(Review by Steve T)
My love affair with
Malta began when I read Tom Holland's Fortress Malta about its role in the
Second World War. Shortly before the end of the war, Churchill arrived on Malta
to award the island the George Cross. As someone who knows a thing or two about
punching above my weight, even compared to Britain, Malta during the war was
like Little Dave taking on a veritable army of Goliaths.
So it is with the
Jazz Festival, which stepped up a whole bunch of gears on the Thursday night,
with a series of free concerts.
The evening began
in front of two cafés with the entrance to a food hall between them. After an
early trip to check it out, we managed to book a prime spot in one of the cafés
and by the time we returned, rows of seats had been laid out in front of the
stage. On stage, happening German drummer Jochen
Rueckert with an all-star band, featuring one of the big names in the
current guitar renaissance; Mike Moreno
no less. Also Chris Cheek, listed as
tenor sax, but who actually played more soprano, and bass player Matt Penman.
Liam Gallagher was
playing a free concert on the island that night, and when Rueckert thanked
everybody for choosing him instead of Liam, I was surprised and a little
perturbed at how few people laughed.
The prevalence of soprano
was a total breath of fresh air and this was a sax/guitar front-line rather
than guitar taking the role of piano in the rhythm section, Moreno threw in
plenty of new-fangled New York chords and flight of finger soloing. Rueckert
also plays with Lage Lund so he
clearly knows his leading modern jazz guitarists. His own playing was busy but
understated and highly effective, only taking one short solo during the final
piece.
I wondered if life
could get any better than this just as the café delivered the wrong meal to our table!
Next up was Cuban
bandleader Joel Hierrezuelo, just
round the corner in front of the Law Courts. We'd heard a bit of the sound-check
which had made me far more excited by it than hitherto. Malta seems to have an
affinity with the heavy percussion of South American and Cuban music and I had
no doubt that drummer Lukmil Perez
would do the work of three wo/men.
Hierrezuelo sings
and plays guitar, though the bulk of the soloing fell to a bandmate playing
acoustic, and mighty impressively too.
The final set of
the evening was just down the road in the Pjazza Teatru Rjal, a large theatre
visible from the location of the afternoon gigs, though you'd never realise
it's there. The previous night it had featured the BBC Concert Orchestra.
I'm not sure how
much of this we missed but it seemed quite short, which was probably enough for
me. The Big Band were hot, but guest singer Joe Cutajar was subsequently described to me as a pub singer, which
I thought unfair though, complete with trilby, it was a little corny.
Nevertheless, classic Sinatra is always welcome and we got Fly me to the Moon and You
Make me Feel so Young, some Nat King Cole while, in another stroke of luck,
we missed the promised Michael Bublé. However, it was probably at its best with
the singer watching from the sidelines.
I'm not sure how
much of this we missed but it seemed quite short, which was probably enough for
me. The Big Band were hot, but guest singer Joe Cutajar was subsequently described to me as a pub singer, which
I thought unfair though, complete with trilby, it was a little corny.
Nevertheless, classic Sinatra is always welcome and we got Fly me to the Moon and You
Make me Feel so Young, some Nat King Cole while, in another stroke of luck,
we missed the promised Michael Bublé. However, it was probably at its best with
the singer watching from the sidelines.
It all finished
nicely in time to catch the last ferry across the harbour - one of the best
natural harbours in the world and littered with history - to Sliema and our
hotel.
Steve T
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