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| © Russell |
Another new venue for me and easily found despite the sat nav suggesting a sneaky flit past a couple of No Entry signs. In honour of McCaslin’s contributions to David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, I’m wearing my Paul Smith designer ‘Blackstar’ T-shirt. And my Paul Smith designer uncs. And my Paul Smith designer socks with the signature stripe. Your correspondent is one groovy mummy kisser. When I get there at least three others are wearing the same T-shirt. It’s like the time I went to a garden party at Buckingham Palace and there was another bloke wearing the same crown.
Of course the big question is, why McCaslin is here at all? North Shields is an unlikely stopover on a two date UK tour that had him at some place in Soho last night and nowhere else in the country. Is someone in Shields holding incriminating footage of Donny dancing to the Birdy Song like he loves it? In any case, it’s good to see and I suspect that the Bowie connection has brought a lot of people in, though how long they’ll stay for is another matter (about a quarter would leave during the gig).
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| © Dave S |
The second piece is more subdued, pastoral, though
with an edge as if it’s post-industrial rather than natural. McCaslin blows
long lines before an aural explosion that has the sax straining for the highest
notes. A brief melancholy passage is undermined by a threatening bass line that
presages more fury. Prog keyboards underpinned by fractured drumming settles
into a heavy metal groove before McCaslin takes us back into the blues, playing
circular repeated motifs punctured by more furious squalls of briefer notes.
The third piece is
dedicated to Kamala Harris to a cheer from the crowd. A soulful blues opens
with a free flowing bass solo and a gentle wash from the keys. The tone is of
hope and optimism, with an underlying hint of desperation. Mallet work from
Danziger and some deep bombs support a sax solo of loooong notes. Behind the
band the screen shows towering, vertigo-inducing psychedelic flowers.
Item 4 on the agenda
opens with a tsunami of overwhelming noise which, along with the brightness of
the colours of the backdrop overwhelms all the senses in a way I haven’t
experienced since I saw Primal Scream years ago. Four square rock and roll is
funked up by McCaslin’s sax solo, punching and probing and soaring to the
highest notes. It’s jazz punk that owes more to the likes of Television and the
Velvet Underground than anything with jazz roots. A keyboard and drums duet
suggests what Yes would sound like with Rat Scabies as their drummer. McCaslin
injects some bluesy melancholy but at a very high volume.
Kid (?) opens with a concrete heavy reggae lilt with thumping drums; McCaslin unleashes an aggressive, stabbing solo. Sax as a form of attack. Everything is turned up louder than everything else. It’s claustrophobic with no air for the music to breathe as the keyboards fill every available space.
Eyes Down opens with a
drum solo that develops into a boots on the ground metronomic stomp, a driving
bulldozing beat that an insidious sax line creeps up proffering more
desperate wailing and sonic swirls like a trapped animal. Brief flurries of
shorter notes punctuate the longer bellows rising in force and desperation with
each pass. It’s all force and energy but there is mighty skill on display here
realised as the drums drop out and suddenly there is space and some relief; the
audacity in the perfect timing as they crash back in.
They close with Lazarus from Bowie’s Blackstar album, on which three of those
on stage appeared. A sprung bass line is driven by blockwork drumming; a
delicate swirling sax solo is a gentle ballet as the keys add colour and
lightness of tone. McCaslin blows long lines as the noise builds up behind him;
he digs and digs in his solo then screams into the upper reaches. Everything
breaks down through an apocalyptic storm to the close.
There’s a lot to unpack at a Donny McCaslin gig. At times it suggested a vision of the future of jazz and at others it reminded me of Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland and the rest of the F-IRE Collective who were also the future once. There’s more rock in there than there is at a usual jazz gig and what is there leans more to heavy metal and punk than to prog. Groups such as Television, the Velvet Underground and Joy Division are all in the mix but these are young guys and that may have well been their scene growing up. It is forceful and unignorable but, clearly, not for everyone. Dave Sayer
1 comment :
A night that illustrated how upside down the world has become since Bowie was ever-present in the pop charts and on Top of the Pops. Then he was a popstar in fancy dress and his fans were nerds and teenyboppers; now he was a rock/and roll innovator and rebel who fought the cause for androgyny and his fans are 'cool' (or at least those who were cool at the time are now nerds as well). This wouldn't trouble me so much if they hadn't brought their children up with the automatic, taken for granted certainty that the greatest music ever made (besides Mozart and Beethoven) was by white boy bands with guitars who recorded and took drugs (and made enormous bags of cash) in the sixties and seventies and the artists who made jazz, blues, soul, reggae etc etc (all now sub-genres of pop music) were not as great because they didn't make enormous bags of cash (and not because they were the wrong colour and weren't constantly spread all over the media).
In the spirit of an upside down world, I'd have rather seen the support act go on last so I could have watched all of Donny McCaslim without worrying about the significant journey home to relieve the cross-legged dogs.
Since my Best Man is the ultimate Bowie Worshipper, I'd heard it all before and found the popstar hysterics somewhat pathetic, for which I don't blame the artist at all. However, when he claimed the stripped down versions of Bowie songs served to illustrate how good they were, I couldn't help thinking how forgettable they were without the gimmicks, novelties, costumes and haircuts. before you add tsomewhat revolting
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