Once again CoartJazz and the little hill-top village of Coaraze in the French Alpes-Maritimes have excelled as a nucleus of jazz par excellence. I feel privileged each year I have visited to be a small part of it – as I’m sure do all the others who attend to learn, play, socialise and share experiences. I wonder can it get any better, and it does.
I thought I would struggle to find an original theme for a review of Coartjazz this year – for me it’s my third excursion there and here’s hoping it’s not the last. I have used all the superlatives before and I’m going to have to use them all again as it was – once again – really outstanding. As for a theme it was staring me right in the face, and in my ears, and at the very start of this year’s treasured Coartjazz ‘livret’.
Each Day
With apologies to Cyrille and Michael for the change to the lyric of their beautiful song for me the magic spell that every edition of CoartJazz weaves is truly that “each day brings something new, that lights up your way,” and especially when they played their song at the closing concert. That really was another 2021 Le Bonheur moment.
I’ve just enjoyed a glorious week in the beautiful village of Coaraze in the French Alpes Maritimes at CoartJazz 2021. For its participants these few days offer pure escapism – being entirely immersed in jazz, in camaraderie, in fun (and, for me, French) and bonheur. More of that later.
And afterwards inevitably, that crash back into reality – but also the realization of how lucky we are.
She didn’t want her gran to miss out on Christmas music this year.
Alex Stewart, an Edinburgh-based support worker and musician (Red Hot Rhythm Makers, Cat Named Jack etc), decided when it looked inevitable there would be no live carol singing visits to care homes this Christmas (2020), including the home where her gran Marion Stewart is a resident, St Olaf’s Nursing Home in Nairn, that she needed to do something about it.
The Anoushka Nanguy Quartet and the Georgia Cécile Quartet at the St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh, opening Gallus, the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival Jazz Weekend.
In my last blog I was spoiled for jazz, and this time I was spoiled for more. The Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival has a new little brother (or should it be sister?) in Gallus, the Scottish Jazz Weekend, which kicked off at the St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh last night, the opening acts being newcomer Anoushka Nanguy followed by a now familiar face and voice on the Scottish jazz scene and further afield, Georgia Cécile, each accompanied by a trio. And what a great night it was.
It wasn’t the Festival. It wasn’t the Fringe. It wasn’t the Jazz Festival, but you could be mistaken for thinking it was given the number of top-line jazz gigs that have been happening in Edinburgh over the last few days. We’ve had the Verneert/Simon Quartet – a French, Belgian, Spanish mix – at Polwarth Church and at Whighams, and Simon Spillett with JazzMain at the Voodoo Rooms. There’s been the Yati Durant/David Patrick Miles, Miles, Miles project at the Jazz Bar, and visiting US bassist Adam Booker with Richard Bailey and Keith Haldane at Palmerston Place. And, to round it off, trumpet maestro Jon Green launching his new album with a stellar line-up of Scotland’s finest at the Outhouse. And then there was all the usual programmed activity too.
You know those times in life when you’ve sat through a really mediocre film without nodding off or persevered to the very last words of a rubbish book and thought “please can I have that time of my life back.” And we have all been to gigs like that too. Well, the concert staged by the septet of intervenants, the professionals, to round off the CoartJazz week in August was the absolute polar opposite.
An inspirational week at CoartJazz
The mediaeval village of Coaraze clings to the top of a rocky outcrop a 40 minute drive from Nice on the Cote d’Azur, playground of the rich and famous. But last week it was Coaraze that drew the discerning jazzerati like bees to a honey pot.
There is a palpable buzz as the “gals” get ready. There’s no luxury of a dressing room, or backstage. This is the Edinburgh Jazz Bar, the temple of Jazz, and what a place to see Scotland’s six-piece all girl jazz band, the Red Hot Rhythm Makers. Heads turn as a few bars of Duelling Banjos ring out for the soundcheck, and then, after a brief introduction, it’s straight into Royal Garden Blues.
Led by Ali Affleck (vocal, washboard, cymbal, woodblock), the show is based loosely on the band’s project, Six Gals Named Smith, all of whom were singing or performing songs through the early years of the 20th century, and Bessie Smith, Trixie Smith, Ruby Smith, Clara Smith, Laura Smith and Mamie Smith, are the inspiration and the source of much of the content, along with some Ma Rainey and Memphis Minne.
We’ve had an interesting discussion in the office today about entertainment and angst and concluded that, of course, we go out of our way to be entertained by the fortunes of others. But equally by their misfortunes. King Lear, Mimi, Valjean, Baldrick and so on.
Magical jazz singer and actress Anna Vanosi’s Late Bloomers’ Tales falls into a cherry orchard, tragi-comic middle ground. She recounts her life’s journey so far, taking you on it with her (how old is this girl?) and it’s one of disappointment, unfulfillment and ‘late blooming’. And all the while she’s in her pyjamas! If you get the Facebook clips, it’s a bit of a Daytona Slingshot of a ride.