Jazzaldia 2013: day 1

© Fernando Ortiz de Urbina

The succession of free gigs around the Kursaal auditorium make the first day of Jazzaldia a whole different business from the rest of it. For some, it's joyful and a communal experience. For others, it's the mob.

We're all old enough too keep banging on about stylistic considerations and ask ourselves what do we really want from music. At best, it should make us dance and jump, reflect and scream, laugh and cry... while it tears our hearts out like Indiana Jones' and replaces them tenderly, as many times as it wishes.

Jazz, music, art in general, at their best, seem to stem from this dialogue:

—What if we do...?
—Why not?!

© Fernando Ortiz de Urbina

What if we put together a band with two drum kits, a vibraphone, assorted percussion, electric bass, two electric guitars with their respective effects, a horn section (trumpet, alto, tenor and bari saxes), a theremin, voices... and, actually, whatever else we may think of. We could also add some dancers. And a painter working during the gig. And a big video screen in the background. How about a giant jellyfish-shaped balloon? Make it fly over the stage. And over the audience too.

What if this orchestra plays music with plenty of vamps. Like the Mission Impossible theme. Music for dancing. Lots of it. And binary rhythms, like Sabre Dance. And in three. And in four, that's perentory. And in five, like Dave Brubeck could never imagine. And some of that jazz that goes from Mingus through Bill Barron's ensembles to Mostly Other People Do The Killing. And rock guitars. And some nice chord sequences. And monster unisons. And polkas. And some ska...

All of the above exists and has a name: SHIBUSASHIRAZU ORCHESTRA, which unlucky Cinderellas missed on the 24th. That, and the chance to see the whole of Zurriola beach jumping and dancing at 2 a.m. On a Thursday.

Shibusashirazu Orchestra
© Fernando Ortiz de Urbina

Earlier that evening...

ROBERT GLASPER: quartet. Funk is like a good dessert. It can save anything. Take a good bassist (Derrick Hodge) and a good drummer (Mark Colenburg), and you'll be able to play anything on them. Vocoder is not such a versatile resource as some seem to think. One of the best moments happened with Casey Benjamin on alto sax and without Glasper. Ponder that.

On your marks, get set...

It's (not at all) funny how time seems to speed up when we change the hour on the last weekend of October. Suddenly it's mid-November and the London Jazz Festival is again upon us. Around 280 events — most of them gigs, but also masterclasses, talks, etc. — in 10 days, with some of the most exciting music in the world available in town, unabated by cuts in public spending or general financial gloom.

Even a cursory look at the programme will reveal an impressive array of names, some of them regulars at this kind of international festivals. To give you twenty random names, Ornette Coleman, Henry Threadgill, Charles Gayle, Ray Gelato, Stefano Bollani (featuring Martial Solal!), Hermeto Pascoal, Richard Galliano (featuring Dave Douglas), Michel Portal, Roy Haynes (with Peter King), McCoy Tyner (featuring Chris Potter), Stan Tracey, Soweto Kinch, the Brubecks, Martin Taylor, Steve Swallow, Joey Calderazzo, David Sanborn, Kenny Wheeler, Archie Shepp & Joachim Kühn...

Going back to the current situation, though, and especially for curious listeners, there are quite a few *** free *** events that are worth noting, like the gigs by the likes of Duck Baker, Gwylim Simcock, Martin Speake (featuring John Hollenbeck), locals F-IRE Collective, or (is this a LJF first?) the one-hour CD exchange. And there's also the HMTTY ("Hear Me Talkin' To Ya") series of live interviews for BBC broadcast.

So, if by any change you're around town, do have a look and let the sound of surprise surprise you. I'll be tweeting on it, and also reviewing a very small part of it, in Spanish, for Cuadernos de Jazz.

Follow the LFJ on their blog, and Twitter.