James Carter and Kristjan Randalu open and close Jazzkaar with searing intensities

It has become something of a tradition to blow-out Jazzkaar with a mighty Stateside player on its final day, usually around the early evening party-slot. In recent years we’ve revelled in climactic sets by Kenny Garrett and Christian McBride.

The James Carter Organ Trio was the exceedingly wise selection for ‘25, this undersung hero lately re-emerging onto the European festival scene, reminding audiences of his majestic saxophonic technique, as well as his skills as a raconteur, entertainer and dancer. The entire trio absolutely exuded majestic energies throughout their relentless good-times set.

The historical Von Krahl theatre venue closed its long-established space in the Old Town, re-opening in the building traditionally used as Jazzkaar’s main stage. Carter set about confirming his audience as committed acolytes, straight away, and without any flagging.

Direct from Detroit, he and his bandmates are snappily clad in suit, jacket or smock, but with unusual filigree patterning for the leader. Hammond organ-sluicer Gerard Gibbs and Herculean sticksman Alex White are eminently matched as fellow members who can cope with the Carter stamina. He begins on tenor, deeply probing every pore of his horn, pushing it out from cutting melody into abstract pitch limits. He coulda had a career as a free improviser!

Carter has a very similar set-list to that of his Belgrade Jazz Festival appearance last October, recited to the crowd at the set’s beginning, so they can gird their loins in readiness. The material is recalibrated for this organ trio line-up. There are still several Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis homages, for lovers of the honk. Meaty grooves rule, with the bombarding one-man orchestra of the Hammond, complete with squealing little-finger flits and bass-flood tootsie rolls on the pedal extremities. Down on the press-seating front row, the floorboards are quivering. Tenor phrases get exchanged with organ responses, and the Hammond eventually has solo-time, with drum explosions to boot. A soprano comes forth for some reggae steps, with some very raw edges, in an idiosyncratic style for this horn. Carter is prompted into a dancing routine, waving the soprano around like he’s in a school marching band, while Gibbs skates crazily. Carter blows again, using only one hand, like he’s swiggin’ a bottle of beer, bending notes on the utmost golden knife-edge.

Wheeling back from the closer to the opener, the increasingly international pianist Kristjan Randalu unveiled a new work which radically reinterpreted the classic 1981 Estonian composition ‘Margins And Dividends’, by Jaan Rääts. Its first recording happened to be made by Kristjan’s father, Kalle, on an LP released in 1986. There is actually not much similarity here to the old recording, as Randalu has drafted in compadres with a heavy bias towards electronic surfacing.

(L-R: Eivind Aarset and Kristjan Randalu – photo by Karoliina Kreintaal)

Both guitarist Eivind Aarset and keyboardist (plus theremin) Taavi Kerkimae were using generous spreads of wired-up gear. We might have been expecting an ambient exploration of sensitivity, and indeed such passages existed here, but during rehearsals it appears that Randalu and company instinctively elected to enter the sphere of dark-prog complexity, prompting potential head-nodding from the audience. This didn’t sound badly dated. It sounded starkly mysterious and doomily inviting. It split the audience.

From simple piano figures, Randalu was contrastingly acoustic, another joy of this music, notes soon multiplying, gaining in complexity, with cohorts texturing carefully, steadily entering the flow. Suddenly, a surprisingly heavy rock intensification intervened, with a regular slam-drumbeat, Randalu soloing like he’s playing a beaten upright jangle-joanna, straight outta New Orleans. This crouches at the opposite corner to his classical output. Aarset was actually riffing rather than painting!

Meanwhile, Kerkimae is a crouching tiger at his keys, in retro-weeble overload, as Randalu vamps and Hans Kurvits pounds the skins. A leviathan procession begins, and next up we enter Eastern realms, Aarset coaxing with e-bow, keys taking on an Algerian bleating tone. This is almost pomp-rock, in a complete evisceration of the original work, but without losing sympathy for its rising spiral nature. Like unto early Keith Jarrett Medieval prog. It’s an advantageous rebirth indeed.

The prominent Estonian guitarist Jaak Sooäär was present this year, as ever, but he was ‘hidden’ within the new quartet of Keelepeksjad, who presented a rare form of trad Estonian surf rock polka (in matching waistcoats), with another guitarist, Marek Talts (pictured above Photo by Sven Tupits) as a significant solo-sharing partner. A flabby bass flood facilitated their wave-skimming string acrobatics, transposed inside the wooden polka-house. There was an alternating funk skip, skewed against time, getting freaky with some psychedelic guitar crossfire. Guesting vocalist Jaan Pehk came across like an innocent choirboy, but seemed to possess extra significance to the local crowd, furthering the oddball character of this highly appealing blend.

The Naissoo Freeform Quintet had to play following the Carter showdown, but succeeded via a changed mood of low-toned introversion in the next-door Fotografiska gallery, not least due to the presence of the excellent bass clarinettist Meelis Vind. The prolific veteran keyboardist Tõno Naissoo balances on the edge of retro-positive and retro-negative, but wins out in the end, with this heads-down acceptable-face-of-noodling.

A surprising success for Jazzkaar was the unfamiliar Marseille outfit Poetic Ways, who represented the ultimate musical distillation of France. Plus America. A key winning aspect was the contrast between leading figure saxophonist (and talker) Raphael Imbert and singer Célia Kameni. He’s an urbane weirdo and she’s an electrifyingly  powerful soul-stirrer. And drummer Pierre-François Dufour sounds like the sort of rhythmicist that Captain Beefheart would have dug. This is a fresh genre of exquisite chanson-jazz. Plus Nina Simone.

There were also the usual community-drawing free admission opening Sunday activities, a series of house concerts, and sharply-directed sets by Lakecia Benjamin, Maria Faust, Kresten Osgood, Lembit Saarsalu, Bill Laurance and Michael League (in duo), and the Tallinn Police Orchestra Dixieland Band. Plus, way too many pop and neo-soul type artists. Fortunately, with a festival that spans a week, with multiple sets each day, such slippage of quality can be almost ignored.