G-Strings and Bconnected take jazz in opposite directions
Written by Writer on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
COLD FUSION
Bangkok Post
Wednesday October 22, 2008
G-Strings and Bconnected take jazz in opposite directions
The G-Strings, a classically-trained string quintet, and Lausanne’s Bconnected, a fusion funk band, played at Bangkok’s 10th International Festival of Dance and Music last week, and while both groups could loosely be grouped under the label of jazz, their innovative performance styles differed so radically that it was surprising they were billed to play the same evening.
Bconnected almost connect.
Hamburg’s G-Stings were first up. When jazz is played entirely on strings it can take on a slight South American flavour even when the pieces are written by Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Sting. Dressed entirely in black behind their deep brown instruments, this string quintet created an earthy atmosphere in their presentation as they fittingly began with a tango nuevo from Astor Piazzolla. The group comprises members of the Symphonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks (NDR Symphony Orchestra), one of the highly respected radio orchestras of Germany, and on the evening would go on to fuse jazz with classical, rock and other musical forms to create an uplifting genre all its own.
By the second number, Hauskonzert, an original piece written by violist Jan Larsen, their unique tone was already established. This was a bluesy, up-tempo number with a great bass solo and slapping cello. The musicians would get the most out of the instruments throughout the evening, slapping, plucking and scraping to create a swishing or snare effect and more than make up for the absence of a percussionist.
Just a Cappuccino and Sherlock Holmes Jr, two numbers written by double-bassist Frank Skriptschinski, were slightly slower, atmospheric, and had great solos. Despite the musical genre the numbers were pulled from, the double bass always provided a jazz backbone during the evening’s performance, played with the fingers rather than bow, a melodic deep centre around which the intricate movements of the instrumental organs could be most fully expressed.
Between compositions, violinists Stefan Pinter or Rodrigo Reichel would explain the history of their association with a piece, using understated humour and a soft-spoken German style that immediately won over the audience.
The group also played more traditional jazz numbers like Miles Davis’s All Blues and the John Coltrane bebop piece Impressions, as well as rock classics such as Sting’s Moon over Bourbon Street or the funky encore Baby Love by Mother’s Finest.
The G-Strings perform a tango nuevo.
One of the great benefits of jazz is its versatility, the fact that compositions can be pulled from any era or genre and redefined, given new nuances and a personal flavour. One thing I would have loved to hear would have been a Mozart, Brahms or Tchaikovsky composition for strings given a new jazz incarnation; otherwise, the G-Strings explored the vast possibilities of the genre with imagination and confidence and made us far richer for it.
Bconnected was another interesting experiment in fusion jazz. In the week leading up to the show I listened to the Lausanne band’s Tabula Rasa album (the title perhaps lifted from industrial band Einsturzende Neubauten’s classic song of the same name) and enjoyed the mellow, funky diversity. The title track had a silky hip hop and dub flavour that reminded me a little of the smooth rhymes of francophone rapper MC Solaar. The rest was a mix of fused-up, rocking jazz, the instruments coming together in rhythms that made cleaning my flat, or washing the dishes, much less of a chore.
In the setting of the Thailand Cultural Centre, though, the instruments had only one pace, which was fast, and one volume setting, and that was loud. Jazz perhaps more than any musical genre feeds off the vibe of the audience, and at times to exploit its full potential an adjustment is necessary to ease people into your playing style, after which their response gives you the strength needed to take the music further.
Bconnected didn’t try to adjust their performance style to suit the mood or occasion, to “connect”. I wanted half of the instruments - Xavier Nussbaum’s saxophone, for example - to ease off periodically so I could listen to the music. I wanted the bassist, Rodrigo Lucio, to slow down now and then and draw us into the beat; instead of being the spine for the group, as was the case with Skriptschinski in G-Strings, Lucio was a flailing limb of fine movements that might have been extraordinary if they weren’t a constant blur. One instrument could have been played in the wrong key and no one would have noticed, so overpowering was the general effect.
Not to say the performance was monotonous or repetitive. There were ample solos, especially from the guitar of Eugene Montenero, the Dominique Favre keyboards and Nussbaum and Lucio, but what they performed and how they performed it doesn’t linger in the memory as much as it should.
Vocalist Anne Florence Schneider began perhaps a little nervously with the Tabula Rasa raps (the version of the song the group performed was almost unrecognisable compared to the recorded version), but warmed into her scat rhythms at the end of the song. It wasn’t until later, though, that she simplified her style in the encore and, I felt, found more of the richness and depth her voice was capable of.
The musicians were very capable except in the key category of recognising when less might be more. Instead of playing increasingly harder, faster solos intended to impress, I would have been more taken with a change of pace, an atmospheric piece that established a tone that would later be redefined, not a steady wall of sound crashing out over the crowd. Drummer Ste’phane Pe’choux and percussionist Jean-Daniel Ciccone changed their high-tempo far less often than they might have.
The band’s seventh number, Destiny, was a case in point. It had a great funky beat, began promisingly with subtlety and a slower pace, but then too quickly accelerated into heavy bass solos worthy of a metal concert.
When the music reached speeds and volumes that left me behind, I tried to gauge the mood of the audience. Following the first few songs, applause was rather muted, with the exception of a vocal minority of young people. The greater part of the listeners consisted of a more mature crowd dressed up for the occasion, and though they warmed more to the music as the concert progressed, dozens still left before the performance finished, and the call for an encore was rather weak.
Bconnected would have been perfect for an outdoor music festival, performing for a younger, inebriated crowd free to move about and catch the vibes where they roamed, atmosphere feeding atmosphere until everything clicked.
Here, unfortunately, it felt like the majority of the audience couldn’t give the music the appreciation it deserved, and the band wouldn’t make any allowances for that. It was red hot fusion that left this reviewer a little cold.
