Jazzfest Berlin Sets Tone of Musicality Without Expectation

By Kurt Gottschalk I Dec. 27, 2023

Henry Threadgill was a major presence at this year’s Jazzfest Berlin.
(Photo: Camille Blake)

The intricate and thoughtful music of pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson opened the well-curated 60th edition of Jazzfest Berlin on Nov. 2. Courvoisier’s playing inside the case and Halvorson’s trademark pitch-bending, and the heavy rhythms they eventually moved into, set a tone for musicality without expectation. The festival included 230 artists from 25 countries in a program of overlapping concerts divided between the large concert hall of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, smaller stages in that facility and nearby nightclubs.

Second on the bill was the French quartet Novembre, joined by the trio Les Bribes, a cello trio and two children’s choirs for a program of sensory duplicity under the name “Apparitions.” The core quartet began by introducing the themes that would be used, each a composition of several seconds. Then the piece was built by cellos in the wings, children in the balcony. It was a great way to open the hall after the quietude of the previous set.

The night concluded with the piano power couple of Aki Takase and Alexander von Schlippenbach performing together a pair of concert grands nestled together on the expansive stage. They played short pieces, solos, duets and, following the title of their recent recording, Four Hands Piano Pieces, a dedication to Carla Bley with her “Ida Lupino.” It was nothing short of a pleasure to luxuriate in the simpatico they’ve developed over three decades.

Friday began with Nancy Mounir realizing her lovely 2022 album Nozhet El Nofous, which adds live accompaniment to old Egyptian 78s. Her theremin suggested a temporal bridge for the excursion, and her arrangements (for string quartet plus accordion, trumpet, bass and piano) recontextualized without radicalizing. After that, the trio of Fred Frith, Mariá Portugal and Susana Santos Silva led a less literal excursion. Frith was particularly percussive, with sticks and objects on his guitar strings, making some sections of their long improvisation feel like a drum duo around Silva’s exceptional trumpet.

Paal Nilssen-Love’s Circus played scored pieces without the constraint of members having to play the same piece at the same time, resulting in individual commitments creating group coherence. It’s a powerhouse septet with the deal-sealing singer Juliana Venter commanding attention, covering a range of Yma Sumac and Patty Waters territory (not to mention a Dolly Parton interpolation). Standout solos were taken by accordionist Kalle Moberg and saxophonist Signe Emmeluth. Wanderlust then forced my hand. I caught part of an energetic set by Mike Reed’s Seperatist Party, during which the audience was encouraged to squeeze onto the stage like a crowded club, before heading out to find an the actual nightclub, the long-lived and beloved Quasimodo, to end the night with smart, fluid compositions by Steph Richards and her tight quartet.

Saturday brought great riches, beginning with a short and intensely focused piano recital by Marielea Debacker and peaking with a Henry Threadgill/Silke Eberhard double band and then a surprising new group from Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler.

Eberhard and her Potsa Lotsa XL played a fine concert of Threadgill compositions for the 2020 streaming festival (the video can be found online), which led, at Threadgill’s suggestion, to a new work for her tentet and Threadgill’s quintet Zooid. On the heels of a fairly mystifying recording of a long-form Threadgill composition for large ensemble, the hour-long “Simply Existing Surface” was familiar, dark revelry with the composer back in the band. Maybe only Ornette Coleman is as immediately recognizable a melodicist in the history of avant garde jazz. After that, in one of the smaller theaters, was Draksler’s Matter 100 in only their second performance. The sextet leaned into post-punk — even counting Andy Moor of the adventurous Dutch punk outfit the Ex among its members, and had not only the best but also the only hurdy-gurdy extended technique I’ve ever seen.

The final day began at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, in a 1961 chapel festooned with 21,292 square stained glass panels glowing in the afternoon light like a Nam June Paik ecstatic vision. It was the perfect setting for Ghosted, a Swedish rhythm section (bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werlin) with Berlin-based guitarist Oren Ambarchi, who uses effects and a Lesley speaker to achieve a sound very much like an electric organ. It’s difficult to avoid comparison to Ambarchi’s countrymen the Necks, who have arguably spawned a new style of group improvisation. But Ghosted was quicker to break from long-form development into grooves and drones.

Back to the main hall, then, for a warmly intimate set by saxophonist Bill McHenry and drummer Andrew Cyrille, playing Muhal Richard Abrams, Famoudou Don Moye and their own compositions and nothing more than necessary, more than perfect and perfectly in the pocket. Eve Risser’s Red Desert Orchestra was another crowd pleaser, a European/West African dance band joined by trumpeter Silva, with fiery saxophone by Sakina Abdou and another Carla Bley dedication.

Journalistic duty would dictate that I stay put for trombonist Conrad Bauer being awarded the Albert Mangelsdorff Prize and playing a set with the esteemed William Parker–Hamid Drake rhythm team, but topping my list of reasons for crossing the ocean was to bear witness to Marta Warelis for a second time. The Polish-born pianist played at the cozy bistro A-Trane with the trio Omawi, featuring bassist Wilbert de Joode and drummer Onno Govaert, both from Amsterdam, where Warelis makes her home. De Joode transmitted eloquent phrases in single notes and Govaert was quite attuned and quick to adapt. But Warelis’ keyboard technique is what captivated: hovering over the keys, her hands vibrant with possibilities, and then striking not with an assault but with something measured and pristine. DB