Jazzdor Fest boogies to Berlin

Strasbourg’s Jazzdor Festival now counts as a veteran event, its 37th edition set for November (4th-18th). The organisers also ran a ‘seasonal’ series of gigs between January and May, taking over the Fossé des Treize club. Strasbourg sits next to the Rhine, in northeast France, right next to the south-western German border. Jazzdor reflects that teetering edge, naturally concentrating on French acts, but increasingly encouraging collaborations with German bands. Indeed, the Berlin version of the festival has now been joined by a third edition, gigs in Dresden running in tandem, enjoying a very similar programme, as bands move from one city to the other.

With Jazzdor Berlin placed in an unusual Tuesday-to-Friday position, this was convenient for your scribe to arrive straight from the Moers Festival, near Cologne. All gigs happen at Kesselhaus, which must surely have been one of the earliest venues to be set within a converted old factory space (in this case, a brewery). Kesselhaus has been a popular cultural centre since 1990, but looks like it’s one of those omnipresent industrial-chic spaces, lately sprouting up in many cities.

The first evening had an Arabic fusion character, with Palestinian singer and oud player Kamilya Jubran joining the fairly conventional jazz trio of saxophonist Sylvain Cathala, followed by darbouka player Wassim Halal, working with Gamelan Puspawarna, meshing the characters of Lebanon and Indonesia. Jubran had singer-songwriter inflections, mixing up mellowed Arabic tradition with French café delivery, plus a touch of Californian troubadour. Most of the solos came from the trio, rather than the oud, with Jubran concentrating on her voice as the chief communicator. Next up, Halal’s darbouka seamlessly fell into place within the gamelan, sneaking into the Balinese soundworld. Initially, the set’s music sounded traditional, but from the second piece onwards, the works sounded stranger, atonally cycling around a vibrant pulse, creating a headlong shimmerscape, as the metallophone players grouped together in asymmetrical formations rather than the expected gamelan spread.

Wednesday upped its count to three acts. Tenorman Matthieu Bordenave’s Trio meandered softly, the leader’s breathy tones fronting a performance that became incrementally more tedious. The debut of SAN, which featured Satoko Fujii (piano), Taiko Saito (vibraphone) and Yuko Oshima (drums) also played with space, but their pondering soon expanded into fuller activity from all three players. Saito’s contribution was notably luminous, as intricate themes developed, swirling to a dramatic crescendo. SAN revealed themselves as maestros of spectral rumination. The Julia Kadel 5tet closed the night, the pianist joined by a line-up of violin, alto saxophone, bass and drums. Kadel narrated in French, amidst swirling and cascading lines, dominated by citrus violin, then a frost-noted alto solo by Luise Volkmann, who moved her mouthpiece from side to side, creating a fluffy vibrato, with a sour transparency. A freely improvised nature emerged, a pointillistic, dappled abstraction.

The Matthieu Mauzé Trio played host to New Yorker alto saxophonist Michaël Attias, beginning a snaking process, becoming roiled, but ending a section with calmness, after following avenues of variation. On the Thursday, these four presented a new suite, Monolith, inspired by Herman Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf. Jagged and halting at first, it upped its violent edge, surprising with the closing part, which was virtually a post-bop swinger, Michael Cina’s ride cymbal highly active. The quartet closed out with the topically titled ‘Supply Chains’, a staccato stormer. The Killing Popes followed, but they weren’t as wired as usual, especially considering that guitarist Marc Durcret was guesting. Another addition was singer Claudia Solal, who made some unusual approaches while still sounding relatively straight-ahead. Given that Ducret and regular Pope guitarist Frank Möbus should have been incendiary partners, they seemed to maintain a deliberate calmness, as the band struggled to cohere.

Friday opened with another new creation, Baldwin In Transit, which was led by texts from Mike Ladd, Jamika Ajalon and Tamara Singh. At first it might be expected that they’d intone works by James Baldwin himself, but it soon became apparent that these scribes were relating original lines, inspired by his writings. Despite the presence of Ducret (again) and violinist Dominique Pifarely, the music took a background position, aside from a few instrumental interludes.

It had soon become apparent that Jazzdor favoured something of an introverted atmosphere. There was an accumulation of bands that resided in a meditational zone, playing slowly, savouring sonics and looking deeply inwards. It’s not clear whether this was a deliberate programming stance, or simply the orientation of the compositional creations found in these often new settings. This is why the final night’s set with saxophonists Ana-Lena Schnabel and Daniel Erdmann was so striking in its impassioned focus. This front-line duo worked with the French-German team of Florian Weber (piano), Joachim Florent (bass), and Edward Perraud (drums), each player providing original pieces that stylistically melded together with a band unity. There was a strong Coltrane aura at first, as Schnabel set about staking her territory, switching from flute to alto, then pulling off her mouthpiece for a set of duck-call climaxes. Erdmann replied with mournfulness, as sticksman Perraud stroked and bowed his cymbals. A Babylon Berlin-styled chase began, quickening with unison horns, the drumming vigorous, but with light hits. Perraud revealed himself as an extremely imaginative, expressive, and flamboyant stylist, full of glancing strikes and sprung bounce, playing with very small sticks. Erdmann’s number was a bluesy epic, with another extroverted drum solo and a percussive tenor solo, while Schnabel’s tune was a slowly stamping dirge, infused with lumbering power, like a corpse-cabaret leviathan. This band strategically became the festival’s best, close to the final night’s end.