Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Cerkno / Gabrijel / Slovenia
Concert date: April 8, 2017
Attendance: 70
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry!)
Cerkno, one of the last free enclaves not yet reached by the merciless bureaucratic-police lash of this watered-down system, is slowly gearing up for the 22nd consecutive edition of the international Jazz Cerkno festival. To warm up for the festival, the crew at the Gabrijel bar announced two jazz events this April. The first went down last Saturday, when Mike Parker’s Trio Theory played there, and the second is coming on April 22, 2017, when the renowned Slovenian trumpeter Igor Matkovič swings by with his backing band.
So RockLine pulled up at the Gabrijel bar again on Saturday, April 8, 2017. We had a round of excellent Salzburg wheat beer, the Stiegl brand, and soaked up a set from the trio fronted by Americans Mike Parker (double bass) and Frank Parker (drums), who also plays in the band of acclaimed jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, along with Poland’s Slawek Pezda (saxophone). The show was split into two parts with a fifteen-minute break in between. In the first the trio played for 40 minutes, in the second (encore included) for 50.
Even though Mike founded the trio, it’s based right here in Europe. Mike moved from the US to Poland a while back, and the current incarnation of the trio is a continuation of the lineup founded in New York, where it formed back in 2011.
On last year’s tour the trio recorded and released the album »Alive Out There«, and they gave it a thorough airing at the Cerkno show. Across two separate sets the trio served up a first-rate mix of classic jazz inspired by, among others, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk, with plenty of swing radiating from a post-bop and bebop springboard. The rock-solid rhythmic bounce and the occasional tightly built musical phrases from Mike Parker’s lead motifs on bass deepened the funk elements, while Slawek Pezda on sax kept tearing down the established rules, repeatedly crashing eruptively into an avalanche of free-jazz variations. The band showed off excellent musical bounce. It was easy to follow by ear and, thanks to that accessibility, packed an enormous dose of all-round listenability, which was all the more alluring alongside those flirty rhythms.
What to say about the trio’s playfulness and precision? Brilliant. Frank Parker, who played a pint-sized drum kit, impressed by squeezing every drop out of the cymbals, with the precision of a Swiss watch. The trio’s communication was spot-on, marked by a clear air of incredible confidence. There’s no point wasting words on the extraordinary twisting kinetics of Mike’s fingers, or his inventive blending of several tonal grips (chords held across two or three strings) while playing the double bass, which in some intros and outros he also layered in with a violin bow. His fingers are honed and oiled with unbelievable skill.
The trio’s set flew by in a blink, it got under the skin that thoroughly. The crowd rewarded the musicians with a few thunderous rounds of applause and got a well-deserved encore. Extraordinary vibe and extraordinary energy in Cerkno this time. Let’s be honest, Cerkno remains a town where musical heart and honesty found their home a long time ago. Igor Matkovič will carry on that tradition this April, and then we’re headed back there for three days to enjoy the adventures of the 22nd international Jazz Cerkno festival!
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