Norwegian’s at Parabola pack a punch, and Ezra Collective, Stanley Clarke and Fergus McCreadie fire up Cheltenham Jazz Festival

Cheltenham Jazz Festival has always offered a good mix of the crowd-pleasing and the cutting edge, the latter being curated by Tony Dudley-Evans. As a promoter who not only has his finger on the pulse but who encourages artists to experiment, he’s given us many great moments over the years and this, his final programme, held many more.

One recurrent theme seemed to be intergenerational collaborations: After the awesome sonic onslaught of his impressive solo show Norwegian guitarist Stian Westerhus (below) joined Mark Sanders and Chris Mapp’s duo Collapse/Uncollapse for an improvised set. Westerhus’ assertive repertoire of complex effects initially swamped the more subtle dynamics of Sanders’ drumming, but things eventually came together in an upbeat collectivity.

Any doubts about combining young modernist Xhosa Cole with Pat Thomas and Orphy Robinson’s Blacktop project were trounced by universal acclaim for the outcome, the saxophonist having more than proved himself as an accomplished improviser.

In a packed-out Town Hall bass legend Stanley Clarke’s vigour was well-matched by his young N 4Ever band as he gave them space to strut their stuff. Drummer Jeremiah Clarke did a great job both at synching with Clarke’s impeccable bass lines and in delivering the occasional cleverly torrential solo. Clarke himself stuck to double bass, using Chick Corea’s ‘No Mystery’ to take a perfectly formed blues solo that morphed seamlessly into a melodic pay-off. It was masterful (and crowd pleasing) stuff. 

Saturday night saw the Town Hall rammed with dance-happy punters for Ezra Collective’s groove-fuelled virtuosity – an ebullient contrast with the pindrop attention given to Sunday headliners the Fergus McCreadie Trio. Seated with his back to the capacity audience the pianist (above) began with a quietly meditative solo before David Bowden’s bass and Stephen Henderson’s cymbal added a strong pulse and the unmistakeable Scottish lilt of ‘The Kerfunken Jig’ emerged. What followed was over an hour of almost uninterrupted and riveting music, the balance of the three players perfectly poised at all times. There was an unforced freedom in the set as though, for all the music’s subtle intelligence, it simply flowed spontaneously from the three of them. At 25, the mature depth of McCreadie’s playing is already lifting him into jazz piano’s top ranks.

In the more intimate Parabola Arts Centre the well-established pairing of saxophonist Andy Sheppard with Espen Eriksen’s piano trio offered shapely and restrained jazz. Eriksen’s deceptively simple tunes can feel like power ballads, but Sheppard’s modulated delivery carefully avoided the over-sentimental. That stage also saw Deadeye, Kit Downes’ Berlin based Hammond organ trio with dazzling guitarist Reinier Baas and empathetic drummer Jonas Burgwinkel. The set-up might have predicted some retro grooving but this was very original. Flowing almost without any regular time signatures (22? 13?) the music’s stream of consciousness feel was belied by bursts of dazzling unison. Baas produced astonishing scrabbling guitar solos, Downes found ever-new voices from the Hammond, Burgwinkel effortlessly drew things together – it was more No Wave than Blue Note, for sure.

Two amazing vocal performances stood out, the first being Ruth Goller’s remarkable Skylla project with Alice Grant and Lauren Kinsella, their three voices led by melodic phrases produced by chiming harmonics on Goller’s bass guitar. Songs, such as they were, were passed between the singers, at times word by word, while Kinsella’s remarkable vocabulary of vocalisations punctuated to atmospheric effect. It was a softly spoken thing, requiring close attention to catch poignant lyrical fragments, phrases with Becketty terseness. The overall effect was somehow emotionally explicit nonetheless, and the music was spellbinding.

The other vocal revelation came from drummer Paal Nilssen-Love’s 7-piece Circus, a brilliantly entertaining young outfit assembled around the veteran free jazz drummer that delivered well-disciplined chaos with energy and passion. Flamboyant guitarist Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir initially caught the eye and ear, but standing beside her demurely - at first - Juliana Venter contributed more and ever stranger vocal parts as the set progressed, ranging from animal noises to a radio flicking between stations. She even launched into electro-convulsive dancing, but it was her capacity to catch strange sounds on demand that impressed the most.

A final tribute to Tony Dudley-Evans came in a commission from Laura Jurd (aove) bringing together a young brass chorale and Paul Dunmall’s improvising quartet. From a call-and-response opening the music quickly surged together, occasional moments of careful brass composition balanced by free playing on all sides. A particularly nice duel between trombonist Raph Clarkson and pianist Liam Noble drew approving smiles from both Dunmall and Jurd, and the overall effect was of nine musicians working very much as one. It was a well-judged final fanfare to round off Dudley-Evans’ valued contribution to both the festival and jazz development more generally. He will be a hard act to follow – we await keenly any news of a successor.