Neil Cowley Trio @ Millennium Square
By Sam MurrayThe Leeds Jazz festival has become an easy way for the average music lover to be exposed to a whole host of talented Jazz musicians from across the UK. For a reasonable price you can watch watch a whole day of Jazz showing the vast expanses Jazz creates as a Genre. Set in Millennium Square the Jazz festival takes place in a marquee lit with star-like lights across a black ceiling. With soft lighting a dry smoke the atmosphere seemed circa 1950s New Orleans.
The first act to grace the stage was the delightful Big Band From Hell led by drummer Steve Parry. It was certainly a change to see the man with the sticks lead a 15 piece band from behind a kit a rarity in Big Band Jazz. Steve Parry led an exceptional legion of jazz musicians through a variety of styles including blues and soul.
A personal highlight for me was the multi-instrumentalist Kenji Fenton playing a sublime clarinet solo with such vigour and creativity bending around complex melodies with an enthusiastic confidence that was infectious. To end the set Steve Parry played a wonderful flugelhorn solo with a tight accompaniment.
The Joel Purnell Quartet were next playing a lot of self-penned jazz tunes from their forthcoming album 'Red Shift'. Joel Purnell confidently played his compositions with feeling and intention. Also in the quartet were Jamil Sheriff on piano whose own octet have released critically acclaimed albums, bassist Zoltan Dekaney who also plays in the octet along with drummer Steve Perry.
The quartet played a cityscape of metropolitan tunes layered with sounds of city life, unintentional of course, such as a ambulance passing by or the clock from the city hall tolling to signal the time all coincidently blend in time to add an extra magic to the performance.
Possibly the main attraction of the day had to be the Neil Cowley Trio of 'Later With Jools Holland' fame. Neil Cowley has a zest for creativity taking both random and heartfelt inspirations ranging from the birth of his second child to his mother's car parking space. The set seems to have an interesting effect on the listeners, interestingly for a friend of mine found that she preferred the songs to which a back-story was used to introduce it over the straight played tunes proving the power music holds on the mind.
The trio played Neil's compositions from his two albums 'Displaced' and 'Loud...Louder...Stop' both of which were held in high esteem in particular the acclamations from the BBC Jazz awards. The compositions were fusions of all genres forced into the jazz pigeon hole in a creative manner. Evan Jenkins on drums would fuse together the jazz piano stylings of Cowley with a variety of rhythms ranging from a driving rock beat to simple pop beats. Bassist Richard Sadler gels together the mix with bass riffs that compliment many styles at once.
The Leeds city jazz festival is something I recommend that everyone tries at least once. Jazz is a marmite of genres in that you either love or hate it but if you don't give it a try you will never find out your opinion. It is great to see the city council providing Leeds with opportunities to taste all kinds of cultures and music genres that follow them.
