Cheltenham Jazz Festival: Yazz Ahmed @ The Parabola Arts Centre, Cheltenham - May 3

Yazz Ahmed (trumpet, flugelhorn); Ralph Wylde (keys, vibes, marimba); Elizabeth Knott (percussion); Berlinde Deman (serpent) (Yes, you read that right, it does say serpent)

The Cheltenham Festival has previous for commissioning works and, for this one at the Arts Centre, Yazz Ahmed, Anglo/Bahraini trumpeter, has recruited an unusual instrumental line-up. She has revisited some of her previous work and remodelled and ‘remixed’ those pieces for this new group, so, whilst the music may not be new, the treatment of it certainly is.

They open with Wah-Wah Sowahwah with the deep voice of the cello on the original album track being taken by the serpent. Deman’s playing seems to require her to play short passages before she manipulates her serpent’s sound using one of the array of pedals, switches and knobs arranged on the floor in front of her. 

Whilst I pondered the question of what is ‘real’ and what effects, Wylde is and Knott got on with the business of establishing a fragile and hollow groove over which Ahmed layered on a soaring trumpet line. Deman’s serpent filled out the sound with its low, bassy harrumphing. The marimba becomes the most prominent voice, the percussion is minimalist with Knott flicking a cymbal on a tambourine or scraping a finger across its skin. La Saboteuse starts with a flicked switch and rumbling waves. Ahmed’s flugelhorn is haunting, echoed and reverbed, the vibes bowed not struck. Ahmed has a beautiful tone on the horn and slowly draws in Arabic scales in a sweeping movement. The vibes ring out over a persistent drum sample; all very spare and delicate.

Io opens with a 70s synth riff, like something from Tomorrow’s World. It’s a driving groove and there is actual drama in the vibes playing with serpent and hand drum playing together over the electronic rhythm; even the vibes sound futuristic; the serpent is manipulated so that it growls and growls. Wylde sets up a bass line on the synth and plays around it with the chimes of his vibes, the notes swirling and spinning out with Ahmed’s trumpet piercing over the top with more reverb and echo.

tA delicate, dream-like wash opens Though my Eyes go To Sleep, My Heart Does Not Forget You. An insistent marimba and a bass pulse from the serpent behind the Arabic call of the trumpet blend perfectly, all the voices parts of a greater picture. The Lost Pearl is described as a lament for the current events in the Gulf. The trumpet wails over a drone, and stately, mournful vibes; it’s Arabic, but it’s also the blues. As the drone falls away the serpent takes over bass duties. Ahmed’s trumpet wails and growls and is treated to swirl around. Knott adds some urgency in her beatbox drumming. For Spindrifting the serpent takes on the rhythmic framework and the flugel sounds out clear over the top, with delicate vibes providing an answering call, ethereal, rolling out in waves. The marimba is more controlled and hollow than the vibes. I’m fascinated by Deman’s right foot and that red F/X pedal, trying to work out cause and effect as she plays it.

Ahmed explains that the ‘She’ in She Stands on the Shore is a Goddess mentioned in the epic of Gilgamesh. It opens with an ominous rumble and a call from the serpent; it’s a deep, hollow ghostly sound, electronically manipulated it is quite ferocious. Ahmed blows a plaintiff, hypnotic flugelhorn line as Wylde sets up a wooden rhythm on his synth which contrasts with the rounded hollow chimes of the vibes and the magisterial bass tone of the serpent and Ahmed’s flugel weaves and dances over all as the music fades.

It’s not jazz as we know it and its roots lie far from New Orleans; it just is what it is. There is a subtle dynamic that draws you in, its fragility anticipating both collapse and expansion. Ahmed’s horn is the nearest voice we have to a familiar foothold but even that is a long way from the mainstream. It’s a quieter way of being out on the edge. Dave Sayer