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Hot tickets: London's going out guide
11.09.09
Man with a manifesto: Mark Thomas
REVIEW
Cedar Walton Quartet
Ronnie Scott's, W1
****
There was a time back in the late Seventies when Cedar Walton was the most influential jazz pianist-composer on earth.
Today, in that archetypically American age-defying way of things, this dignified, deep-voiced Texan still looks and sounds as hip as he did then. His hair is perhaps a shade too black to be true but his elegant themes and crisp, classically-informed keyboard solos still have the deep-blue soulfulness and diamond-bright sparkle of yore.
It helps that his current quartet includes Alvin Queen, an outstanding drummer last heard in London with Oscar Peterson on that piano legend's final shows at the Royal Albert Hall. Brilliant without being overbearing, Alvin's exceptional handspeed and lightness of touch recalls the great Billy Higgins. Several of the pieces played last night, including The Holy Land and Cedar's Blues, recalled that golden period when Walton's quartets were simply billed as Eastern Rebellion.
Rounding out the group this time are true-Brit double-bassist Dudley Phillips, a Vortex regular doing his CV no harm at all, and the gruffly lyrical tenorist Jean Toussaint, a Virgin Islander who came to Britain with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. They swung admirably as a unit after overbearing, Alvin's exceptional handspeed and lightness of touch recalls the great Billy Higgins. Several of the pieces played last night, including The Holy Land and Cedar's Blues, recalled that golden period when Walton's quartets were simply billed as Eastern Rebellion.
Rounding out the group this time are true-Brit double-bassist Dudley Phillips, a Vortex regular doing his CV no harm at all, and the gruffly lyrical tenorist Jean Toussaint, a Virgin Islander who came to Britain with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. They swung admirably as a unit after only an hour's rehearsal and can only become more propulsive during the week.
Toussaint's best solo of the night came on Little Sunflower, a Freddie Hubbard classic rephrased in Latin-funk accents, while In a Sentimental Mood, a ballad he never allowed to become sentimental, found Cedar at hls most expressive. A great piano stylist P-Bolivia, one of his best themes, features “a cadence I borrowed from Beethoven” — he's here until Saturday.
Tonight and Sat 12 Sept. Information: 020 7439 0747.
LONDON FOR FREE
Directorspective: Werner Herzog
Tonight 8pm, [space] Studios, Mare Street, E8. Series continues at various venues (www.v22presents.com) Free
A series of 26 free screenings celebrating the life and work of the German auteur. Tonight, Even Dwarfs Started Small, the director's bleak 1970 fantasy, will be shown at [space] studios in the East End and the series ends with his remake of Nosferatu the Vampyre at a south London warehouse. In between, the Barbican, the Horniman Museum and Pushkin House will screen works such as The Enigma of Kasper Hauser and Grizzly Man, while the director himself talks at the Festival Hall on 3 October.
MEET ME AT...
Canteen
2 Crispin Place, EC1 (0845 686 1122, www.canteen.co.uk). Open Mon-Fri 8am–11pm; Sat-Sun 9am–11pm. £18pp ex-drinks
Canteen's manifesto bangs on about “honest food, nationally sourced, skilfully prepared and reasonably priced” and in the main it lives up to that billing. The menu changes with the seasons — and don't forget the cake counter: it's the perfect way to provide a sugar rush for those mid-afternoon moments. From Charles Campion's London Restaurant Guide 2009, published by Profile Books, £8.99
BOOK NOW
Mark Thomas: The Manifesto
18 Sep-3 Oct, Tricycle Theatre, NW6 (020 7328 1000, www.tricycle.co.uk) £10-£18
The comedian and activist brings his touring UK sell-out show to the capital for two weeks. Describing his work as “somewhere between Jim'll Fix It for anarchists and white-collar Crimewatch”, Thomas asks his audience to vote on the policies they like for the Manifesto, which he will then road-test on the tour. So far, policies voted through include introducing a national maximum wage and making it illegal for MPs to knowingly lie.
