GIJF - Arun Ghosh Sextet - Sage Gateshead April 15

Arun Ghosh (clt); Chris Williams (alt); John Ellis (pno); Liran Donin (bs); Dave Walsh (dms); Sarathy Korwar (tabla).

(Review by Lance).

The opening day of Gateshead International Jazz Festival promised much and delivered more!

Ghosh is one of the jazz extroverts - his version of Indo-Jazz is far removed from the Joe Harriott/John Mayer Indo-Jazz Fusions band of the 1960s yet just as relevant in today's terms.

They have fun, the two horns blend. They blow solos that become duets. Call and response passages that are complementary rather than competitive. As a guy I spoke to in the pub said to me later, "You couldn't add another instrument, not even a guitar." He was right, I doubt if even a sitar could sit in.

Ghosh, the barefoot clarinetta, can sound like just about anyone. Swaying, sinuously moving, both snake and snake charmer, he alternated between pure classical and earthy New Orleans (or should that be New Delhi?) proving that the old gobstick is still one of the most versatile horns around... Williams is the perfect foil - without a sheet of MS between them they read each other's mind. Clever Fakirs!

Ellis was superb, whether sensitively exploring Mountain Summit or making Mister Steinway turn in his grave on the Vindaloo numbers, he was on the rupees. We had to wait till the end for Donin to workout although he'd limbered up throughout the gig (104 mins without intermission) providing solid support.

Walsh and Korwar mixed jazz and rock with the exotic rhythms of the east - at times, when the frontline men were blowing, the result had an almost Celtic feel.
That Sage Two was near 3 tiers full came as no surprise - Ghosh is an entertainer as well as an ace jazz clarinettist. 

Earlier, Ghosh, who'd been working with the children of Roman Rd., Primary School, Gateshead for the past few days, said, referring to the children's set on the Concourse, "Them kids blew me off the stage!"

An exaggeration, perhaps! On tonight's performance, I doubt if anyone could have blown him, or the sextet, off the stage. Still it was good of him to say this and he wasn't being patronising.
Today, at 11am he works with even younger children in "Jazz for Toddlers".
Lance.