Kings Place, London
The closing concert of the F-ire collective's annual Rhythmic Frontiers festival was given by Django Bates's trio. And, even if Bates was operating in his most jazz-specific mode by reworking Charlie Parker's 60-year-old music, and F-ire ordinarily has a sweeping world-music remit, in which contemporary rhythmic experiments are about the only unifying element, it felt an appropriate choice. Bates's originality and dynamism ? notably as part of the charismatic 80s collective Loose Tubes - was an acknowledged early inspiration for F- ire. The closing night took in a workshop for founder Barak Schmool's Royal Academy students, Bates's Beloved Bird Trio, and world-music guitarist Jonny Phillips's Oriole, playing the cinematic sonic-travelogue from the group's upcoming Every New Day album.
The F-ire philosophy was at the core of Phillips's show. An evolving relationship between Schmool on congas and Bosco de Oliveira on drums furnished absorbing contrasts: with the lyrical and softly propulsive sound of the leader's acoustic guitar; with a texture-rich lineup including the imaginative cellist Ben Davis and powerful tenor saxist Idris Rahman. Glowering Spanish harmonies, rhythmically devious sambas and broad-horizon ruminations characterised Phillips's atmospherically songlike music, and its periodic jazz diversions sharpened the edges.
The edges, of course, were more audible throughout Bates's gig, with his fellow Anglo-Danes ? bassist Petter Eldh and drummer Peter Bruun ? unleashing a restless undercurrent of deft countermelody, fast-shuffling grooves, free-time and explosive accents under the leader's radically bent Parker themes and flying improvisations. He breezily Latinised Scrapple from the Apple, turned Billie's Bounce into an alternation of surges and pauses, and gave Ah-Leu-Cha a zen-like calm ? but rhythmically, Bates's trio is right in F-ire's ballpark. A majestic, and very restrained, ballad rendition of Iain Ballamy's This World, however, almost stole the show.
dennis hopper leslie nielsen jd salinger l\'il wayne emma watson
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