Mark
Kavuma (trumpet); Mussinghi Brian Edwards (tenor sax); Theo Erskine (alto sax);
Artie Zaitz (guitar); Renato Parris (piano, vocals); Lorenzo Morabito
(bass); Jack Thomas (drums)
The Parabola Arts Centre
was, we were told by Compere, Alex Carr, where we would come to for the real jazz
at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this year. And to a great extent, she was right
and our feet would take is there repeatedly over the weekend. Recent JazzFM
Instrumentalist of the year, Mark Kavuma, was our opening act for the festival
weekend and it looked like a full house was here to welcome him.
Opener, The Stand In, was a good introduction to his style. A Blue Note sounding tenor, alto and trumpet line wrapped itself around fluid guitar runs before Kavuma’s preaching trumpet sets off on a blazing run; a fully rounded tenor solo hands off to piano and then the baton is passed to Zaitz’s guitar for a solo that raises memories of Robbie Robertson or Eric Clapton.
The third piece is a
stately Mingus-esque, Porky Pie type
blues opening with a melancholy song of loss and resignation from the bass.
Kavuma blows cascades of notes that dance among the stars. He has the attack of
those Blue Note stars of yore such as Hubbard and Dorham. The tenor solo is the
most human, warm and welcoming sound you’ll hear this year. Tube is easy rolling summer vibes that
you could imagine someone like Gladys Knight wrapping a vocal line round; an
alto solo climbs up, dancing through the scales; wordless voices lead the rise
in heat and volume before the guitar takes off. It feels like a moment of
perfection when the brass and reeds come back in.
It all kicks off again
for Opus 4 with a series of frantic
tumbling solos and thundering drums. A stabbing, piercing solo from Kavuma over
bomb dropping drums leads into a scrappling guitar solo before the drummer gets
another go! The Songbird, a lush
romantic ballad, that rises and falls in a series of waves, opens with a storm of cymbals and a tenor wail that falls away,
Kavuma orchestrating it all. We close with a high energy Latin rampage with
sparkling alto and a flurry of notes from the punchy trumpet; the bass
hammering away at the back.
This is a good night out band; strange to hear them at 6:30pm on a Friday, but it was a good appetiser for the Festival, and, as the compere said, it was real jazz. Dave Sayer
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