Trevor Watts wows with Eternal Triangle trio at Citadelic

The 2022 edition of Citadelic marked this festival’s return to an international line-up of out-there jazz and freely improvising artists, inviting players from France, Germany, Portugal, England, the USA and the Netherlands. This free admission festival takes over the Citadelpark in Gent, one of Belgium’s most historically scenic cities. Your scribe was in town for the first half of its five-day run, fortunately a time-phase which held most of the festival’s chief attractions.

Citadelic has been organised by adventurous promoter Rogé Verstraete for 15 years. He used to run one of Gent’s best music bars, Negocito, with its Chilean cuisine and pisco sour orientation. Verstraete also formed a record label, el Negocito, which has now been marinated in 12 years of adventure. He’s been central to the alternative Gent music scene, regularly presenting the area’s finest players, such as trumpeter Bart Maris, drummer Giovanni Barcella, and bassist/sculptor Peter Jacquemyn.

Alto saxophonist Trevor Watts is one of the chief architects of the original 1960s British free jazz scene, but his Eternal Triangle trio was more concerned with the abstract Afro-meshing that took place in his various 1980s Moire Music ensembles. He was joined by old sideman Veryan Weston (keyboards) and more recent acolyte Jamie Harris (percussion), devoted to rhythmic funk propulsion, but still loaded with abstract soloing on the horn front. Watts has always been concerned with melody, even as he blasted and writhed with full force and ingenuity. Eternal Triangle achieved a successful meshing of accessibility and asceticism, with sour themes meeting warm congas, Weston on a three-pronged Nord, supplying deep basslines, weebly retro fills and a core acoustic piano sound. Some folks didn’t dig this, but he actually leapt around these schizo-sonic roles in an impressively dextrous manner.

Watts still displays his shock of crazed-scientist locks, playing with enormous vigour that would be startling from a stripling, not forgetting that the altoman (and sopranoman) is now 83 years old. His tunes often have a South African flavour, with a fiery free progression rising out of their groove, Weston fragmenting wildly, Harris freaking out on congas, with additional cymbal flashes, in a free-salsa fashion. They waved goodbye to the departed percussionist Nana Tsiboe, mourning the fact that all of the African Moire players had now left this existence, and playing a beautifully resonant ‘Ghana Friends’.

The Peter Jacquemyn Quartet revealed its leader’s bass bowing powers, as he clutched his thick strings in a bunch, savagely dragging horsehair while guitarist Mauro Pawlowski manipulated distortion, the drums of Eric Thielemans making violent angular patterns, and US tenorman John Dikeman writhing uncomfortably. Suddenly Jacquemyn launched into a suspended section of matched bowing and throat singing, as Dikeman squalled, completely committed to noise investigation and escalation, Pawlowski’s bending howl-strings emphasising the power, underneath.

Dikeman is also a member of Spinifex, an internationalist crew who can boast being one of the most derangedly powerful bands on the circuit, complicated rhythms often stemming from Balkan or Indian roots, their drums/bass/guitar core ramming hard, as the four-piece horn section flew off its collective handle. The set’s climax featured a rare outbreak of manic crowd-dancing, as Spinifex hit their Eastern European pinnacle of rockin’ complexity.

A quieter exploration concluded the evening, as the sun lay down for the Anglo-French trio of Audrey Lauro (alto saxophone), Alexander Hawkins (piano) and Mark Sanders (unusually sticking to a basic drumkit). They tended towards free jazz rather than free improvisation, which was another unusual preference, another refreshing switcheroo. Sanders was heard in a more classic way, without his customary adornments of sonic minutiae. They operated a linear and flowing construction, with Lauro issuing overblowing surges on alto, immersed in a whistling sound, suggesting an interest in Moroccan reed-pipes. Your scribe wished he could stay for another three days in Gent, but he was also simultaneously yearning for the multi-gig immensity of the Brussels Jazz Weekend. Review coming soon!