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October 2007
gig reviews

Outhouse
Christine Tobin
Francois Theberge/Hans Koller Quartet
Mark Feldman Group
Mike Chillingworth Quartet
Andrea Vicari
Georgia Mancio
Lucien Dubois Crossover Trio
Centre Line
Mike Gibbs 70th birthday concert
Mike Gibbs 70th birthday concert

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October 2007 gig reviews by Chris Parker

Mike Gibbs 70th Birthday concert

Friday 19 October at The Cadogan Hall, Chelsea

As composer/arranger Frank Griffith pointed out in his programme notes, Mike Gibbs has been blithely ignoring what others regard as musical boundaries all his life.

Consequently, his music uncontrivedly incorporates (rather than, as seems to be the new millennium's way, archly borrowing from) everything from funk, rock, soul, township music, Messiaen and Gil Evans to Ellington and Miles Davis.

The extraordinary thing about his compositions and arrangements, though, is their utter individuality: as the irresistibly uplifting climax to this 70th birthday concert (at the Cadogan Hall, Chelsea) – a shrieking, crunching but joyous repeated orchestral chord – proved, a single moment of Gibbs's music is instantly identifiable as his.

Perhaps the quickest route to an appreciation of Gibbs for those unfamiliar with his musical world is via his late-1980s (Virgin Venture, rereleased on ACT) album Big Music, a delicious confection of jazzy, funky, life-affirming music involving two of this concert's crucial presences, guitarist Bill Frisell and alto player Chris Hunter, but even without playing anything from that album, the sixteen-piece band on this, the penultimate gig of a five-date UK tour, managed to distil the quintessential Gibbs: extraordinary power subtly wielded.

Apparently meandering, wispy themes coalesce almost imperceptibly into fierce, shouting climaxes; complex rhythms are juxtaposed with such skill that they sound almost organically melded; utterly distinctive harmonies emerge with complete naturalness.

Perhaps the best description of Gibbs's unique talent, however, is the late, lamented Richard Cook's characteristically pithy summing up: '[Gibbs makes] complex and daring ideas seem natural and inevitable. He [can] move from sun-kissed delight to moonstruck melancholy in a moment.' Exhilarating, rich, complex but immediately accessible music exuberantly but impeccably played: few concerts offer such unalloyed delights.

 

 

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