Harvest Group EJBF 2022 Review Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival The Jazz Bar 16th July Review
The Harvest Group were at The Jazz Bar as part of the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2022 programme and even for an early evening start time (6 pm) the venue was full to standing room only.
The Jazz Bar is in seating terms a fairly small venue, but its importance on the Edinburgh Jazz scene has been huge over the years and so many musicians and bands have played here. The Jazz Bar is a regular venue on the EJBF calendar but, outside of the festival, this venue hosts an extensive range of jazz music throughout the year, so it was an obvious space for Harvest Group to perform in.
I have to admit that, for me, this is my first experience of the group and their music, and perhaps the same is true for many who were at this show too. Who then are Harvest Group? Well, the answer is that the group comes from Belgium and are considered by many people to be at the forefront of the contemporary jazz scene in their home country (and across Europe), and they are led by guitarist Guillaume Vierset.
To say that Harvest Group is a “jazz group” is I, think, a bit limited as a description of their music, and to me they are far more than that, they are an arts collective that is painting with sound and defying any crude attempts at genre classification.
Before writing this review I did a bit of research online into the back catalogue of Harvest Group, and other projects and solo albums by Guillaume Vierset, and it is obvious that there is something very special and unique happening within this musical collective and the work that they are creating. The most recent album – “Lightmares” (released in March 2022 and the source of much of tonight’s music) is an inspired work that is a soundscape that is at times disturbing and beautiful at the same time.
For the creation of Harvest Group, Guillaume Vierset has brought together some of the leading young talents on the contemporary jazz scene.
There is superficially that illusion that the music of Harvest Group is freeform, but it is as carefully structured as any classical or progressive jazz music that I have reviewed (or listened to). Here, every note, every silence, is there for a reason as the group play with sounds that often are not expected from their instruments as well as working with everything that the musical composition toolbox can give them (timing, tempo, progressions, everything is in play here), and at times, with this music tonight I was taken back to those early experimental sounds of groups like The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd. For me, unexpectedly finding musicians like Harvest Group, who have created such individual and expressive music, is what makes my day.
If I have one negative from this performance it is that with a performance of concept music like this that often grouped individual components into pieces of 15-20 minutes or more with nothing more than an introduction to the band members was a missed opportunity for Guillaume Vierset to give us all a little window of insight into the thought process behind the creation of some of this wonderful music.
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
The Jazz Bar is in seating terms a fairly small venue, but its importance on the Edinburgh Jazz scene has been huge over the years and so many musicians and bands have played here. The Jazz Bar is a regular venue on the EJBF calendar but, outside of the festival, this venue hosts an extensive range of jazz music throughout the year, so it was an obvious space for Harvest Group to perform in.
I have to admit that, for me, this is my first experience of the group and their music, and perhaps the same is true for many who were at this show too. Who then are Harvest Group? Well, the answer is that the group comes from Belgium and are considered by many people to be at the forefront of the contemporary jazz scene in their home country (and across Europe), and they are led by guitarist Guillaume Vierset.
To say that Harvest Group is a “jazz group” is I, think, a bit limited as a description of their music, and to me they are far more than that, they are an arts collective that is painting with sound and defying any crude attempts at genre classification.
Before writing this review I did a bit of research online into the back catalogue of Harvest Group, and other projects and solo albums by Guillaume Vierset, and it is obvious that there is something very special and unique happening within this musical collective and the work that they are creating. The most recent album – “Lightmares” (released in March 2022 and the source of much of tonight’s music) is an inspired work that is a soundscape that is at times disturbing and beautiful at the same time.
For the creation of Harvest Group, Guillaume Vierset has brought together some of the leading young talents on the contemporary jazz scene.
There is superficially that illusion that the music of Harvest Group is freeform, but it is as carefully structured as any classical or progressive jazz music that I have reviewed (or listened to). Here, every note, every silence, is there for a reason as the group play with sounds that often are not expected from their instruments as well as working with everything that the musical composition toolbox can give them (timing, tempo, progressions, everything is in play here), and at times, with this music tonight I was taken back to those early experimental sounds of groups like The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd. For me, unexpectedly finding musicians like Harvest Group, who have created such individual and expressive music, is what makes my day.
If I have one negative from this performance it is that with a performance of concept music like this that often grouped individual components into pieces of 15-20 minutes or more with nothing more than an introduction to the band members was a missed opportunity for Guillaume Vierset to give us all a little window of insight into the thought process behind the creation of some of this wonderful music.
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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