overall, an excellent way for your scribe to end his four days at this week-long feast of multiple choices…