At ease

The anniversary treat of the “Triumph of Jazz” turned out to be plentiful

The poster for the tenth anniversary of Triumph was absolutely stunning.

It immediately became clear that the 00 event was coming, and not just good jazz concerts with foreigners. I didn’t listen to the entire program, I won’t lie, I didn’t see all the artists. But I still felt the volume, scale and perspective. First impression: abundance. On Friday, the festival opened with two concerts at the club (concerts were held in parallel at the House of Music and the so-called Igor Butman Club, which everyone continues to call Le Club, either out of habit, or so as not to make a reservation, “the club named after Butman”). Expensive artists performed - singer Carmen Landi and guitarist Lionel Lueke. That is, it’s as simple as that: two compartments, two stars. Landi, already famous in our country, showed a simply fantastic voice. Soft, gentle, whispering, with all sorts of interesting nuances, without showing off, screaming or attacking. You listen with half an ear - it seems like nothing special, if you listen - you want to cry. A drummer came with Lundy, and the line-up was expanded on the spot with local virtuoso Ivan Farmakovsky and double bassist Anton Revnyuk, valued in professional circles. According to Lundy herself, the musicians met four hours before the concert. However, the concert passed in one breath. And the only overlay (Farmakovsky started one song, Lundy started another) seemed deliberately fabricated for the sake of laughter. This is great, because usually, if we have a visiting vocalist “strengthened” with a local cast, it turns out like in a restaurant. Here, Landi’s original material was played by us from the notes, but as if we had composed it ourselves.

This was not the only international line-up of the festival. Honored jazz pianist Leonid Vintskevich and his saxophonist son performed with the American rhythm section. Normal “smart” jazz, post-bop rather, completely original. The audience, who came to the expensive concert to sparkle with rhinestones, received the Vintskevichs/Americans well, although the musicians did not pretend that they had come here to lull everyone to sleep. The trio of Oleg Butman (which includes his wife Natalya Smirnova and the most powerful bassist Anton Davidyants in every sense) sang beautifully with the American Chenda Ruhl. This is not the first time I’ve heard the concerts of the Smirnov-Butman Jr. group; in my opinion, these young jazzmen, burdened with an American musical education, are becoming more and more relaxed and going “into a break.” They also don’t promise to “do it beautifully,” but play complex, tough original material. Smirnova plays subtly and fiercely, like Cecil Taylor (although nothing in common, of course; “how” is for clarity). Chenda Rule captivated the public with her grace as an African-American fashion model, but that was where the captivity with her image ended. She sang one of her songs, the second - a spiritual in her own arrangement. Beautiful powerful voice. In her myspace biography, the singer writes that she was born “between the bars” of the disco/funk era. This is what it feels like. Davidyants (whom one bassist friend of mine calls nothing less than “the John Wetton of jazz”) also added a disco-funk “blackness.”

The festival was closed by a trio of pianist McCoy Tyner with the participation of saxophonist Gary Bartz. These are not just veterans, they are living classics, so what more can be said about them. A visit from both is a good event.

My personal hero is guitarist Mike Stern, who last year was nominated for his sixth Grammy and won again. It is somehow customary to say about him that he is the chick of Miles Davis's nest. Davis, of course, taught everyone, educated, guided, bestowed stardom, a place in history and a pass to immortality. But Mike Stern played him late in the game. For example, I recorded on the rather rare Star People record. And in addition to playing with Davis and other greats (the Brecker brothers), Stern created his own composing style, playing style, and sound. “At concerts I use two amplifiers, a little bit of chorus: I want the sound to be smooth, with smooth transitions, so that the guitar sings like a human voice or a trumpet. And so that the sound would be so surrounding, enveloping,” says the musician. If on albums his signature Yamaha Mike Stern Pacifica sounds smooth, smooth, with a slight reverberation and similar to, say, a soprano saxophone, then in concert it is the sound of an angelic voice. Well, maybe not angelic, but alive. They say that guitars are living things that just need to be woken up and talked, but Mike Stern's Pacifica will soon learn to write letters and answer phone calls. The guitarist was accompanied by virtuoso drummer Dave Weckl, whom we love very much, and bassist Tom Kennedy. From such a line-up one would expect insane rigidity and speed, but in the half hour or forty minutes that they were given, the musicians performed compositions that were polar in mood. One piece was played so quietly and calmly that even the frantic Weckl put down his sticks and drummed with his palms. At the last piece, Igor Butman joined the trio and - I don’t know, consciously or not - “turned on” Michael Brekker. The late Brecker was friends with Stern and played on several of his albums, as did fellow saxophonists David Sanborn and Kenny Garrett. The nervous, meaty saxophone sound pairs well with Stern's guitar: Butman was in his element.

The Saturday evening was closed again by Lionel Lueke. A native of Benin, Lueke has been playing around Europe and America for ten years, but recently began to turn into a real jazz star. He plays a very fashionable instrument: the design is a classical guitar with nylon strings, but without soundboards. Shells - and emptiness. Pure electricity that is. The instrument has an interesting sound: a fusion of classical guitar, African chants and jazz, the technique is impeccable, but the compositions are boring. When he plays with a trio, there is a feeling that something is missing. But when he hums, clicking his tongue and plucking the strings, it turns out very nice: pleasant “African”. At the concert, he performed the composition Nonvignon from the album Karibu (the musician’s debut on the cult jazz label Blue Note). And it was she who rocked the audience, who fervently clapped to the rhythm. Why not start with this?..

By the way, the word karibu means “welcome” in Swahili. Thank you sir. And the same to you.

Alexander BELYAEV