The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 8JH | Bookings 020 7254 4097 | Enquiries 020 7993 3643 | Email Info at Vortex

November 2006
gig reviews

Oren Marshall - Charming Transport Band
John Law Trio
Andy Sheppard - 200 Saxophones - the opening of Gillett Square
Convergence Quartet
Robert Mitchell and Omar Puente
Ian Shaw
Mike Westbrook Village Band Project
Christine Tobin
Billy Jenkins
Huw Warren and Peter Herbert, Led Bib
Anker, Craig, Cleaver & Curios
Nikki Yeoh
Dog Soup
Sex Mob
Taeko Kunishima

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November 2006 gig reviews by Chris Parker

Anker, Taborn, Cleaver

Curios

Tuesday 14

Curios

A double bill on Tuesday 14 saw proceedings opened by Curios, a trio consisting of pianist Tom Cawley, bassist Sam Burgess and drummer Josh Blackmore.

They specialise in slow-building, even hypnotic pieces that culminate in clattering three-way improvisation centred on Cawley's percussive piano but drawing much of its polyrhythmic appeal from the restless, probing drumming of Blackmore, who has Paul Motian's gift for firmly propelling a band through the slowest and subtlest of tempos via carefully controlled eruptions of sound, some of them produced not with sticks, but with his hands.

Which leads on naturally to Gerald Cleaver, a drummer in an idiom freer than Curios', who also proved himself adept at manual embellishment, resorting to sticks only at climactic moments.

Lotte Anker, Craig Taborn and Gerald Cleaver

The music produced by the stellar trio was freely improvised, but for the most part eschewed the eruptions of volcanic energy frequently characterising such fare, preferring to build itself up slowly from Anker's little saxophone motifs or Taborn's delicate pianistic figures.

A particularly effective feature of the band's sound came from Anker's proclivity for holding ringing high notes, but their overall approach was more subtly interactive than that of, say, Tim Berne or even Herb Robertson's Downtown Allstars, gently lyrical where many free bands are fiercely declamatory. An intriguing evening's music.

 

 

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