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May 24 , 2007
On “Thimar” and more
“Thimar” the trio formed in 1997 by oud master Anouar Brahem with John Surman on soprano saxophone and bass clarinet and Dave Holland on double-bass returned to the stage after a seven year hiatus to headline the Jazz Sous Les Pommiers Festival in Coutances, Normandy, last week. An intensely-focused 90-minute performance was greeted with standing ovations by the capacity crowd. More concerts are planned for the end of 2007, with dates in France, Monaco, Italy, Ireland, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland already lined up.
Brahem/Surman/Holland was one of several ECM units warmly received in Coutances. The Trygve Seim Ensemble also made a rare French appearance, their powerful show capped with a performance of Seim’s setting of one of Rumi’s poems for the voice of Tora Augestad. Trygve also shared frontline duties with Tomasz Stanko in Manu Katché’s good-natured Neighbourhood band, hugely popular in France, where Katché is also a TV star as well as a drummer of renown.
Carla Bley’s Lost Chords introduced a new programme of marvelously craggy pieces for a revised line-up - with Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu now joining Andy Sheppard, Steve Swallow and Billy Drummond - and, on the following morning, headed off with engineer Gérard de Haro to record it in Studios la Buisonne near Avignon. The disc will be issued in time for Carla’s October/November tour of Europe. Engineer De Haro had been in Coutances to mix the sound of the Louis Sclavis group playing “Dans la Nuit” to the accompaniment of Charles Vanel’s silent film, or vice versa. Violinist Dominique Pifarély performed both with Sclavis and in an impressive fully improvised set with baritone sax player François Corneloup (Pifarély can also be heard on Stefano Battaglia’s newly released tribute album “Re: Pasolini”)...
In another French debut, Gianluigi Trovesi (mostly on alto clarinet), Umberto Petrin (piano) and Fulvio Maras (percussion, electronics) explored the tradition of song in Western music from Orlando di Lasso to Luigi Tenco for the benefit of a full house at the Coutances Théatre as they played the programme from “Vaghissimo ritratto”. A good time was had by all.
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