Location: Cerkno / Star plac / Slovenia
Date: Saturday, May 20, 2017
Day three of the traditional, and by now 22nd, Jazz Cerkno Festival had arrived. This one was special because female jazz players absolutely dominated the lineup! Even though the weather took a hard nosedive, it was a very busy day for the RockLine tandem. After the Halvorson / Fujiwara concert at the music school in Cerkno, our attention was caught by a racket spilling out of the carefully covered foyer of the Cerkno hotel. That’s where Nova Gorica’s Neseseri Kakalulu were playing. Ka… who? Wild name, no doubt about it. If I counted right (I’ve never shone at math), eight guys had “escaped” in there straight from the rain. They were supposed to play before the first act of the festival’s final day on the platform (part of a closed-off road) right in front of the festival grounds, but they’d have gotten properly soaked there. They did make it out there later, once the rain stopped in the evening, with a shortened second set the same day. In the break while we were waiting for Tomeka Reid Quartet.
Even though I caught the gig at the hotel door in its last gasps, you could still tell from the musical substance that Neseseri Kakalulu are a very fun, high-spirited band who approach music in a strictly party-minded way, with positive vibes front and center. The rhythmic structures are solid, backed up by extra jingling percussion. The core of the melody is carried by a horn section of sax and trumpet, a dynamic, active bass guitar line adds the “groove,” and two guitars fill out the sonic space with a pinch of rock. In short, the band works strictly instrumentally. The compositions are simple, and Santana would have liked them, except he’d complain about the complete lack of guitar soloing. A musically simple and instantly winning lesson in funk and also SKA, with rhythms that can push toward salsa too. All the way through, a goofy hairdo of upbeat packaging around the lead motifs. Good vibes in the rain, then. Endearing.
More seriousness and choir-like listening was demanded by the first act on the day-three program. Kaja Draksler Octet + 1! This was the Slovenian premiere for this nine-piece lineup, led by the internationally established, highly esteemed and acclaimed Slovenian composer and keyboardist Kaja Draksler, who lives and works in the Netherlands. She came to Slovenia with her octet, which, besides Kaja, consists of vocalists Laura Polence and Björk Níelsdóttir, wind players Ab Baars, Ada Rave and Lotte Anker, plus violist and violinist George Dumitriu, double bassist Lennart Heyndels and drummer/percussionist Onno Govaert.
Yet another musical phenomenon you can’t really pin down. Kaja’s concept of setting poetry by various poets to music, from Adriana Minou and Pablo Neruda to Gregor Strniša, works through a truly unique fusion of compact motifs and jazz improvisation. It all depends on the nature of each setting, that is, on how the arranging plan engages with the message and depth of the poem itself. The band opened with a setting of Adriana Minou’s poem titled Promise is Promise, where the way both vocalists were combined and used within the structure of the composition was impressive. A playful intro, thoroughly fun. Between pieces, Kaja addressed the audience, accompanying almost every number with a short story about how it came to be. Later in the concert the band offered a considerably more experimental musical adventure and an artistically challenging substance, which also marked the setting of Pablo Neruda in the composition Canto: XII, which at times felt downright eerie, chilled, cold and alienated. The concert is a real treat, bringing together a wide palette of musical ideas, and it’s fascinating how the building blocks of the “octet plus 1” coexist as equals. They delighted with a daring fusion of forms and structures that at first listen seem to have no common ground, and yet. The Kaja Draksler octet, which didn’t shy away from flirting with cabaret jazz chanson, among other things, bridged the apparent incompatibility of its musical fragments into a vivid macramé of absolute musical strangeness.
Finally! A band at Jazz Cerkno where guitar playing at last gets a more prominent role. Tomeka Reid Quartet. The band’s leader is Tomeka Reid, who is a cellist! A top-notch, versatile musician, and her quartet features, besides Tomeka, guitarist Mary Halvorson (a special case in her own right), drummer Tomas Fujiwara and double bassist Jason Roebke. This band, too, is welded together from special, eclectic ingredients of musical perception. Lead composer Tomeka Reid creates music that follows clearly tangible structures throughout, delivering a remarkably successful alloy of classical music and jazz freedom. No wonder guitarist Mary Halvorson fits so well into this lineup, since her guitar playing is likewise a neat blend of jazz and neoclassical elements. Over an hour and a half, the quartet offered exceptionally refined and sensual playing full of unpretentious ideas, approached with soft subtlety, great feel and movements full of fine mechanics. No escalations or blasphemous outbursts where the band would shake out an endless series of rapid-fire notes in an adrenaline rush. Okay, interim solo spots are “allowed,” like the extended opening solo by bassist Jason Roebke on one of the tracks, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara also treated himself to a few solo excursions, but otherwise the quartet developed its soundscape as one. In an incredibly focused and concise dialogue, where the combining of tones never lets the motifs fall apart, even though the unusual atonal lines that show up in the playing and composing are more than necessary to break up settled, predictable templates, and so keep even the most demanding music connoisseur intensely engaged throughout.
For the big finale, Finland’s Mopo, from Helsinki, took the stage. Mopo (that’s “moped” in Slovenian) are an incredibly eye-catching and downright lovable, infectious trio who quickly won over the whole audience with their stage presence, and the crowd followed the closing acts of the festival on the edge of their seats. All in a trio staging that was often goofily lucid and full of grimaces. An absolute attraction and the best possible choice to close this year’s Jazz Cerkno Festival. Three musicians: Linda Fredriksson, who played baritone and alto sax and a whistle that evening, bassist and double bassist Eero Tikkanen and drummer Eeti Nieminen. Unbelievable energy. Especially when it comes to saxophonist Linda. A tiny, tough little girl who’s barely bigger than her baritone sax swung it with such intensity that many of her male peers in jazz can only envy her. The band builds on solid phrasing, which Linda projects into the shape of the compositions on sax, and then the trio scatters each to their own corner and treats itself to a witty exchange of improvisational pranks, although Linda is in the spotlight throughout. All the essential things in Mopo revolve around her sax. Linda’s escapades aren’t demanding, but they’re damn fun and inventive, so they could easily be integrated into jazz and rock fusion lineups, and former Van Der Graaf Generator saxophonist David Jackson would be thrilled with them too (Linda can play harmonies by blowing into the alto and baritone sax at the same time, like the legendary David Jackson, though we didn’t get anything like that from Linda this evening). The band opened the show with the droll, high-spirited song Meikän kissa (translation: My Cat), somewhere in the middle they tackled Mustafa, which came about after the trio, wandering around Morocco, met a local with that name, the mildly mysterious Metsärukkanen worked especially tantalizingly, and Mopo threw a special party right at the end of the set, when they performed a song about grandpa in two acts. The first act is called Pappatunturi (meaning grandpa’s motorbike), followed by an extra-spiced second act called Vesiklosetti (grandpa’s toilet). Especially in the second act the band put on a real theater show, with Eeti theatrically hurling all his drumsticks at the drums and onto the floor, while he and Linda also clowned around with rubber animals, as Eero unplugged from his bass and started theatrically tidying up a series of cables lying on the stage. All those sounds comically brought to life grandpa’s intimate moments in the bathroom. On to the closing “chaos tornado,” then! Mopo are a phenomenal choice, delivering a combination of incredibly quirky humor and nonstop positive vibes, generated by the sax’s playfully seductive lead motifs. Let’s hope this band shows up someday for a headline gig of its own at the Gabrijel bar.
And that’s that. The 22nd Jazz Cerkno Festival was successfully carried out and wrapped up. It glowed in full splendor all three days. In all its unique glory! It once again pampered and cuddled everyone present! Just like always. With plenty of excellent music and a rich accompanying program that isn’t focused solely on the musical arts. And of course we can’t skip the excellent culinary offer either. Alongside Ančka’s top-notch goulash and a local specialty called “smukauc,” they also grill the best calamari in the world there. We’ll meet again in Cerkno, at the latest at the next one, the 23rd edition of the festival. See you next year!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
