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Bebop Spoken There

Steve Coleman: ''If you don't keep learning, your mind slows down. Use it or lose it''. (DownBeat, January 2025).

The Things They Say!

This is a good opportunity to say thanks to BSH for their support of the jazz scene in the North East (and beyond) - it's no exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for them many, many fine musicians, bands and projects across a huge cross section of jazz wouldn't be getting reviewed at all, because we're in the "desolate"(!) North. (M & SSBB on F/book 23/12/24)

Postage

17719 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 39 of them this year alone and, so far, 39 this month (Jan. 15).

From This Moment On ...

January 2025

Sun 19: Glenn Miller Orchestra UK @ Glasshouse, Gateshead. 3:00pm. ‘Glenn Miller & the Rat Pack Era’.
Sun 19: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 19: Spilt Milk @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 5:15-7:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Sun 19: Tenement Jazz Band @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 19: Nick Ross Orchestra @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 7:30pm.
Sun 19: Freight Train (Tobin/Noble/Clarvis) @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 19: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 20: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 21: ???

Wed 22: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 22: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 22: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 22: Pasadena Roof Orchestra @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.

Thu 23: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free. Fortnightly.
Thu 23: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Obituaries 2024.
Thu 23: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:30-6:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Thu 23: Pedal Point Trio @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Fri 24: Zoë Gilby Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm.
Fri 24: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 24: Creakin’ Bones & the Sunday Dinners @ Lindisfarne Social Club, Wallsend. 9:00pm. Admission: TBC. Jazz, blues , jump jive, rock ‘n’ roll.

Sat 25: Boys of Brass @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 25: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 25: Jack & Jay’s Songbook @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Reviewers wanted

Whilst BSH attempts to cover as many gigs, festivals and albums as possible, to make the site even more comprehensive we need more 'boots on the ground' to cover the albums seeking review - a large percentage of which never get heard - report on gigs or just to air your views on anything jazz related. Interested? then please get in touch. Contact details are on the blog. Look forward to hearing from you. Lance

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Album review: Tigran Hamasyan - The Call Within

Tigran Hamasyan (piano/keys/vocal); Evan Marien (bass); Arthur Hnatek (drums) 

The eagerly awaited fourth album on Nonesuch records from the 33-year old Armenian piano messiah Tigran, appearing here with a trio as for Mockroot  (2015), rather than solo as for his other Nonesuch albums For Gyumri (2018) and An Ancient Observer (2017), and on his date at Sage Two last year    

Tigran’s music is as genre-defying as you could ask for, and while he has a distinct voice and is instantly recognisable, many readers here will instantly recognise it as “other” than their familiar blues/bebop jazz tradition – indeed Tigran himself refers to it as “electro-acoustic Armenian rock”!  However, mainstream jazz luminaries are falling over themselves to laud his genius and fearless forging of his won distinct path. When Herbie Hancock says, “Now, Tigran, you are my teacher” that’s good enough for me to give him a serious listen 

Tigran evokes fanatical responses from a highly knowledgeable following, which is not unique in jazz circles but seems now to be at an apex of technical expertise and understanding, as well as level of devotion.

An example is the video of Arthur Hnatek playing the drum part at the recording of the track New Maps released on YouTube (ase date) which received 11,000 views (in a month).  Transcriptions of the piano, bass and drum parts were posted on YouTube within days, and with similarly high views. Transcriptions are time consuming at the best of times, but for music of this complexity, and with note by note video reveal, these are works of art stemming from dedication beyond any human reason.  For what it’s worth, the piece is analysed as either alternating bars of 9/8 and 11/8, or as 20/16. The in-house drummer tells me to think of it as “almost like 4/4 but with every 'crotchet' made up of 5 beats rather than 4 semi quavers”.  

While Tigran’s complex rhythmic patterns and unfamiliar time signatures, with their origin in Armenian folk and dance music with a splash of prog-metal, provoke glee and fascination with young “Time Lords”, there is, thankfully, far more to his music than mind-bending technical virtuosity and precision.  Tigran seems to operate on a spiritual plane transcending the usual physical limits of instruments (think Mahavishnu or late Coltrane) - in his words “where the moment of the unconscious creation is the way to feel conscious”.

His inspirations are drawn widely here from maps poetry, Christian and pre-Christian Armenian folk stories and legends, and beyond! 

This is all very well – but what do the ten new compositions here sound like?   There is a sustained intensity and emotion well beyond even Tigran’s norm, so this is no casual, dinner party jazz album.  Once any attempt to count through the bars is abandoned, the pulse of the music drives and surges in an engaging (although never, to me, truly comfortable) groove, e.g. the opener 21 Levitation drives along in rhythmic groups of 21 (!) The repetitive intensity and rhythmic programmed precision of dissonant chords is darkbut never angry, as much modern “prog” and “metal” sounds to my earsUnderneath the harsh trappings, there beats the heart of piano trio, and ethereal melodies transcend the Sturm und Drangoften achieving peacefuleven joyous, catharsis after the turmoil.  

For every section of high tempo repetitive grooving set up by block chord piano, with doubling on bass, there are relaxed interludes of lyrical piano and synth on Space of Your Existenceand even whistling on Our Filmaugmented by vocals and cello 

The Dream Voyager and Old Maps evoke more of Tigran’s alter egoless frenetic and with sustained legato allowing the haunting melodies to break through.   The high energy returns for a prog-metal track, Vortex, driven harder by guest Tosin Abasi on 8 string electric guitar.  

37 Newlyweds is the most relaxed track, with eastern chanting intoning ominously over chiming piano chords.  

New Maps closes out the album in some style, and even has an art house video to match. After a while the fluctuating and cyclical beat is hypnotically relaxing  - sit back and say goodbye to 4:4! 

Overall a stunning new statement by Tigran and his remarkable band, who give as good as they get,  further charting hiunique path - not entirely removed from the mainstream tradition but sitting across other folk, classical and rock in spiritual and technical communion. Not for the fainthearted or those wedded to the familiar perhaps, but as an initial sceptic, I’d recommend investing in some  listening, as the rewards are deep and intense.  
Chris K 

Release date August 28. Preview and pre-order

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