(Review by Steve T).
It takes at least two major attractions to get me to Cheltenham; Chick Corea
speaks for itself and I'm currently really into this lady and was looking
forward to a Gloucestershire hotpot of funk, rock, hip-hop, soul and Jazz.
But after a four hour drive, a lost phone and a twenty minute
sound-check which left us in the rain and saw the fifteen minute transfer time
for Chick Corea disappear, the sense of it all was coming into question.
When she arrived she was more unassuming than I'd expected, looking like
Joan Armatrading and talking like Toni Morrison. A song based on a poem she
really likes called Continuous Performance, Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne and Don't let
me be Misunderstood and I was starting to feel misunderstood.
Then came the warning, it was going to get loud and brash - thank
goodness for that - with some C21st American Music. Ironic at a festival which
stretches any definition of Jazz beyond any recognition at all, and from an
artist whose music is likely to become increasingly thought of as Jazz.
Some rapping, some echo, some risqué lyrics and the lady pumping away at
her bass, lots of reverb and heavy riffs on the guitar, rock solid drumming and
some Eno style weird and exotic sounds from the keyboard setup, evocative of
early Roxy Music, incidentally featuring another of wuh great Geordie drummers
dipped in the Tyne by his mam while still a bairn.
It was on a steep curve but many of us left to take our seats for Chick
Corea.
Steve T.
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