Cyrille Aimée and MonoNeon get Bulgaria’s A To Jazz boogieing

Oshte! Oshte! Oshte! The Bulgarian word may not have a precise meaning to Avery Sharpe but nothing is lost without translation, especially when actions speak louder than words. The double bassist-leader of the McCoy Tyner Legends band sees 5,000 people screaming wildly after an engrossing set and surely knows they are demanding ‘More! More! More! ’What he also understands are the shouts for ‘Fly With The Wind’, one of the great anthems of the late, great pianist-composer he is celebrating.

It is a noteworthy moment of the three-day A To Jazz open air festival in Sofia, a cultural focal point of the Balkans, which in an early July of sizzling heat and cloudless skies has a jazz on a summer’s day indolence which could not be more welcome as reports come in of Ill Considered being ‘winded out’ at A Love Supreme. If John Coltrane is the patron saint of the aforementioned happening then Tyner was one of his most creatively fruitful disciples and his wealth of songs is brilliantly kept alive by Sharpe’s A-list band. It comprises saxophonist Chico Freeman, trombonist Steve Turre, drummer Ronnie Burrage and pianist Antonio Farao (all pictured above). Sharpe, a Tyner sideman at various points between the early 80s and late 90s, centres the music effectively and the distinctive blend of modal structures, blues, ballds, Afro-Cuban rhythms and hard swing bursts into life on monumental 60s and 70s tunes such as ‘Passion Dance’, ‘Festival In Bahia’, and ‘Walk Spirit Talk Spirit.’

The standard of improvising is very high and the group cohesion excellent but Turre proves to be the showstopper when he blows into a half dozen conch shells in quick session to stay in key on a dazzling solo that is mesmerizing for the uniquely piping sounds he summons from the curved pink bowls. The festival, now in its thirteenth edition, also has a World Music strand, which showcases the beauty of non-western instruments as well as the richness of folklore from all points on the globe. Sinafi Trio, three Greek women who met in Istanbul, are outstanding for their lustrous melodies and finely threaded combination of kanun, vocal, percussion and oud, which in the hands of Marina Liontou Mochament becomes a pleasingly aggressive source of bass as well as swishing treble, while the Mongolian ensemble Yik-Ccn also create a spellbinding ambiance by way of throat singing which could shake the mountains that stand in the background of stage. And the two-stringed morin khuur violin, whirring and creaking aplenty, has a considerably expressive range despite its tonal limitations. The band captures the imagination of the excited, open eared crowd.

While A To Jazz is decidedly international the presence of Bulgarian talent is also an essential part of the bill and the likes of Peyotoff, Mista Future and Mihail Yossifov all underline the stylistic breadth, which runs from techno-edged fusion to post-bop and Latin jazz, as well as the able musicianship of the local scene. Some of the players in these groups, such as bassist-vocalist Kalina Andreeva impress at the post-show jams at the nearby indoor space Topolo Centrala, but the best of the bunch is Postcard, a young sextet whose horn and rhythm sections are rounded out by guitar rather than piano, lending to the largely modern jazz vocabulary a pleasing crispness.

In any case the Sofia audience, comprising a lot of students happy to stay on their feet as well as families taking the blanket and pick-nick option, is a largely responsive one that appears happy to go with the unplugged as well as the plugged in.

Going down well is Polish electric bassist-leader Kinga Glyk, who has formidable chops but material that, though skilfully tracing the evolutionary line from Larry Graham to Marcus Miller via Jaco Pastorius, is disappointingly inconsistent and often slides into sedation when the keys and EWI become excessively watery. French vocalist Cyrille Aimee, who moves liberally from neo-soul to swing, is by no means original but has the charisma and stagecraft to fully connect with her audience while the artist who closes the festival gets extra points for stepping in at the very last minute and sounding as if he’d been expecting the call all along. Replacing the much anticipated Knower bassist-vocalist MonoNeon has the crowd on side more or less from the moment the lights catch his outer space onesie, balaclava and ski goggles, which would have come in handy had he decided to take a whizz on the slopes behind him.

Lovers of Parliament, Cameo, Prince and Bilal are very much in their element but while Monneon, supported by a well drilled drums-guitar-keys unit, makes no secret if his influences he nonetheless has sufficient personality if not likeable oddity to take the music beyond the overly derivative, as one of his other noted predecessors Thundercat, has also done. The music is fiendishly funky, Mononeon’s squelchy pedal-assisted solos are as elaborate as they are energising, and the vibe-o-meter hits a peak pretty early on in the set and stays that way for the best part of an hour. Perhaps with a sneaky irony one of the best songs of the night is ‘Invisible’ which might be an option for Dwayne Thomas jnr when he is sans Mono mask and neon threads but on stage he might as well be singing a cheeky ‘I Only Have Eyes For You.’