Jazzfest Berlin 2024 - Part I

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By Paul Acquaro

It is always a marker of success when a concert confounds expectations, even if those same expectations had been set by a recording from the group on stage. At Jazzfest Berlin this year, it happened at least twice for me. 

Joe Lovano Trio Tapestry. Photo by Fabian Schellhorn

 

The first time was on the second night of the festival, as saxophonist Joe Lovano's Tapestry Trio with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Carmen Castaldi worked up an inexplicable magic. Perhaps this should not have been entirely unexpected, after all,Crispell had performed a mesmerizing solo set on the opening night of the festival, stitching her own quilt of romantic melodic lines that unraveled unhurriedly into subversive dissonances and unusual abstractions. 

 

Marilyn Crispell. (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

When Crispell's voicings, however, were laced into the fabric of the trio, the interconnecting strands of Lovano's lines, which shifted between hushed introspection and broad melodic arcs, along with Castaldi expressive percussion work, resulted in a hour long set of intellectually captivating and emotionally gripping music. The group snaked through diffuse passages, where each strand was seemingly taking its own direction, only to quickly erupt into colorful bursts of collective sound. Their music, which has been captured on the ECM recordings Trio Tapestry (2019), Garden of Expression (2021) and most recently on Our Daily Bread (2023), is flowingly expressive, however on the stage of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the music seemed to reach a whole other connective level.

 

Joachim Kühn (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

 

Then, Joachim Kühn's French Trio on the third night of the festival that was able to eliminate the distance from the stage to the audience. The trio, aside from the German pianist, featured the French musicians Sylvain Darrifourcq on drums and Thibault Cellier on double bass. The trio released The Way on another Munich based label, ACT, this past year. The album is excellent, but it took this unexpectedly engaging concert to introduce me to it properly. On stage, the sounds simply flowed from the 80-year-old pianist's fingers. The show began with Darrifourcq's drums and Kühn introducing, with a light touch, a series of melodic snipped and parts of chords. Add in Cellier's wholly appropriate response on bass an soon the tension began to build. A run of arpeggios in the middle range of piano seemed to trigger a whirlwind of activity from the bass and drums. After an abrupt stop, the trio began their next tune, picking up with the same amount of energy that they left off with. Build ups, followed by ebbing intensity only to rebound moments later, kept the audience enthralled and the musicians equally attentive. A heartfelt story from Kühn about being called out for an encore against the organizer's wishes when he played with his brother Rolf's group at the Berlin Jazzfest 58 years ago led to the audience in 2024 making sure he had the chance to reprise the moment.   

 

Kris Davis (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

Between these two shows, in the middle of the second night, pianist Kris Davis' Diatom Ribbon's took the core of her expansive group from their 2019 recording, namely Val Jeanty on turntable and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, and added bassist Nick Dunston to bring the angular music to life. The smaller group created a sound that both reflected and went beyond the recording. The set began with Dunston playing a rhythmic figure on electric bass, complimented by the sweet sounds of Davis' Fender Rhodes and Carrington's lithe drumming, resulting in a bit of an early 70's fusion brilliance. The following tune found Dunston on upright bass, Davis on acoustic piano and Jeanty adding hypnotic electronics. Their repertoire pulled a composition from Wayne Shorter, as well as from Davis' rich portfolio with tunes like 'Rhizomes,' which on the recording featured Nels Cline guitar but here was recast successfully here with the different instrumentation. So, in a sense, this was a third instance of a transformation between recording and stage, though what was presented on stage was a radical rethinking of the music into something entirely and sublimely different.

 

It goes without saying that there was plenty more to hear an see on all the overstuffed nights of the festival - which began during the daytime with concerts and collaborations with students from the Moabit neighborhood of Berlin working with the likes of Berlin's Michael Griener and Joel Grip (among many others) and spilled out in the evenings beyond the Festspiele hall to the nearby jazzclubs A-Trane and Quasimodo and even to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. 

 

At the Jazzfest proper, groups like audience favorites, the Sun Ra Arkestra, performed sans their 100-year-old leader Marshall Allen. Decked out in retro-future costumes and leading a parade through the audience, the group delivered a set of big-band tunes, the most interesting being the ostinato based 'Lights on a Satellite,' a new arrangement of an older Sun Ra tune that also happens to be the title track from the group's latest album. 

 

Decoy with Joe McPhee. Photo by Fabian Schellhorn

On the opening night, Decoy with Joe McPhee was a pleasure to see and hear. The group, which has Alexander Hawkins on Hammond B3, John Edwards on bass and Steve Noble on drums, is a powerhouse of groove and improvisational titillation. McPhee looked youthful at 85 years old decked out in an AC/DC sweat-shirt and bright red sneakers. The saxophonist relied heavily on his poetry this evening as it seemed like playing the sax was a bit of struggle. Leaning on expressive squawks and slow bluesy melodies, he provided a contrast to the churning power of the band behind him. 

 

BIDA Orchestra (partial). Photo by Fabian Schellhorn

Edwards also appeared later the BIDA Orchestra, a large group led by drummer Sun-Mi Hong, providing both a root for the band as well some of the more out parts of the their set. With powerhouse saxophonists Mette Rasmussen and John Dikeman, along with trumpeter Alistair Payne and keyboardist Josef Dumoulin, the group could - and did - stretch out in many directions. A memorable moment began with synth, bass and drums creating a slow moving molten lava groove that Rasmussen channeled into a steadily erupting solo. Rasmussen played again on Friday night at the Quasimodo jazz club, particularly packed and sweaty this evening, for the electronics-laden group The Sleep of Reasons Produces Monsters. Heavy, dense and pulsating with energy, Rasmussen again applied her volcanic saxophone to great effect.

 

After three nights of music, I got ill and could not rally for the last night. Though I wished to continue celebrate 60 years of Jazzfest Berlin by squeezing into the sold out Haus der Berliner Festspiele for the fourth and final night with the superb Darius Jones and his string group from Vancouver performing  fLuXkit Vancouver (i̶t̶s̶ suite but sacred) (see my write up from Jazz em Agosto this year where the group made their European debut) and the always stunning Sylvia Courvosier, it was not to be. To help you get an impression of all I missed, I turn to my colleague Sarah Grosser who helps fill in the gaps and made it through the last night of the festival.

 

Read Part II here.