JazzFest Berlin 2024

JazzFest Berlin 2024
Haus Der Berliner Festspiele
Berlin, Germany
October 31-November 3, 2024

Intro

For its sixtieth edition, the renowned JazzFest Berlin not only presented a full program of 24 shows by over 120 performers from around the globe, but also ran a research lab looking back at the event's history, and organized a series of participatory community events in the nearby district of Moabit. Not that it in any way needed to gild the lily as the music was typically superb. As is also now customary for what is probably Europe's premier jazz festival, most of the shows took place in the comfort of the Haus Der Berliner Festspiele, with other concerts taking place in nearby clubs and the iconic Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

The implication of multiple venues and concurrent programming was that it was physically impossible to hear everything, confronting the festival-goer with some fiendish choices. Consequently one person's experience could be entirely different from that of another. Happily there were more than enough highlights to go around, including Darius Jones fLuXkit Vancouver, Kris Davis' Diatom Ribbons, Exhaust with Camila Nebbia, Kit Downes and Andrew Lisle, Marilyn Crispell, Sylvie Courvoisier's Poppy Seeds, Joachim Kühn, Otomo Yoshihide's Special Big Band, among many others.

Darius Jones fLuXkit Vancouver

Darius Jones presentation of fLuXkit Vancouver was the pick of the bunch. Inspired by the Fluxus art movement of the 1960s and its commitment to breaking down barriers to participation, it featured four string players from the titular Canadian city alongside his own searing alto saxophone and the drums of Gerald Cleaver, playing the four movements from the album of the same name. However as he made clear in a pre-concert interview, with a graphic element to his scores, each performance is different. This one was absolutely riveting.

While Jones' power to pierce to the heart was ever present, invoked via multiphonic squawks, aching vibrato-laden lines, and sour sweet skirling, it was always knitted into the overall fabric. This was never going to be Darius Jones Plus Strings. In fact the reedman often made a point of retreating to the rear of the stage to ensure the string players the prominence they merited. Cleaver too was central, showing exquisite timbral control alternately shadowing and forcing the intense improvisational exchanges.

Although at some points the lines seemed through-composed, at others the unruly dissonant sawing suggested a string quartet's worst nightmare. The strings were integral throughout and provided the focus during "Zubot," named in honor of violinist brothers Jesse and Josh, with the latter cutting loose in a skittering splintered hoedown partway through. Bassist James Meger tappy freeform intro to the piece established its percussive approach, in which Cleaver's primal beat was paradoxically often the only fixed component. Cellist Peggy Lee also had her moments, shining during "Rainbow" as she curled around Jones' keening alto, culminating in a cooling passage of bowed harmonics.

Each piece subverted expectations of where it would go in the best possible way. As the final section built into an almost visceral tension, Jones' strident bellows and overblown cries encircled by a string tangle of briars accelerated into an orgasmic single note pounding. At which point they gradually came down the scale, a call and response section between alto and strings unspooling into an a cappella folky air from the saxophone, before Jones walked off stage, still playing, still emoting, leaving in a plaintive vulnerable squeal. It was a most striking and counterintuitive conclusion to a profoundly affecting and generous collaboration.

Kris Davis Diatom Ribbons

Canadian pianist Kris Davis supplied another high point. Cross fertilization has been at the heart of jazz since its inception when African rhythms met European instrumentation. Davis took that stylistic mélange to another level with Diatom Ribbons, an outfit which succeeded in simultaneously acknowledging the tradition and being vigorously radical. While Davis herself encapsulated both these approaches, she accentuates the former via the whirlwind pulsation of drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, while the latter is amplified by the electronics of Val Jeanty on turntables whose glitchy, scratchy textures and vocal samples added depth and nuance to the ensembles. On this occasion Davis supplemented the core trio with Berlin-based bassist Nick Dunston, who doubled down on the rhythmic aspects, supercharging the band to devastating effect.

In a program of three covers and two originals, Davis' piano work shone through on a regular basis, but it was in the overall conception that her influence showed most strongly. Davis' left field predilections resulted in an intricate music with a whiff of danger, illuminated by bursts of glorious freedom, where the tunes often skulked in heavy disguise. So after an incremental start, it was a while before the throbbing interplay and insistent ostinato coalesced into the convulsive skewed tattoo of Ronald Shannon Jackson's "Alice In The Congo."

Similarly "Dolores" by Carrington's erstwhile employer Wayne Shorter began with a pizzicato blizzard from Dunston before an anchoring riff. In a departure from the her recorded versions on Live At The Village Vanguard (Pyroclastic, 2023), Davis meanwhile relayed the melody at a racetrack tempo before leaping into energetic synchronized flurries and jittery exchanges. At the keyboard she retains a cutting edge in which long flowing lines hinted at minimalism on speed, blurred with the rhythmic virtuosity and sheer dash of a Bud Powell.

Exhaust: Camila Nebbia / Kit Downes / Andrew Lisle

Away from the Main Hall, the wonderful up-and-coming Argentinean saxophonist Camila Nebbia appeared in the intimate surroundings of the A-Trane club. She was part of a trio with British pianist Kit Downes, likewise a Berlin resident, and his countryman drummer Andrew Lisle, under the collective moniker Exhaust. Since relocating to Europe in 2020, Nebbia has become a fixture on the jazz and improv scene, playing with many of the continent's finest, as well as developing an increasing presence internationally through collaborations with the likes of pianists Angelica Sanchez, Marilyn Crispell, bassist Michael Formanek, drummers Vinny Sperrazza and Lesley Mok.

Like many free saxophonists she reveals a fascination with timbre and texture, but unlike the majority does so without prolonged recourse to the dog whistle frequencies. Instead she alternates between gruff high octane bellows and a fragile abstraction, maximizing the emotive impact through careful manipulation of split tones or throttling her instrument by inserting a metal can into the bell or placing it against her thigh for muffled, strangulated cries.

Downes, who most may know from his ECM outings with his threesome Enemy or on organ with saxophonist Tom Challenger, was a revelation in this sometimes combustible setting. Right from the gitgo, his scampering runs and flashes to the extremes of the keyboard were fundamental to the band's ethos. But he also brought something different, with a flair for repurposing melodic fragments into the free setting, serving as source material for Nebbia if she wished.

The resultant back and forth between the two was stunning, with Downes also sometimes paraphrasing the saxophonist's lines to generate a fugue-like dimension to the proceedings. Lisle too was hugely responsive, whether racing in synch with Nebbia's reed jabbering, or delicately stroking his cymbals in passages of barely audible luminosity. The group has no recordings to its name, but should remedy that situation as soon as possible.

Marilyn Crispell

In the first of two performances at this year's festival (for her second she appeared with Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry the following evening), pianist Marilyn Crispell presented a marvelously intimate and captivating solo set. Alone on the darkened Main Stage, the golden-haired 77-year old's dramatic chording cut through the anticipatory hush, before opening into a fully voiced, rhapsodic, yet tautly reined, flow. In his introduction, fellow pianist Alexander Hawkins hailed her as a poet and a visionary, someone able to suggest a harp in a box or 88 tuned drums from her instrument. She did all that and more, as she snagged on repeated notes, took digressions into the treble clef, suggested a proto ragtime strand, scuttled from bluesy tinges into near Cecil Taylor mode, and evoked a Bach-like formality.

But the magic was that she was able to make all this into a coherent whole. Her second piece was a very personal interpretation of McCoy Tyner's "You'll Teach My Heart To Sing." Although she conjured an impossibly beautiful ballad feel at the start of the following number, she balanced it with a thunderous excursion, sustain pushed pedal to the floor, flat hand clusters ringing out, before a return to the lyrical opening gambit. A well-deserved encore once again illustrated her control: a pithy juxtaposition of spare tinkling notes against dark colors from the other extreme.

Sylvie Courvoisier's Poppy Seeds

Brooklyn-based Swiss born pianist Sylvie Courvoisier's Poppy Seeds were playing only their second performance. Not that you would have known. In large part that is down to recruiting such a consummate and experienced line up, completed by vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Dan Weiss. The quartet was both precise and intuitive, negotiating Courvoisier's charts with an insouciant aplomb. They nailed both the finely-etched chamber sonorities and the downtown grooves, and more importantly switched abruptly between them in the handbrake turns which often characterize the pianist's writing.

As always with Courvoisier there were additional twists in the tail, with space for odd suspensions and miniature sideways forays as well as allusions to contemporary classical forms. But the quartet allowed full rein to Courvoisier's propulsive drive without sacrificing the complexity and risk-taking which makes her work so enthralling. The five pieces contrasted full-on thickets with sudden clearings where a single instrument might strut its stuff.

Whether in involved unisons, solos of sparkling notes grounded by a deeper clang, or subtle pitch-bending electronics, Brennan was always a match for the leader. Morgan and Weiss meshed completely both in jazzy pulse and discontinuous meter, while the bassist's mastery of melodic counterpoint offered listeners another way in. But notwithstanding her confreres, Courvoisier remained an engaging focal point, deploying rubbed piano sighs, poltergeist knocks, and flamboyant crashes alongside passages of astounding prowess and feeling.

Joachim Kühn French Trio

Another pianist, the eighty-year old German Joachim Kuhn, holds a special place in the hearts of his country's jazz audiences. He was the first to embrace free jazz in the old East Germany in the early '60s, but emigrated to the west not long after subsequently encompassing post-bop, fusion, classical and world musics. Living in Paris, New York and California among other places, he played with the likes of Don Cherry, Michael Brecker, Joe Henderson and Ornette Coleman, famously releasing Colors: Live From Leipzig (Verve, 1996) with the last.

For his first Festival performance since 2013, he debuted his new French Trio comprising bassist Thibault Cellier and drummer Sylvain Darrifourcq. In fact it was their first show in front of an audience anywhere, having previously only played in Kühn's home in Ibiza, where they also recorded their new album The Way (ACT, 2024). Bassist and drummer know each other well, both appearing in the experimental contemporary jazz outfit Novembre, while Darrifourcq also plays with one of Kühn's recent collaborators, saxophonist Emile Parisien. With their open outlook and backgrounds in classical as well as improvisational practice, they fit well with Kühn's desire for a freewheeling, go anywhere approach, in which his written material might surface at any stage.

Yet in spite of the apparent looseness, the arrangements were tight. When the pianist suddenly halted his torrential outpouring at one point during the first piece, bass and drums parked their busy pulse on a dime. Kühn's romantic, even florid, piano vied with stuttery drums and spacious bass, sometimes in a delicate give and take, but at other times in an ongoing stream in which he rarely repeated himself. An elusive conversational ballad "Go Süd" presaged the spirited boppy intricacy of Coleman's "Homogeneous Emotions," before the crowd demanded an encore.

Decoy with Joe McPhee

On the opening night another octogenarian, 86-year old saxophonist Joe McPhee, had appeared with the British trio Decoy, which consists of Alexander Hawkins on Hammond B3 organ, John Edwards on bass and Steve Noble on drums. It is one of McPhee's most potent partnerships of the past decades, having begun in 2009 when he had a residency at Cafe Oto in London, and such was its success that it has continued regularly ever since.

There had been some doubt over whether McPhee would be well enough to travel, given recent surgery, but happily he was able to hold his own. While his instrumental stamina was noticeably limited, instead he took the opportunity to exclaim some of his evocative poems, beginning the set with a theatrical declamation of "How Long Has Trane Been Gone?," while Edwards gently thrummed and rippled behind. As he finished he cued the band who pitched into a somersaulting forward motion, Hawkins melting the keys on the B3, Noble laying down an unrelenting beat and Edwards weaving a knotty pizzicato tapestry.

As the band pushed the needle into the red, McPhee issued a litany of tenor screams, before progressively calming proceedings with a series of long tones. That established the template for the set: a series of exuberant fever pitch peaks separated by elegaic vales, interspersed with heartfelt recitations. While perhaps some of the intensity associated with the hook-up might be missing, the audience nonetheless craved an encore.

Sun Mi Hong's BIDA Orchestra

Edwards returned as part of Amsterdam-based Korean-born drummer Sun Mi Hong's BIDA Orchestra, in reality a sextet, created as part of the city's Bimhuis' Reflex series. Able to choose her dream line up from the cream of European musicians, Hong also selected saxophonists John Dikeman and Mette Rasmussen, trumpeter Alistair Payne, and keyboardist Jozef Dumoulin. From behind her kit, she lead the band through a suite-like series of pieces that incorporated propulsive post-bop, slow lament, jostling polyphony and stately Oriental procession.

But having assembled so much talent, there was no point in having them glued to charts, so she wisely granted spaces for group interaction as well as features for each. One of the downsides of an all star group is the difficulty in getting everyone together, so there was at times tentativeness in some of the transitions. However that vanished whenever the horns came to the fore, helped by Rasmussen coordinating some of the interventions. Her solo on the second piece was one of the standouts, building up a bullish roar on alto saxophone, she howled and screamed, hopping from foot to foot as if exorcising demons. Dikeman too erupted on an earlier number, accompanied by sudden attacks from the leader's drums. His falsetto wails, choked cries and Albert Ayler-inspired yowls barely contained by the surrounding narrative.

Elsewhere

One notable strand of the Festival programming brought three Swedish bands to the Main Stage. The honor of launching the entire event went to bassist Vilhelm Bromander's Unfolding Orchestra, a 13-strong outfit that began surprisingly quietly, accompanying a mesmerizing tamboura and voice invocation by Marianne Svašek. Thereafter Bromander managed to showcase the individuals in simpatico settings as well as exploiting the potential of the massed ranks, through slow vamps, dirges and hymnals. At times they recalled Martin Kuchen's various Angles ensembles, and not just because his anguished emotion-drenched alto saxophone was one of the key voices, alongside trombonist Mats Älekint, tenor saxophonist Elin Forkelid, bass clarinetist Christer Bothen and vibraphonist Mattias Ståhl.

Alto saxophonist Anna Hogberg's Extended Attack included three of the same players in a 12-piece band. Although built on the foundations of her acclaimed Attack sextet, with pianist Lisa Ullen, incisive trumpeter Niklas Barno, and the impassioned tenor of Forkelid retained, Högberg nonetheless reached for something different, engendering a huge dynamic range between the whole ensemble at full pelt to subdued textural improv by constituent small subsets.

The single continuous piece built from a whispering start to juddering monolithic slabs, sounding like a collision between the Mingus Big Band and the Fire Orchestra (of which Högberg is also a part), before going through a series of episodes which included mournful refrains, bowed saws, ghost train spookiness and a double drum freakout. Among brief turns in the spotlight, those for Per-Åke Holmlander's squelchy tuba, Ullen's angular piano in tandem with Dieb13's crackly turntables and the leader's scabrous alto were particularly noteworthy. As with the Unfolding Orchestra, limited time meant limited chances to hear more from the individuals within such a talented crew, but that is inevitably the large group experience.

Although only half the size, the third of the Swedish units trumpeter Goran Kajfes' six piece Tropiques, addressed some similar tropes. Its unbroken set began with a slow drone, replaced by a series of hypnotic vamps which took on a minimalist ambience. It was clear that Kajfeš' focus was on the overall feel rather than exposure of chops, though a passage of ecstatic violin sawing from Josefin Runsteen over Leo Svensson Sander's reiterated cello swipes was very effective.

The Sun Ra Arkestra, with its mixture of foot tapping big band charts, space chants and processions through the auditorium was its usual joyous self. At the Quasimodo club, Rasmussen returned on alto saxophone in The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters, alongside the turntables of Miriam Rezaei, electronics and occasional trumpet of Gabriele Mitelli and drums and electronics of Lukas König, for a set which was, appropriately for Berlin, free jazz meets techno. John Hollenbeck's George was a vehicle for the leader's quirky tunes and precise drumming, supplemented by the husky flutes and gnarly tenor saxophone of Anna Webber and twin vocals and keys of Sarah Rossy and Chiquita Magic.

By all accounts the shows by Devin Gray's Melt All The Guns and Alexander Hawkins and Sofia Jernberg's Musho, both at nearby A-Trane, were unmissable, but miss them your correspondent did. You can't be everywhere at once.

Otomo Yoshihide's Special Big Band

If the Festival started with a quiet invocation, it ended with a prolonged bang in the form of Otomo Yoshihide's Special Big Band. Not that every piece was as raucous as the opener, in which various members sprang up to conduct impromptu subsections of the 17 member throng of younger acolytes, resulting in a dense web of crisscrossing riffs and intersecting figures, over a pile driving beat. A later number, dedicated by Yoshihide to friends who had passed away, was gentle and very moving, featuring ringing marimba and sine wave guitar from the leader, with the massed horns adding a sad countermelody.

Even with so many members, there were still opportunities for veteran guitar guru Yoshihide to impose his particular form of avant noise, scrubbing and scrabbling at the fretboard in during Charlie Haden's "Song For Che." It helped that he didn't have to take sole responsibility for conduction, the benefits affirmed when the tuba player silenced the rest of the band during Yoshihide's solo, making their return a hyper exciting moment. Although sometimes it seemed as if anarchy was only a beat away, the band was clearly sufficiently practiced that while they might teeter on the edge, they never leapt totally into the abyss.

Eric Dolphy's "Something Sweet, Something Tender" was taken relatively straight to begin with, but transmuted into an extraordinary Ligeti-like shimmer of overlapping sustains. Although the pulsating big band pieces dominated, betraying Yoshihide's affection for the medium, other pieces brought to mind more diverse inspirations: the marriage of circus music and a New Orleans parade, a caper movie soundtrack, jazz rock fusion, and East European klezmer. But there was always some twist or other which kept it fresh and avoided any hint of being derivative. Certainly no other big band would be likely to come up with the closer—an infectious traditional Japanese folk tune, complete with vocals and synchronized dancing. It meant that everyone left with a smile on their face. An outstanding end to an outstanding festival.

Outro

That every concert was sold out is an eloquent testimony to the work of the team led by Festival Director Nadine Deventer. It once again demonstrated that with the right presentation, avoiding the usual big names in favor of more adventurous art does not mean losing the audience. As former Director Richard Williams stated, the Berlin audience likes to be challenged. With its excellent sound, superb programming, top notch venues, and now community outreach, Jazzfest Berlin remains at the pinnacle of what a jazz festival should be in these troubled times.

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