MUSICPREVIEW
_ fine, but if you walk down the street w you hear all kinds of different sounds, TRADING H I. f and we are all exposed to a lot of different music now. I try to be open
to everything.’
, ~ _ _ . , ‘ Wallen’s initial love of the trumpet
:~ .~ was kindled by hearing Louis
Armstrong and classical trumpeter Maurice Andre, but it was the horn itself - ‘l loved the sound, the look, everything’ - which really hooked him. He got into jazz through the funk and fusion route, which doubtless helped influence his currently eclectic direction.
Apart from the ‘Sound Advice’ album, which is just out on saw, his recent projects have included performances of ‘The Tarot Suite’, a large-scale multi-media piece on which he has worked for some time. It is, he says, a ‘journey of self-discovery’, and reflects the positive message summed
MARC MARNIE
Valery Ponomarev: hop in the _ . \ blood . - » i ‘ \ .
Valery Ponomarev may ‘ r }
have been brought up in N. w _ = _
Moscow. but the idiom i: _ ._ i .
and yocabulary of his ' \T . '2 n, u .
musrc is pure New York. . , _ A - :1 “ i' .,
He learned to playjazz 3 i ’ f:- ‘g, ‘ fi ‘- \
trumpet from ‘a few :
Ye. ‘
wormom black market Byron Wallen: the power of positive thinking up in what he calls RAMP _ Realistic { LPs which had sneaked . Assembly Direct’s Kind of Blue Alternative Messages to Pessimism. into the country'. but his programme opens with two double ‘I see music as a very powerful assittti‘fttion 0f the lessons bills showcasing very different communicating tool, and it has been 0f “‘3 "keg 0f Cl'fford ' aspects of contemporary British jazz. used as a healing force in a lot of
Brown were taking place in a kind of vacuum. isolated from the
The second of these brings together cultures. I’m very concerned with two contrasting approaches to fusing putting across my own message in my
wenspring of the music. § 1 jazz with other current black music music, which is concerned with He played in clubs and ; forms, from soul and funk to hip hop. everyday life. We see so many at jazz festivals in the ! = Edinburgh DJ duo Blackanized will negative images and hear so much
USSR. where jazz was not entirely suppressed. but remained very much an undesirable activity in
: team up with Fresth Squeezed, while negative music today, but I have , j trumpeter Byron Wallen will lead his always found music to be uplifting, : Sound Advice quintet through a wide- and this is a way of looking at things
“i‘thRhi-mfitf
.‘ ‘ I ranging blend of idioms. in a more positive light.’ (Kenny
' . 3. . , .
[Shi‘iffigglctfcrfbgrfizj a ‘To me, that’s how life is — its not all Mathleson)
plane to Rome using e one thing. If you only want to play one Byron Wallen’s Sound Advice play at falsified documents and t ; particular kind of music, then that’s The Queen’s llall, Edinburgh on Fri 12.
defected from his homeland. still locked in i m the icy grip of Brezhnev's ,
old-style hard-line '
Communism. He crossed , .
the Atlantic to New York,
and found a mentor almost immediately. in the formidable shape of ; drummer Art Blakey. ! ‘When Art heard me play his music. he hugged me so hard. I couldn‘t break loose! He was literally amazed that his music had travelled so far. Here i was. someone from a totally different culture who played his exact style and repertoire. but that is a what happens with jazz — it literally reaches the hearts and minds of the people. regardless of their
Kenny Mathieson hears how Andy Sheppard and John Harle will make a thoroughly modern culture. i saxophone collaboration.
Ponomarev spent four We hear a lot these days about musical years in The Jazz “1931mm, me "0 laughlng mam" barriers breaking down. Hybrids are in,
xizsentiirgfiiilfsgtab'c ‘0 Steve Albinl is quoted as saying that he said, ‘The way I feel about it is, if I getter ie Purity distinctly retro. and i ‘ some, before leavifig to they are the only band to walk it like had a big empty barrel, and I threw a the eutpotttthgs 0‘ theelohfll‘vitllagte :tte set up his own band in they talk it . Fugazi have no manager, piece of shit into it, then I can say getttng mete find more tangle} by t It 1930, His earlier visits to no marketing ploys and llo, they most that’s a piece of shit in a big, clean, day- Maybe It 8 no real Sumnse. the". Scotland (also at the definitely don’t kiss corporate ass. empty barrel. But you can get a barrel that a jazz saxophoniSI with a leaning behest of drummer Bill The four-piece sonic hardcore hand full of shit, no matter how clean a towards funk and ethnic music should Kyle».wh0 has long- from Washington oc are a rare species thing you throw in there, it’s going to team up With a classical saxophontst Standmg, New York in the wheeling-dealing, sell-out be covered in shit. That’s how I feel who loves jazz. What brought them Egnlgfftt‘gsr“; 31:11:53 polltlcklng of the music business. about it. I don’t think the music papers together in the first Place. though was impre‘ssive command of Though their detractors may hurl are wrong or evil. I just feel it’s a the Instrument Itself. 118 Andy Sheppard me bop idiom and insults like ‘elitist’ and ‘anal’ from the different industry.’ eXPhttned- . . . vocabutmy, a faultless sidelines, in response to Fugazi’s When the music press do cover their ‘lt 8" stafied when l dtd «"1 gtg With articulation no matter how refusal to play media ball, the band high-octane gigs, adjectives like Steve Leddet at the South Bank ‘0
fast the tempo or complex quite frankly couldn’t give a damn. ‘blowtorch’, ‘fiercely invectlve’ and mark the eetttentary 0f Adolphe Sth'S the harmonte SFQUence. From their home-grown indie label ‘adrenalin-fuelled’ tend to splatter the death The concert was mostly . :‘o‘goafiltovfg’t'hntfi llischord, Fugazi have consistently page. Compared to these hellfire classical. but they had the and Ronnie infinng”. but plémyoof notched up sales figures and concert punkolds, pale imitators like Rage Scott 9“ as We” Jehtt heard me 9th bite and muscle. (Kenny turnouts that rival most major label Against The Machine, Helmet and even that tttght. tthtt 1 thtnk his tttenager 88W Mathieson) acts. AS vocalist Ian Macllaye was Henry Rollins just curl up and cry. (Ann an OPPOFtUttIty t0 desemethtng
Valery Ponomarev plays quoted as saying in one of their rare Donald) together. and We've Just take" tt from at the Tron Jazz Cellar in interviews, they simply don’t feel part Fugazi play The Barrowland, Glasgow theret'
Edinburgh on Wed 10. of the Industry, Using a quaint analogy on Mon 3_ Andy Sheppard and John Harle have
45 The List 5-18 May 1995