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Wrong billing
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22 November 2007
Billing can be a tricky issue in arts circles, but I believe Serious got it wrong here by making a blazing Italian trumpet-piano duo warm up for a torpid Norwegian trio led by Tord Gustavsen, surely the quietest and slowest pianist of all time. A modest cough from Row M almost drowned him out, with bassist Harald Johnsen and drummer Jarie Vespestad, too.
"Thank you, good people," whispered Gustavsen after a dirge so deliberate that it was difficult to contrast his latest chord with the previous one. "That was called Tears that Transform. It's about the point that the healing can begin." It was about this point I theorised that if jazz finally did expire, it would not be with a bang but more likely one of Tord's wordless hymns.
Preparing to leave, meanwhile, were eminent trumpeter Enrico Rava and impish pianist Stefano Bollani, whose witty interplay and Italian brio had earlier pleased everyone. Their freewheeling versions of Cheek to Cheek and Jobim's Portrait in Black and White were brilliant. At times Bollani was too busy, barely giving Rava time to think but they would have sent a rain-dampened crowd home with a spring in its step.
Festival ends Sunday (www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk).
Tord Gustavsen Ensemble
Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre
Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
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