Faye MacCalman (tenor sax, clarinet), John Pope
(bass).
(Review/photo
courtesy of Steve T).
Of all the Jazz Cafés in all the world, I wonder how many featured a
double bass, sometimes bowed, and a tenor sax, sometimes a clarinet, playing
Blakey, Shorter, Ornette Coleman Hawkins - see what I did there?
MacCalman, Monk, Roland Kirk, Sonny Rollins and Sun Ra - see what I did
there? - on Friday. And by a lady in her early/mid-twenties and a
'slightly' older male. This is why Jazz is so unique.
We expected more pedals than the Tour de France, more loops than a
primary school playground and more freefall than a Bridge too far. What we
got was certainly edgy, but in a very different way. Only Jazz can defy
expectations in this way.
I'd wondered how it would work out, without percussion, a keyboard or
even a guitar, but half way through the opener, Moanin, I knew
it was going to be just fine.
Faye is a raspy, breathy player with a classic tenor sound all the way
from Pres and Webster, through Dexter and Sonny to Trane and Wayne, a
mischievous hint of Ornette and Roland lingering never far beneath the surface.
Pope is one of the very best and most exploratory bass players
around, whether acoustic or electric, though he stayed upright here, some
subtle slapping giving a bit of percussive affect.
JuJu, Body and Soul, Ornette and Archipelago reflecting some
of their other shared ventures. Monks Dream, Roland Kirk and
Sun Ra, fairly 'out there' in their own right but here used
as springboards, sometimes barely recognisable, for their own
improvisations and innovations. Always on that tightrope, that knife edge
between success and failure, the site of much great art, and if at times they
seemed to flounder - what the long suffering/eternally skint Mrs T calls
Jazz - one or other was never far away with a means of
resolution.
They shared the announcements conversationally, Faye personable and
human and expect her to grow into this role as she increasingly becomes a
regular fixture at the Caff and beyond, Pope the seasoned pro and mentor.
At one point half way through set two, it felt like Trane and Garrison
during that vital moment between relatively straight Jazz and the warp
factor launch into hyperspace, and I can give no higher praise than that.
With big names at the O2 Arena and City Hall, and hundreds passing after
something up the road at Sid James' Park, the faithful sat silently around the
duo with comers and goers noisy around the corner, but not to the point of
distraction. A highly enjoyable evening and I'm now very much looking
forward to something very different from them round the corner at the Swan on
30th May.
Steve T.
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