Location: Cerkno / Star plac / Slovenia
Date: Saturday, 05/18/2019
The third day of the Jazz Cerkno 2019 festival brought what over Cerkno? Rain. For the April-May weather of 2019, that has become as everyday as breathing oxygen. A constant. The first two days of the festival were at least kind enough to stay cloudy without getting wet, but day three was weighed down by downpours again. Luckily, the kind that put up with the odd break. Already in the afternoon, cellist and double bassist Daniel Levin played at the Glasbena šola (music school), and the whole thing must have been very interesting, especially for fans of unconventional playing on that instrument, the kind that knows no “classical compositional compass” and doesn’t acknowledge one. We skipped the avant-improv hangout with Levin, but the concert must surely have appealed to Slovenian double bassist Jošt Drašler too, if he happened to find himself at Levin’s gig.
Meanwhile, our little RockLine crew was sharpening its teeth for the main program of day three. So at half past seven in the evening, Fish Wool took the stage. A Brazilian, a Portuguese woman and a Spaniard. Yedo Gibson (soprano and tenor saxophone), Susana Santos Silva (trumpet) and Vasco Trilla (percussion). This is a new formation of seasoned musicians, who premiered their studio debut »Fish Wool« right here in Cerkno. It was definitely a kind of live sensation. What can a single interplay of two wind instruments achieve? Unbelievable. Experimental adventurism with no parallels you could name, and incredible complementarity. A heap of sonic structures, or let’s say sonic nuances, tonal palettes that are totally unusual, which is hardly surprising. That very unusualness and provocation is exactly what we came to Cerkno for. To be shaken and shocked. True, you can occasionally pick out scraps of world music, of traditional Brazilian forró, even figures from classical music, but the bulk of the compositions is aimed at completely weightless, free-spirited exploration of musical horizons hiding “between,” “above” and “below” the notes, and in which the trio’s delicate musical fabric floats. At shows like this it pays to shut your eyes, switch off the picture and eliminate the visual stimulus that “disturbs” other processes of perception. That way the other senses sharpen, even the cerebral cortex works differently, and other sensations take over. The perception of music becomes different, and completely different impressions surface, the ones left behind by musical magic. Truly a trio of total avant-garde disconnection, tightly knit and polished on the wings of the core impulses of complete adventurous unusualness.
The next act brought more musically tangible substance to the stage. The Necks, an Australian trio made up of Chris Abrahams (piano), Lloyd Swanton (double bass) and Tony Buck (drums), are today considered great legends of experimental jazz, who, unlike the other acts on this year’s Jazz Cerkno festival lineup, take steps in their musical vision toward minimizing both sonic and compositional structures. Yes. Put plainly, The Necks, who also brought their new studio album »Body« (2018) to Cerkno, can be very interesting even to those of you into the post rock tag, and, if I may provoke by hopping across genres even further, even to the quirky minimalists Swans. In short. The Necks do dwell in jazz, but they always walk onto the concert stage with no plan at all, anchor themselves on a single motif and develop an entire composition on it and around it, which, logically enough, can of course be very long. An hour or more. And such was their concert in Cerkno. Absolute hypnosis. It’s certainly fascinating how just three guys create such a mighty sound. So full, exaltedly solemn and mighty. With the venue in dim glimmers, on the verge of a brownout. In harmony with the transcendent atmosphere the trio created. An extremely experienced crew, performing in an unchanged lineup ever since 1987, really showed an incredibly tight performance, full of exceptional sensitivity and, in the chemistry you could sense, great mutual flexibility. The band can repeat a motif for a long time and build it up in playing intensity. The mood undulates as the intensity of the played motif swells and subsides. Everything is subordinated to instinct and feeling. An exceptional experience! Probably the biggest act of this year’s edition of the Jazz Cerkno festival, they justified their greatness in full measure. With their first appearance in Cerkno, The Necks delivered a singular sensation, and quite a few visitors arrived on the third day of the festival primarily to enjoy The Necks’ performance. With all that, it’s easy to conclude that this magical set by the sensuous The Necks in Cerkno was something special, unique and unrepeatable. The venue was packed to the gills. Down to the last corner. Every little noise bothered those present; with such mighty hypnosis The Necks calmed the audience, and there was no small amount of grumbling in the crowd whenever someone, intentionally or not, made some unnecessary racket that disturbed those present in enjoying the purism of The Necks’ sonic aesthetic during their truly splendid concert performance.
For the grand finale of this year’s traditional and, all told, 24th International Jazz Cerkno Festival, the Italian Maistah Aphrica took the stage. It’s an octet from Friuli – Venezia Giulia, represented by: Gabriele Cancelli (trumpet, flutes, percussion), Mirko Cisilino (trombone, trumpet, percussion), Marco D’Orlando (congas, timbales, djembe, percussion), Clarissa Durizzotto (alto saxophone, percussion), Enrico Giletti (electric bass), Andrea Gulli (synthesizers, dub effects), Alessandro Mansutti (drums) and Giorgio Pacorig (electric organ, Korg MS-20, piano, gadgets). The latter performed the day before with Koromač, and a year earlier at the very same festival in the backing band of Slovenian saxophonist Cene Resnik. Maistah Aphrica’s set counted as a kind of exclusive too, since the band presented its new and, all told, second studio album »Meow« for the first time right in Cerkno. If you quickly skim the “toolbox” the musicians come loaded with, the first closing thought is that this is a cross-over lineup, devoted to inter-genre fusion, definitely with a clearly polished jazz touch. So Maistah Aphrica blend the melody and rhythm of African music, as the band’s name already hints, as does the orientation of the Italian boot toward North Africa, and all of it is set on a solid foundation of kinetic rhythm that also spins into spheres of funk vibrancy, as well as dub and electronics. In other words, it calls for dancing. That’s why the festival organizer removed more than half the seats just for this concert, so the audience could step right up to the stage and freely sway, surrendering to the intoxicating yet chunky rhythm and juicy, almost orchestral soundscape that dictated how events unfolded on stage. A fusion of attacks from the wind section, crowned with looping use of sound manipulators (sequencers), was backed on the other side by a core rhythm section, where an additional percussionist with a varied haul of African percussion added the dot on the “i” of the rhythmic power, whichever way you slice it. What’s interesting about the whole thing is that Maistah Aphrica are at most very good imitators, who found in precisely that imitation the right address for self-irony, since Maistah Aphrica actually means, in Italian, »Mai stato in Africa« (in Slovenian: »Nikoli nisem bil v Afriki«; in English, “I’ve never been to Africa”). So all this seeming Afro character is merely a kind of approximation and a product of imagination, really an imprint of the octet’s perception of how it imagines Africa itself (or whatever is left of it today). But above all, the playing took over. A show delivered “at full power” and with no brakes whatsoever, which took your breath away. The extended closing set on the festival’s last day delivered a proper celebration, with even Cerkno eagerly writhing along. Suddenly it was all over. Another festival wrapped up. But not for everyone. The inconsolables, we continued the party at nearby Gabrijel.
Nothing left to add except that this year, too, the Jazz Cerkno festival, in its 24th edition, blew everyone away and delivered quite a few exclusive performances and brilliant live sensations. Every day we enjoyed sets by three completely different acts. Especially in the genre sense, where in the end jazz isn’t necessarily the center of the musical vision of the chosen bands that appeared at the festival. Each of them cultivates a subtle and clearly perceptible aesthetic of its own escapism into the realm of true artistic eclecticism. That’s exactly why Jazz Cerkno has a character and soul of its own, one that knows how to recognize, appreciate, nurture and reward truthfulness, sincerity and free-thinking. Exactly what jazz music is at its starting point, and exactly what should be the basic moral value of every one of us.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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