Järjestyksessä toinen TUMfest soi Helsingin Savoy-teatterissa
etupäässä suomalaisin ja amerikkalaisin voimin 28.-29.1.2006.
Matthew Wuethrich raportoi Suomijazz.comille tapahtuman
ensimmäisestä päivästä, kielenä poikkeuksellisesti englanti.

Greg Osby & Andrew Cyrille.

The second TUMfest came with the emphatic subtitle "New Music!",
but if one takes "new" to mean the latest or most current ways of
making music, then this title surely misleads. Rather than offer
something entirely new, the three small combos that graced the
stage of Helsinki's Savoy Theater on the two-day festival's opening
night put forward re-interpretations and re-imaginings of jazz's
improvising tropes: cerebral bebop, aggressive non-idiomatic improv,
hard-swinging blues lines, free modal blowing, and blues-soaked
balladry all got reworked.

The scales were tipped decidedly in favor of veteran performers.
Han Bennik, Anderw Cyrille, Reggie Workman and Archie Shepp have
become elders of the art, while Greg Osby and Pheeroan akLaff are
established and respected performers in their own right. The youth
movement was represented only in the persons of saxophonist Mikko
Innanen and Estonian guitarist Jaak Sooäär. So, instead of edge-
cutting and experimenting, TUMfest 06 was about consolidation,
graceful showmanship, the patient confidence of experience and,
above all, tradition, or more exactly the respect and refreshing of
tradition. In his humorous opening speech, festival host Otto
Donner referenced the growing hope that TUMfest can become
a regular mid-winter event - a tradition, then, of its own.

Greg Osby and Andrew Cyrille

The New York-based duo of saxophonist Osby and percussionist
Cyrille set the evening's tone straight away. Their hour-long set
was a relaxed, unhurried dialogue growing out of intricate yet
swinging original compositions. Osby's contributions, such as
"Equalateralgram" and "Cyrille in Motion" came off as bebop
slowed down and articulated, so clarified and so slowed that
the idiom's usual blur of notes became visible. The pieces
exchanged frantic tempos for pulsing drum ostinatos and
dexterous bursts of dashing tones were separated by
unexpectedly long pauses. Such retarded time and heightened
focus made the music feel entirely composed, as if Osby were
coordinating his melodic clauses into mammoth sentences,
dense with syntax and rich in vocabulary - At times too dense
and a little too intellectual.

By contrast, Cyrille's compositions proved to be more down-to-
earth and crowd-pleasing, built as they were off terse cyclical
lines. The blues-inflected riff of "Low Blue Flame" worked as a
center of gravity for both players, as they would lock in on it, e
xtrapolate it, obscure it but never stray far from it. For the core
theme of his solo piece "Drum Song for Leadbelly", Cyrille beat
out on the snare rim a cocky, strutting martial drum line. Cyrille
juxtaposed this theme with periodic excursions to the different
parts of his drum set: the theme, then a crash of cymbals; the
theme, then pounding toms; the theme, then his stool; the
theme; then his chest.

When the pair finished they were gracious and forthright towards
the audience, qualities they expressed in their playing as well.
Their set did not challenge the ears, but it did stimulate an
alternate perspective on familiar forms, as well engage in a
personable manner. Most exemplary - and the most successful -
of this approach, was their reading of a lesser-known Thelonious
Monk piece, "Work". The pianist's puzzle piece melodies lent
themselves perfectly to Osby's maze-like extensions and Cyrille's
insistent brush patterns.

Han Bennik/Mikko Innanen/Jaak Sooäär

The evening's dignified air got its only ripples of disturbance from
this meeting of three outstanding improvisers. Ironically, it was the
wily veteran who wreaked the most havoc. Bennik, a lanky bald
Dutchman hulking over his stripped down drum kit, made every
moment of the performance a negotiation. He seemed to be
constantly asking himself permission, wondering all the time: Can
I do this? Can I use my foot to mute my snare? Can I bang out
some chords at the piano? Can I bring my snare out from behind
my kit and get real close and personal with Jaak and Mikko? What
if I drag this piano bench across the stage? How would it sound
if I hammer out a pulse on the stage floor to Monk's "Epistrophy?
The answer to all of these questions was, of course, an emphatic
YES.

Rather than compete with Bennik, his partners in crime followed
his lead, carefully chosing when and where to propose their own
directions. One never knew what sounds Sooäär would produce,
as he kept shuffling his tone. It chimed like a piano, brooded like
heavy organ bass, jangled like African hi-life, or simply screamed
in strangled yelps. Innanen navigated his way through Bennik's
mine-field by switching between alto, soprano and baritone
fluently, or sometimes blowing the former two simultaneously.

The trio's set flowed and convulsed, first acerbic and brash then
melodic and swinging, then probing and tense. They found their
way into two Monk compositions, and rather than dismantle the
composer's originals, the three heightened the humor inherent in
them to a manic and absurd pitch. Slight dissonances skirted but
never crossed the border of rude, jaunty rhythms were jerked
about but never entirely destroyed. In his drummer-cum-comedian
role, Bennik extended on Monk's own stage-wandering tendencies,
never sitting in the same place for more than few minutes.

Above all, the trio's set only highlighted the beauty and humor
and energy that can arise when each impulse in improvisation
remains equal, charged with the possibility of meaning, when
every note, every pause, every cough, every mistake can mean
everything - a whole new path - or nothing at all.

Archie Shepp Trio

The evening's final set brought one of free jazz's original insurgents
to the stage. Archie Shepp, though, now takes the role of elder
statesman, and if age has not mellowed him, it has certainly
brought new sensibilities. During his six-song set he switched
between tenor and saxophone sax, played the piano and crooned
two ballads. His tenor tone does not sear skin and burn out
eyeballs like it used to, but his soprano tone had body, shape
and a touch of urgency.

Blowing winding solos on his pieces and John Coltrane's "Crescent",
Shepp took the long way, in no hurry to arrive anywhere and always
enjoying the view. He left significant pauses and gave plenty of
space for his rhythm section to stretch out. Longtime Shepp
colleague Reggie Workman found a sturdy balance between the
bass's time-keeping role and its counter-pointing abilities, smoothly
navigating complex meters, solid swing and diffuse lyrical passages.

With Shepp in a more reflective mood, it fell to drummer Pheeroan
akLaff to play the firebrand. He moved all about his kit, punching
accents and generating reams of percussive energy, but he never
abdicated his role of support to the leader. AkLaff simmered just
below boiling, working only the spaces others left for him.

When the trio returned for their only encore, it was Shepp who
rightly took the spotlight. He did it though not with fiery politics
or bombastic solos, but with his voice. He delivered a slowly
unwinding love lyric, then followed it with a romantic, nostalgia-hued,
but not overly sentimental, tenor serenade. It was a fitting ending
to a night that was more about finding inspiration from the past
rather than innovations for the future.

© Matthew Wuethrich / Suomijazz.com

TUM Records

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