| Days 5-8
Gent Jazz Festival
July 14-17, 2011
The festival's second chunk customarily embraced music that was sympathetic to jazz, but moved into the territories of roots, rock, pop, soul, electronica, R&B and African music. All of these forms are frequent jazz bedfellows, as progenitors and descendants alike. So, after a three-day respite, the second long weekend of the Gentfest ran through another four days of strong and varied programming. Chapter Index
Day Five: July 14, 2011
- Day Five: July 14, 2011
- Day Six: July 15, 20111
- Day Seven: July 16, 2011
- Day Eight: July 17, 2011
Of course, the jazz ratio rule wasn't as simple as just described. Due to the vagaries of availability, artists might cross over these set parameters. The Thursday night line-up began with a sturdy jazz presence, opening with a pair of Belgium's most famed players. Well, guitarist Philip Catherine
was technically born in London, but his father was Belgian. He led a quartet which concentrated on the Cole Porter
songbook, so this was decidedly one of Catherine's mellower projects. The smartly-dressed piano/bass/drums team addressed the songs in keeping with the similarly-garbed leader's fluid, golden-hued soloing style. This was a long distance away from some of the guitarist's more rock-inspired friction tactics, still heard sometimes even in recent years. Porter's songs are timeless, but this was a composer choice that seemed somewhat unimaginative when pondering the vast attention his output has garnered over the decades. Regardless, that didn't prevent Catherine's set from being an attractively shimmering mood-shaper, in a quietly introverted way.
The audience was about to be snapped out of its collective trance, as Belgian pianist Jef Neve
took to the stage. His entire stance exuded an extroverted entertainer quality, while at the same time being uncompromising in his pointillist attack. The set was an extended example of articulate improvising, its micro-details forcing an exuberant spell of excitement on the crowd. Neve gave his entire being over to the music, once again bringing his own trio out following a run of appearances at this festival in other configurations. Drummer Teun Verbruggen
is a longtime member, but the new-ish bassman Ruben Samama has now become closely grafted onto the existing root.
In 2009, Angelique Kidjo
, Dianne Reeves
and Lizz Wright
brought their Sing The Truth project to this festival, paying tribute to the achievements of Nina Simone
. Not that they're necessarily obsessed with death, but this fresh (re)incarnation is dedicated to songs popularized by a trio of recently departed singers. Miriam Makeba
, Abbey Lincoln
make up a stylistically disparate threesome, although all of them were deeply involved with adding social observation to popular song. The spotlighted singers were sufficiently starry, but their band boasted a clutch of significant jazz players, including pianist Geri Allen
, guitarist Romero Lubambo
, bassman James Genus
and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington
. Kidjo was easily the singer who emanated the highest heat levels, doubtless inflamed by that very day being her birthday, celebrated with several members of her family who live around Belgium. She was a hyperactive, nimbly dancing child, despite being just over five decades old. Wright operated on a much deeper level, projecting her lowdown voice under the feet of her listeners. Reeves was more conventionally bluesy, gospelly and soulful, but both women paled behind Kidjo's sheer enthusiasm, dynamically sweeping range and theatrical projection, particularly when she roused the entire marquee with a spirited walkabout. Day Six: July 15, 2011
Danish singer/pianist Agnes Obel was easily the most enticing artist on the Friday night. She's much bigger in Belgium than in many lands, and was indeed presented at set's end with a gold disc for sales of her recent single, "Riverside." The mixture of a 'special offer' ticket price, and Obel's opening-set presence ensured a massive stream of punters at a very early stage of the evening, so much so that the now-seatless venue was so packed that the onsite video screens almost became a necessity. Accompanied only by the cellist Anne Ostsee, Obel shaped an extremely intimate chamber music that sounded quite incongruous when consumed at such a distance. Fortunately, the audience was reasonably respectful towards songs that would be best heard in a tiny theater. Obel did well at projecting her closeness. Day Seven: July 16, 2011
The Saturday and Sunday line-ups were generally far stronger than the Thursday and Friday rosters. The chief exception was Nouvelle Vague, who opened on Saturday. These French folks garnered full marks for engagement with the local crowd, and for an overall spunky delivery, but the band's philosophy of targeting pop and rock classics for their personalized, kitschy treatments became a transparent amusement after a few songs. Joy Division
, New Order, Blondie and The Dead Kennedys were just a handful of their choicessome more obvious than others, others more redundant than some. Of late, they've been selecting more obscure French numbers, and imposing a more obviously centralized band style. The outfit isn't as sophisticated as it would like to think, but having passed this comment, it must be pointed out that Nouvelle Vague deliberately mixes smeared-lipstick rock 'n' roll with Parisian café poise, mussed-up and flopped-out by the end of a typical night.
Operating on an even grander entertainment scale, but slicker and more self-consciously cool, the Californian singer/guitarist Raphael Saadiq
delivered a crowd-pleasing set that resonated with genuinely authentic soul. Saadiq still seems like a newcomer, although he has been around for quite a while and became orientated towards production duties during the 1990s. It helps that he possesses a youthful aura, college-boy spectacles mingling with discrete tattoos. It's hard to place where he's at in the style firmament, because there's a marked preference for old-school soul values in terms of both music and stagecraft, and he combines conservative formality with a modern looseness. He was a touch too enthusiastic with the audience participation routines, but thankfully that didn't interfere too much with the song-core.
The Gotan Project
provided the evening's pinnacle, prompting amateur tango cavortings, where there was room in a still-crammed marquee tent. There was an emphasis on the popular early numbers, now ingrained on the mass consciousness due to all-pervasive airings in clubs, bars, and even restaurants. There's a quality to their music which harbors universal appeal whilst retaining depth. Their fusion is a thoughtfully-balanced commingling of preening tango nostalgia and sliding electronica motion. Drawn from France and Argentina, their membership reflects this sonic marriage. Violin, bandoneón and piano provided the acoustic foreground, with laptop and turntables to the rear. Singer Claudia Pannone was entrusted to manipulate the emotional tentacles. The Gotan crew hasn't really developed its sound towards a new manifestation, but it continues to deliver an impressive show with large-scale production values.
Another DJ session closed the evening with more than the usual amount of volume and longevity. The Squadra Bossa duo of Buscemi and Livingstone are regulars at the festival, always providing an extra edge of dynamism to their stylistically-veering sets. There were runs of dancehall, old-time reggae, gypsy knee-upping, dubstep, Brazilian frothing, and elements of virtually every booting beat formation possible. It was a delightfully shaken-up selection, as folks trotted around in the light muddiness, rain long vanished from the skies. Yes, this was certainly the festival's most danceable evening. It was, after all, Saturday, and the main 10-day Gent street festival had just begun that same morning.