Various venues, Islay, 12-14 September 2008

Jimmy Greene (Pablo Secca)

SOME MUSIC festivals are remembered for their settings, some for the weather, and the best ones for their content and a particular star performer. The 10th Black Bottle Islay Jazz Festival is likely to be looked back on with affection for all of these components.

The festival already has one of the most beautiful locations – looking out over Loch Indaal from the island’s newest venue, Port Mor, during the opening concert, it wasn’t unreasonable to feel that trumpeter Colin Steele and pianist David Milligan’s fine duo set was a bonus accompaniment.

Islay’s weekend as Scottish jazz’s HQ has also been looked upon reasonably kindly over years by the meteorological powers, although the brilliant sunshine that greeted the audience for bassist Mario Caribe’s celebration of his tenth consecutive festival appearance rather sabotaged the Brazilian’s otherwise atmospheric nonet, ‘Mists of Bunnahabhain’.

The most popular thread of conversation in the weekend’s immediate aftermath, however, focused on the Islay debut of Swedish pianist Jacob Karlzon. Karlzon, who has appeared in Scotland before with singer Viktoria Tolstoy, played three concerts over the weekend, at least two of which were sensational. I missed his quintet gig but his opening night duo with saxophonist Tommy Smith was a classic. The pair had never worked together before but that possibly added to the white heat of the music they created.

Karlzon has an attack reminiscent of McCoy Tyner in his early 1970s Milestone Records period. For all his thundering intensity and percussive torrents, though, there’s a deeply melodic flow of ideas at work in his playing and an emotional quality that puts the lie to Scandinavians’ supposedly cool approach.

With Smith, playing here at his most concise, lyrical and penetrating, he created music that danced deliberately, drew on gospel resources, veered into an orchestral dynamic range and yet remained conversational in the intimate surroundings of Ionad Chalium Chillie Ile.

Back in the same venue for a Sunday afternoon trio gig with bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer Stu Ritchie, Karlzon – if anything – trumped his previous contribution. Standards such as Miles Davis’s ‘Solar’ and Dave Brubeck’s ‘In Your Own Sweet Way’ were completely de-standardised, with Karlzon finding myriad subtle voicings, chord substitutions and variations on the original melodies as well as somehow managing to pack in a fantastic amount of hard-hammered detail without his solos ever sounding remotely cluttered.

Karlzon’s a terrific composer, too, and as was perhaps inevitable, given the shock that still surrounds his fellow Swede’s premature passing, he paid tribute to Esbjörn Svensson, capturing the lively spirit, rhythmical daring and winsome invention of Svensson’s trio. But it was his encore, a drop dead gorgeous reading of ‘Body & Soul’, so emotional that more than one audience member was spotted wiping away tears, that may prove to be his passport to deserved hero status across the wider Scottish jazz scene.

Another Islay debutant, Connecticut-born tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene, also made a big impression. Fronting an opening night quintet with the ever-creative trumpeter Ryan Quigley in the ultra conducive Bruichladdich Hall, Green exuded a calm, genial authority, displaying a muscular tone and coolly logical solo building and presenting original compositions that registered instantly with the listener.

Saturday’s first-time visitors had slightly more mixed fortunes. In their own set, New York’s splendid Rosetta Trio brought both urban hustle and a sense of travelling towards far, big-skied horizons reminiscent of Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell as Liberty Ellman and Jamie Fox’s nimbly contrasting guitar styles interlocked with bassist and composer Stephan Crump’s rugged presence.

They proved equally adept accompanists to Crump’s partner, Jen Chapin, creating arrangements that consistently provided tense, attractive atmosphere behind her singing. Chapin’s rather coldly theatrical style of original street poetry didn’t always convince, though, and she was better when putting her own slant on songs by Radiohead, Van Morrison and particularly Stevie Wonder, whose ‘You Haven’t Done Nothin” proved as topical in this US election year as in its original guise.

Islay’s overall strength as a festival continues to lie in the island’s beauty and ambience and the relaxed, easy-going atmosphere that’s created, not without, it has to be said, some help from the sponsors and venues’, as it were, generosity of spirit.

It’s quite simply a great place to hear jazz, be it the aforementioned Steele and Milligan soulfully lamenting the passing of Miles Davis then turning a “contaminated strathspey” into something somewhere between Scottish ragtime and a Buster Keaton movie soundtrack, or guitarist Kevin Mackenzie leading a quartet that slips from samba to hip-hop with natural ease and a high level feelgood factor. And judging from the different accents and tongues audible amongst the audience, its reputation as a jazz venue is an increasingly international one.

© Rob Adams, 2008

Links

• Islay Jazz Festival
• Rob Adams