Mette Rasmussen Saxophone & Chris Corsano Percussion
The Long
Lonesome Go - Paul Taylor: Keyboards, Christian Alderson: Drums and Percussion,
Jason Etherington: Bass
Posset – Joe
Posset.
(Review by Steve H).
Jazz North
East’s ‘Women Making Music’ series was brought to a magnificent conclusion with this ninth
and final gig of the season. In the atmospheric surroundings of the Literary and Philosophical Society’s library the night swung from near disaster to absolute triumph. Rasmussen’s and Corsano’s lunchtime
flight from Brussels to Newcastle had been cancelled meaning the earliest that they would
arrive in Newcastle was 9:25 at night. However, rather than pull the gig, the JNE crew, at the drop of a hat or at
least at the end of a phone, managed to improvise a treble bill to more than satisfy the good sized audience.
First up was Joe
Posset who performed a short set of what could be described as improvised radio hammery. A
desk full of what appeared to be old style electronic devices (dictaphones, cassette players, strange boxes) were manipulated to produce a cacophony of
strange interactive sounds. If
you imagine 15 radios all playing
concurrently but all playing at different
frequencies you might get the picture.
Next up were
local trio The Long Lonesome Go who produced a very fine set of improvised music - swirling
keyboards, bass and percussion created a whirlpool of hypnotic and interesting
sounds which at times reminded me of
Miles Davis in his electronic period. Definitely a band I will be
looking out for in the future.
Amazingly, the
headliners' flight landed on
time and JNE’s own version of
Lewis Hamilton (Bill Bream) was despatched to chauffeur the duo to the Lit and Phil as
fast as speeding restrictions would allow him. Our Lewis may have to start
looking over his shoulder because at 10:15 the triumvirate of driver and
musicians had entered the building. Without time to hardly catch their
breath but with time for a quick wardrobe change and set up Rasmusssen and
Corsano began to play what was to be the most wonderful finale to the
Women Making Music concert series. Right from the
off the dynamic duo gave as good as they got putting
aside any tiredness and frustrations they must have been suffering from after their arduous journey. American Corsano produced fascinating sounds on percussion with
the aid of all sorts of implements from his tool
bag including a saw and an amazing homemade slide clarinet. If
there is a more enjoyable sax
player around at the moment than
Norwegian based Danish sax player Rasmussen then I would like to hear them. Her playing was creative ,exhilarating,
exciting, fascinating and yet
still sensitive. As a pairing the
duo really managed to exploit the special acoustics that the library provides. After playing for almost an hour, despite their horrendous day, they were still able to indulge the
audience with a much appreciated encore.
It seems fitting
at this point to thank Wes Stephenson, Paul Bream and the rest of Jazz North East for this marvellous initiative. Nine completely varied gigs showcasing the talent of contemporary female jazz performers in composition, arrangement and performance utilizing a vast range of instruments including the 3 T’s Trombone, Trumpet and my new favourite jazz
instrument the Theremin. The size of the audiences for these
gigs seems to a have been well above the average for this genre of music and I have seen many new
faces in attendance. Hopefully
everyone will have taken something from the experience and we can look forward to similar inspiring projects in the
not too distant future.
Steve H.
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