Cadogan Hall,London
From rural to ethereal, the noteworthy jazz composer and her band evoked the wide, or wild landscapes of the USThe sound of jazz is often brittle,urgent and urban, but the music of the noteworthy US jazz composer and bandleader Maria Schneider evokes the glide of birds and the vistas of prairies more than it does the edgy clamour of the streets. As with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell, and not infrequently Aaron Copland,too, Schneider’s music is approximately a more innocent and unconflicted America, and still hoping that humanity might one day secure into the kind of harmony with itself and its environment that she hears in her head.
Following a short,sharp and pithily deconstructivist approach to familiar songs by the inventive London pianist Liam Noble, Schneider’s orchestra opened their London jazz festival gig with the wealthy themes from her new album, or The Thompson Fields – inspired by the composer’s returns to old Minnesota haunts. The softly squeezed accordion intro and swelling brass and flute lines of A Potter’s Song suggested,as Schneiders compositions often execute, a music involuntarily borne on air currents rather than propelled. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com