Gilad Atzmon’s Stunning Concert at CBSO Centre

Gilad Atzmon’s Stunning Concert at CBSO Centre

http://www.birminghamjazz.co.uk/?p=2264

This concert had everything you need to make a really enjoyable and exciting evening.  It had a very strong theme, that is music inspired by the Charlie Parker with Strings album made in the early 1950s, virtuosic playing from Gilad Atzmon and the Sigamos String Quartet, a combination of  serious musical content and accessibility to keep both  the jazz fan and the more general fan happy, an excellent approach to presentation with clear and entertaining announcements and a good appreciative audience.

What particularly impressed me was the way Gilad and Ros Stephens, leader of the string quartet and Musical Director for the project had developed a mix of material some of which was quite close to the original Parker performances, e.g. April in Paris (or April in Birmingham as Gilad called it!) or Laura, others being arrangements that had taken inspiration from the approach without being on the original Parker album and then others that moved some way away from the theme and drew on the Middle Eastern material that Gilad has been working with recently with the excellent Orient House Ensemble.  This made for an extremely varied evening of music with almost perfect balancing of the material so that we began quite close to the original Parker, then moved away into the Middle East and finally moved back to more familiar tunes.

Gilad was on top form, mostly on alto saxophone showing the Parker inspiration in his solos but building on the bitter sweet aspects of that style by adding in his own very forceful character.  He also played soprano saxophone and clarinet getting a great reedy Arab sound on the latter.  The Sigamos String Quartet added immensely to the evening with their interpretations of Ros Stephens’ excellent arrangements and with their enjoyment of the music the were playing very apparent on their faces.