MUSIC PREVIEW
Play Misty for me
Play for me. Misty
Heartbeat World Music is presenting a short season in Edinburgh with the locus very much on music you can dance to. Promoter Fiona McAllister
ieels there have been enough cerebral ‘y
Eastern European sounds tor the moment and, aware oi the enthusiastic audience response to some oi last year’s bands, has lined up some top names playing music irom Airica and the Caribbean.
The leading band irom the heyday oi the late “IDs-early 80s British reggae boom Misty In lloots is back on the road again. The members’ resolute stance within the Anti Apartheid Movement and Rock Against Racism, and their homage to the music oi Marley, is now modiiied by rhythms and guitar licks picked up during spells resident in Zambia and
Zimbabwe: but they remain purveyors oi one oi the heaviest dance grooves in the business.
A iortnighi later, one oi the most spectacular and musically satisiying ensembles emerges irom out oi Airica when Senegal’s Baaba Maal brings his twelve-piece band oi percussionists, musicians and dancers, led by singer Daande lenol, and a huge artic laden with lights and sound equipment, to transionn the Assembly Rooms. Dense, deeply layered, melodic and vibrantly contemporary, Maal’s music is at the cutting edge oi Airican music (check the guest list on his last album, which
. includes, within dozens oi musicians,
a horn section, a string section, programmed keyboards and live percussion, the varied talents oi Donal Lullny, Andy Shephard and Jah Wobble).
The season ends with a yet-to-be- coniinned date in March, but beiore that a Latin Carnival is set to keep iolks on the iloor till 3am. The local
' Edinburgh Samba School and the
recorded dance beats oi Club Latino are included, with Colombian timbales player Roberto Pla who leads his dozen-strong Latin Jazz Ensemble; irom Brazil, Passo a Passo is a
‘3 stunningly physical capoeira dance group; and, in a last-minute change to
the programme, Tumbaito is a hard- driving ten piece salsa band playing music irom Puerto Rico, Columbia, Venezuela and Cuba. (Norman Chalmers)
Misty ln Boots play the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh on Sat 28.
:11:— Welsh invasion
James Chadwick Quartet: Cardiii lads
The Edinburgh Jazz Project have done a solid lob in promoting Scottish- based musicians in their twice-weekly lazz sessions at the Tron Jazz Cellar in Edinburgh, but they have also been
able to supply a platform to introduce the occasional young band irom down south along the way.
The James Chadwick Quartet are the latest outiit to beneiit irom that policy. The band are based in Cardiii, and are led by guitarist Chadwick,
. with Jonathan Thomas on bass and 4 Greg Evans on drums. The fourth
member, tenor saxophonist Dsian Roberts, is currently studying at the Royal Academy in london, and was the winner ofthe Daily Telegraph’s Young Jazz Musician oi the Year title in 1994.
Chadwick iirst grew interested in jazz as an extra-curricular activity while studying classical guitar at a college in Wales. Having iinished his course six years ago, he took lessons with the excellent Dave Cliii in london, and has been playing around the jazz circuit in Wales and the southwest.
‘Thls band was established in 1992 in Cardiii, but we had done diiierent bits and pieces beiore that. This will be the iirst time we have played in Scotland, and we also have a gig in Newcastle on the way up. We play a mixture oi our own tunes, which are usually written either by Dsian or myseli, and arrangements we have made oi material derived irom the likes oi Joe Henderson and John Coltrane.’ (Kenny Mathleson)
The James Chadwick Duartet play the Tron Jazz Cellar, Edinburgh on Wed 1.
Therein lies a Cale
Levity is the soul of Rapture. the new Siouxsie And The Banshees album. possibly their best record for a decade. Fiona Shepherd found out from Budgie how the band slipped their shackles.
'The cracks in the ground grin up at rue/Ere): the creases in my shoes smile up at me . . . I haven 'tfel! (his way befare/Impnssible m askfar more . . .
I 'm in a state of it"eightlessness. '
Someone‘s walking on air. Feels like first love. Spring in the step. hean going boom-bang-a-bang. all that sort of stuff. It‘s appropriate that such a wide-eyed paean to sweetness and light should appear on an album called The Rapture. but perhaps less obvious that it should be penned by Siouxsie And The Banshees and produced by old laughing boy John Cale.
Nevertheless. here it is. the current Banshees single. ‘0 Baby'. the blithest celebration of falling hook, line and sinker since The Sugarcubes‘ ‘Hit'. Instead of growing old and cynical, The Banshees sound glorious and naive.
‘We feel so good because I think we‘re rid ofthe last link in the shackle,‘ explains stalwart drummer Budgie. ‘lt feels like we’re floating in a way.‘
The ‘shackle' he refers to is the trenchant perception of the band as an over-dramatic bunch of introspective goths, lamenting the collapse of their
netherworld in flowery pseudo-poetic language while swathed in realms of black velvet. Go on. admit it. that‘s what springs to mind when you think of Siouxsie.
‘At the moment people are using this 80s revival phase.’ says Budgie. ‘Five years into the 90s and we‘re being billed as “the goths return", as if we've been away somewhere.’
This is particularly frustrating for a band who began their career immersed
in punk's year-dot rejection of nostalgia
and. despite numerous musical
reinventions along the way. still have to
contend with inquiries about the heady days of 77.
‘People have been shouting for “Love In A Void" for sixteen years and I think even Severin‘s forgotten how to play it.‘ Budgie continues. ‘I try to think that people would have a bit more insight than that. [just think it‘s really dumb. because you're in the public eye, to never expect you to change and when you do change it always has to be hand in hand with where you came from. It‘s as if you can’t suddenly reject all that you‘ve done before.‘
Things could be worse. You could be Morrissey. still being called miserable after all these years.
‘Well. he is miserable! No. I didn't say that . . .‘
The Rapture is a feast for fans ofthe ‘shimmering shards' of yore. and for those who like a surprise present every birthday. Tracks like ‘Sick Child' and ‘Love Out Me' are full ofthe evergreen Banshees flourishes. reprised with as much string-laden drama. urgency and strutting atmosphere as the best of their back catalogue.
i l i
34 The List 27 Jan-9 Feb 1995