Report from Cheltenham Jazz Festival - quintets contrasted

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
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7 May

Two quintets comprising trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums, those of Dave Douglas (trumpet) and Ravi Coltrane (sax), but there the similarities ended, and not because of the lead instrument.

Douglas had a special guest in the form of singer Heather Masse. Opinion was divided as people left at the end whether she even had ‘a jazz voice’, despite being his ‘favourite singer’.

The note that Masse introduced came after an edgy opener that had been made so by exploiting the queasiness of the semi-tone, followed by another that drew further gravitas from discord between wind and reed. It did not seem a good – because not jazz – note, exposing both her rather ‘straight’ delivery and the rather limited quality of the arrangements (the defects did not seem likely to be unrelated).

From a sentimental setting of Sibelius' hymn Be still (touching because the favourite of Douglas’ mother, whom one imagined recently deceased) things continued in this rather dull vein with a version of ‘Barbara Allen’ of all things.

It became clear that Douglas was 'dishing up' one after another of these not because he thought that people wanted to hear, but because he likes Masse and he could. It was unclear why, because even his trumpet-playing was utterly thrown into relief by that of Ralph Alessi in Coltrane’s quintet.

The dexterity of Alessi’s runs was, of course, effortless, and versatility and sonority were the hallmarks of his playing, not least when matching his instrument to that of Coltrane. By contrast, Coltrane’s sax did not give one a tingle down the spine, but it was assured, fluent and graceful (with Coltrane a little unusually taking the bell not to his right, but bending to accommodate it between his legs).

Coltrane’s other personnel were steady and even, with Luis Perdomo on piano, dazzling and perhaps a bit too expansive with the odd solo. However, despite Drew Gress’ prowess on bass, I had been far more impressed by the virtuosity of Linda Oh in Douglas’ quintet, who genuinely seemed to respond to what he was doing and to his choice of material.

Perhaps I have to be grateful to those things for inspiring what much of the audience also clearly admired in her playing, but I found that following her line was only what made what I was hearing palatable. In Coltrane’s quartet, in comparison, I was really keen to hear what Alessi and he were playing, and his bassist was not my anchor for keeping a hold on the music.


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