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Django Bates Beloved Trio – review Django Bates Beloved Trio – review
(4 months later)
The acoustics at Kings Place balance the smallest sound somewhere between a soft sheen and needle sharpness, and they gave the repertoire of originals and Charlie Parker themes pianist Django Bates and his trio have been developing since 2010 a fascinatingly fresh character. The differences were magnified by Bates's new use of a pitch-bending synth alongside the acoustic piano, so he frequently played simultaneous lines in eerie almost-unison with each other. Bates, Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and Danish drummer Peter Bruun may be reappraising this music more enthusiastically than usual as they approach their 28 August Prom concert – on which the leader's audacious, moving and frequently witty originals and the trio's gamechanging Charlie Parker remakes will get the full jazz-orchestra treatment in the company of Sweden's much-admired Norrbotten Big Band.The acoustics at Kings Place balance the smallest sound somewhere between a soft sheen and needle sharpness, and they gave the repertoire of originals and Charlie Parker themes pianist Django Bates and his trio have been developing since 2010 a fascinatingly fresh character. The differences were magnified by Bates's new use of a pitch-bending synth alongside the acoustic piano, so he frequently played simultaneous lines in eerie almost-unison with each other. Bates, Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and Danish drummer Peter Bruun may be reappraising this music more enthusiastically than usual as they approach their 28 August Prom concert – on which the leader's audacious, moving and frequently witty originals and the trio's gamechanging Charlie Parker remakes will get the full jazz-orchestra treatment in the company of Sweden's much-admired Norrbotten Big Band.
Bates began with his own poignant ballad Sadness All the Way Down, edited to short treble trickles and quietly wincing synth distortions against Bruun's cymbal flickers – ending in suddenly plunging chords, a dead stop, and then an alternately swinging and cogitating version of Charlie Parker's Scrapple from the Apple. The pianist suggested a dissonant Bill Evans on his own Peonies As Promised, and embarked on an improvisation on My Little Suede Shoes that was both full-on and fluently delicate, as Bates enlisted the acoustics to noticeably lighten his touch. Parker's Star Eyes took on an almost sinister character in the dark collective hum of its middle section, and it faded on Eldh's spooky repetition of the melody at the top of the bass's register, over a buzzing-bee background drone. The second half upped the intensity a notch or so – marked by Bates's beautiful slow transformation of Parker's A-Leu-Cha (he turns it into something close to a Christmas carol), a sustained free-swing examination of the uptempo Confirmation, and a bouncy encore version of Now's the Time, in which the famous theme seemed to lurk without fully declaring itself throughout the solos.Bates began with his own poignant ballad Sadness All the Way Down, edited to short treble trickles and quietly wincing synth distortions against Bruun's cymbal flickers – ending in suddenly plunging chords, a dead stop, and then an alternately swinging and cogitating version of Charlie Parker's Scrapple from the Apple. The pianist suggested a dissonant Bill Evans on his own Peonies As Promised, and embarked on an improvisation on My Little Suede Shoes that was both full-on and fluently delicate, as Bates enlisted the acoustics to noticeably lighten his touch. Parker's Star Eyes took on an almost sinister character in the dark collective hum of its middle section, and it faded on Eldh's spooky repetition of the melody at the top of the bass's register, over a buzzing-bee background drone. The second half upped the intensity a notch or so – marked by Bates's beautiful slow transformation of Parker's A-Leu-Cha (he turns it into something close to a Christmas carol), a sustained free-swing examination of the uptempo Confirmation, and a bouncy encore version of Now's the Time, in which the famous theme seemed to lurk without fully declaring itself throughout the solos.
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