Fairly unadulerated gig-notes for a review of Roller Trio at Cambridge International Jazz Festival
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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21 November
For those who want to try #UCFF gig-notes, fairly pure and unadulterated by further editing than decipherment, let alone turning them into would-be fluent prose, here are what should become this review :
This is a review of Roller Trio at Cambridge International Jazz Festival 2019 on Thursday 21 November 2019 at 9.30 p.m. (with support from Noya Rao)
Personnel :
* James Mainwaring ~ sax(es) / electronics
* Luke Reddin-Williams ~ drums
* Chris Sharkey ~ electric bass-guitar / electronics
Transcribed raw notes (more or less, as is) :
(1) Giant noise to open
Left-handed guitar
Wa)iling, full of energy and passionate life
Repetitions / iterations and effects
Modular
Riffing from the soul
Bass-and-drum iterations under
Free-flying sax
Slight decrescendo and fragments of melody
Slowed to the rate of a heart-beat, with floral and statementful sax
Always moving
Shimmering and exuding light, as if a live aqueous stream
An unanswered phone-call ?
Bass and drums in a jamming duo – pulsing, energetic
Metallic, howly sounds from effects-pedals
Sampling the horn + growls and mumble
DJing the audio
Really spacey, aquatic, submarine – expansive sax
-> flares and distortions as of a whale, dying
-> opening up, texturing
-> spectacularly large sound with attractive, gaelic-themed chord-sequences and mood
Falling, doubled-note bass-line + clear and evanescent sax-sound
Gtr solo – sounding clavichord or prepared piano
Interrupted statement – more and more like weaponry, strikes it down (small-arms fire)
Dulcimer (or mandolin ?)
-> genre-defying drum-solo (sounds like an ambush or incursion
Now it’s palpations and patting
-> Effect warbles and waves
Ground-bass of satellites or machine-language –
Into danceable rhythms and sax-overlay
- understated sax coments
- slight flare / blare
Sanitizig, good feel
-> segue into a danceable, Latin-style theme that mutates to North-African timbres and runs and repeats
- highly danceable, driven by whines and howls
Up, to intense
Applaud tune
- boppy??, then missed / re-arranged beat-patterns
2nd drum-solo + whoops
* * * * *
Wholly improvised [Reddin-Williams introduced Roller Trio, and told us that they were doing something unusual for them]
(2) Tenderness and insistent and / or staggered rhythms
- threads or filaments of material on which the sequence continues, as its seed or base
– or not
* * * * *
(3) Bluesy sax riff – laid-down ostinato with effects on sax to extend or broaden / coarsen the element of horn / tempo switch (dim.) and, with it, a change of guitar-line -> a more-usual free-sax style with rock gtr / drums -> multi-divided note-lengths, accelerating and with staccato sax-puffs or pouts – down into lower register – danceable again and compelling
* * * * *
(4) [encore] Bonkers cow-bells & electronic bubbles & tapping of cymbals – aerial bass + JB vocalize = keening / pleading – slow decrescendo and a heart-beat slowing
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
