Mike Westbrook, Gary Bartz, Laura Jurd and Myra Melford triumph at Cheltenham Jazz Festival’s emphatic live return

Crossing Cheltenham town centre between gigs I passed someone wearing an ‘Old Guys Rule’ T-shirt. It had a superficial relevance to the jazz festival - across the weekend I’d seen a number of male jazz veterans more than prove their worth. But they were well balanced by equally great performances from younger women proving that, in the jazz world at least, the mug slogan no longer held true. To paraphrase The Duke – there’s only two kinds of musicians: good musicians and the other kind and Cheltenham mostly had the former. Mike Westbrook also notably paraphrased Ellington with the suite On Duke’s Birthday rendered by his sprawling 25-strong Uncommon Orchestra led by Matthew Bourne. While capturing the Ellingtonian swoon of reeds against stabbing brass, the Duke came splendidly in and out of focus through Westbrook’s long-established brand of orchestrated chaos. Vocalist Phil Minton’s deconstruction of It Don’t Mean a Thing and Kate Westbrook’s chirpy delivery of Ellington’s absurd Tulip or Turnip were the icing on a lively and memorable cake. Westbrook’s fellow octogenarian Gary Bartz (below) made an equally memorable festival debut, his fluent alto and soprano perfectly served by young UK band Maisha’s deep understanding of the spiritual jazz playbook. Their collaboration had a joyous mutual energy that visibly pleased Bartz immensely.

The late Gil Scott-Heron would have been 73 this month and his presence was effectively brought to Cheltenham by long-time collaborator Brian Jackson whose combination of reminiscence, reflection and performance properly evoked that great poet-philosopher. Some 50 years later Scott-Heron’s socially critical lyrics remain sadly relevant, as do those of Marvin Gaye’s classic album What’s Going On, brought to the festival by the Nu Civilisation Orchestra with vocalist Noel McKoy. The impeccably disciplined young ensemble, directed by Peter Edwards, powered their way through the set and absolutely caught both the sound and the spirit of the original. Special mention should go to bassist Jihad Darwish and drummer Rod Youngs (himself another Scott-Heron alumnus) for maintaining the necessarily unrelenting rhythmic drive throughout.

After the NCO the Jazz Arena stage looked strangely deserted with just a drum kit and a single microphone but that was all that was needed for a masterclass in intuitive improvisation from Dave Douglas and Joey Baron. Never seeming to break sweat, the pair unfolded their music with a casualness that belied the immense wealth of musical insight behind every note. In this stripped-down context you could feel how Baron shaped each sound – he even played the opening melody of a Monk tune – while Douglas’ trumpet lightly wove and rode the implied currents of sound. It was one of those sets that finished far too soon. Another eye-catching drummer – Mark Sanders – cropped up twice and distinguished himself both times, firstly as part of bassist Neil Charles’ improvisatory Dark Days quartet, with Cleveland Watkiss freely deconstructing key phrases from James Baldwin’s book over Pat Thomas’ fractured Monkish piano. Sanders second appearance was with Paul Dunmall, the saxophonist a steady rock between the animated Liam Noble, Sanders and, especially, bass player John Edwards who gyred and gimbled ceaselessly through their fully improvised set.

And the aforementioned women? Well, the Zoe Rahman Quintet coped admirably with the pianist’s highly challenging arrangements, with young bass player Flo Moore making an impressive contribution, while headlining on the Town Hall stage Nubya Garcia’s quartet were predictably assured, with Joe Armon-Jones’ keyboards a focused and effective foil to her sax on tracks like Inigo and Pace. But it was, as ever, the Parabola Theatre programme that produced the highpoints, namely the 12-strong Laura Jurd Ensemble (Jurd pictured above) and US pianist Myra Melford’s Quintet. Jurd’s Stepping Back, Jumping In project brought her ambitious classical/jazz compositions to life with rich string and brass textures reminiscent of Gil Evans and a complexity of dynamics and pace very much her own. It was brilliantly coordinated, tightly composed stuff, whereas the free flowing tumult of Myra Melford’s all-female ensemble let its hair down with delightful abandon to close off the festival programme. Featuring Tomeka Reid’s imaginative cello, Ingrid Laubrock’s thoughtful saxophones,  stunning guitar from Mary Halvorson and Melford’s hyperactive piano their pieces often coalesced around Susie Ibarra’s light-touch drumming (at one point she literally played the air with her brushes).

The music shape-shifted instinctively, surprising and unsettling by turns yet always perfectly judged, hubbub resolving into strangely anthemic sweeps, subsidences teeming with ideas. Definitely not ‘the other kind’ it was another set that finished far too soon, providing a perfect coda to a decidedly successful festival.