Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2023 Ali Afleck's Stomp Off!
George Square Spiegeltent 14th July Review
George Square Spiegeltent 14th July Review
Ali Affleck’s Stomp Off! launched the first show at George Square Spiegletent for the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2023 in style with an all-star band, classic songs, humour and a lot of fun.
It was easy to forget the fact that outside this was a wet and windy night in Edinburgh as inside Ali Affleck and the band - Enrico Tomasso (cornet/ trumpet), Mathieu Meyer (piano), Ross Baird (guitar), Martin Foster (reeds), Roy Percy (bass) and Stu Brown (drums) transformed the inside of the Spiegeltent with their music into midnight in New Orleans at a prohibition parlour. Here we travelled with them back in time to the world of Jellyroll Morton, King Oliver and some of the pioneering women of the formative years of jazz and blues. This musical time machine took us back even further than this though, to songs from the late 19th century and even as far back as 1851.
From the moment that the band took to the stage (without Ali) it was obvious that everyone here had so much performance experience that even with the limited time that any festival can give any musicians for rehearsal, everyone and everything just fell into place from the first few bars. This is what jazz musicians do best, come together and play music, and effortless fluidity and technique made it evident why Enrico Tomasso is considered by many people to be one of the best jazz trumpet players in the world at the moment. Making a perfect partnership with Enrico was Martin Foster and his performance on a variety of reed instruments.
Ali Afffleck’s Stomp off! would of course be nothing without Ali, and with her opening song, the classic Mamie’s Blues (219 Blues) (originally by Jellyroll Morton) the musical soundscape for this show was well and truly set as with style, passion and some illuminating introductions to the history of these songs, Ali introduced us to some of the pioneering women performers of this period.
If you have any interest in these formative years of jazz and blues, and in particular the female vocalists of the time, then this was probably the perfect show for you, and for me no one captures that spirit of the times and the essence of not only these great songs but the people behind them better than Ali Affleck. This is Ali’s space and her love for everything and everyone involved in the creation of this music always shines through in any of her performances.
What makes these songs so special, why have they survived over the years (sometimes for 100 years or more)? The answers to these questions are many, but perhaps the most important reasons are that so many of these songs are real records of people’s lives and experiences, they are historical documents in their own right, and Ali Affleck has a very special ability not only to breathe new life back into them, but also to often inhabit the very stories and the very people contained in them.
Anyone who has thought that only contemporary songs can be confrontational, suggestive and even sexually explicit in their lyrics will be in for a surprise on hearing some of these songs for the first time as they explore all of these areas and open up a world that is very different from the one that we so often imagine of the times…sex, drugs, alcohol, the devil’s music and everything else that we think we found first, the people in these songs found a long time ago.
Some of these songs are very special though and amidst a rather eclectic and at times dark and murderous themed collection of songs that included “Stack O'Lee Blues” (Ma Rainey”) and "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" (Bessie Smith) was another song by Bessie Smith, “The Young Woman’s Blues” that was one of the true gems of the show. Here in words and attitude was an affirmation of someone strongly stating her own identity, freedom and sexuality at a time when this was not the expected norm. This song is as relevant today as at the time it was written.
Not everything was murder and mayhem tonight and the words of “The Japanese Sandman” are somehow inspirational, the idea that the old day that the Sandman has bought from us and the new day that he has given us offers all so much hope
“Then you'll be a bit older in the dawn when you wake
And you'll be a bit bolder in the new day you make”
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
It was easy to forget the fact that outside this was a wet and windy night in Edinburgh as inside Ali Affleck and the band - Enrico Tomasso (cornet/ trumpet), Mathieu Meyer (piano), Ross Baird (guitar), Martin Foster (reeds), Roy Percy (bass) and Stu Brown (drums) transformed the inside of the Spiegeltent with their music into midnight in New Orleans at a prohibition parlour. Here we travelled with them back in time to the world of Jellyroll Morton, King Oliver and some of the pioneering women of the formative years of jazz and blues. This musical time machine took us back even further than this though, to songs from the late 19th century and even as far back as 1851.
From the moment that the band took to the stage (without Ali) it was obvious that everyone here had so much performance experience that even with the limited time that any festival can give any musicians for rehearsal, everyone and everything just fell into place from the first few bars. This is what jazz musicians do best, come together and play music, and effortless fluidity and technique made it evident why Enrico Tomasso is considered by many people to be one of the best jazz trumpet players in the world at the moment. Making a perfect partnership with Enrico was Martin Foster and his performance on a variety of reed instruments.
Ali Afffleck’s Stomp off! would of course be nothing without Ali, and with her opening song, the classic Mamie’s Blues (219 Blues) (originally by Jellyroll Morton) the musical soundscape for this show was well and truly set as with style, passion and some illuminating introductions to the history of these songs, Ali introduced us to some of the pioneering women performers of this period.
If you have any interest in these formative years of jazz and blues, and in particular the female vocalists of the time, then this was probably the perfect show for you, and for me no one captures that spirit of the times and the essence of not only these great songs but the people behind them better than Ali Affleck. This is Ali’s space and her love for everything and everyone involved in the creation of this music always shines through in any of her performances.
What makes these songs so special, why have they survived over the years (sometimes for 100 years or more)? The answers to these questions are many, but perhaps the most important reasons are that so many of these songs are real records of people’s lives and experiences, they are historical documents in their own right, and Ali Affleck has a very special ability not only to breathe new life back into them, but also to often inhabit the very stories and the very people contained in them.
Anyone who has thought that only contemporary songs can be confrontational, suggestive and even sexually explicit in their lyrics will be in for a surprise on hearing some of these songs for the first time as they explore all of these areas and open up a world that is very different from the one that we so often imagine of the times…sex, drugs, alcohol, the devil’s music and everything else that we think we found first, the people in these songs found a long time ago.
Some of these songs are very special though and amidst a rather eclectic and at times dark and murderous themed collection of songs that included “Stack O'Lee Blues” (Ma Rainey”) and "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" (Bessie Smith) was another song by Bessie Smith, “The Young Woman’s Blues” that was one of the true gems of the show. Here in words and attitude was an affirmation of someone strongly stating her own identity, freedom and sexuality at a time when this was not the expected norm. This song is as relevant today as at the time it was written.
Not everything was murder and mayhem tonight and the words of “The Japanese Sandman” are somehow inspirational, the idea that the old day that the Sandman has bought from us and the new day that he has given us offers all so much hope
“Then you'll be a bit older in the dawn when you wake
And you'll be a bit bolder in the new day you make”
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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