“Impeach Trump.” The message emblazoned on the huge button pinned to guitarist Marc Ribot’s jacket is clear for all to see. When trumpeter and fellow American Dave Douglas then observes that Theresa May is currently in Washington DC with the US’s new commander-in-chief, he notes dryly that this places both of our leaders out of the country. Douglas and Ribot’s political stance is not one of sitting on the fence.
Their music is similarly unequivocal. Alongside drummer Susie Ibarra in the experimental trio Douglas – Ribot – Ibarra the three musicians from New York play improv jazz, a medium in which each individual is given the maximum scope to explore their music in wholly different ways. It is a concept that makes for remarkable listening.
In what is yet another wonderful exclusive for the Howard Assembly Room – testament to its glowing reputation as a venue in which world-class musicians want to perform – Douglas – Ribot – Ibarra are playing here tonight on what is the only UK date on their current European tour. They are performing New Sanctuary, a new suite of twelve short improv jazz compositions, each one named after an Italian month of the year. The twelve pieces of New Sanctuary were released chronologically and one per month throughout 2016. In a further example of perfect uniformity in what is an otherwise purely non-conformist musical world, each composition is written on one single stave. In other words, the entire suite fits on twelve staves of music.
For 80 compelling minutes, Dave Douglas, Marc Ribot and Susie Ibarra twist and turn their individual and collective artistry across the open landscape of New Sanctuary. On ‘Febbraio’, the second piece of the night and centred on the key of A major, Ribot’s Iberian-inflected textures and colour conjure up distant memories of Miles Davis’s 1960 masterpiece Sketches of Spain. With its fluttering trumpet soaring way up above a stuttering, compelling guitar rhythm, the ensuing ‘Marzo’ captures the trio in astonishing full flight.
‘Aprile’ features a ferocious guitar burst from Ribot, one that does bring to mind his peerless work with Tom Waits in the 1980s when Waits’ music began to veer off in a dramatic and far more experimental direction. And as the trio deftly turn each coming page on the Italian almanac, they entrance us with the sound of subtle compositional elements, Ibarra’s kulintang bells, musical spirituality and winter months that contain all the dark energy and despondency of some proto-heavy metal jazz ritual.
This is inspired, complex, polytonal music for both the heart and mind. By any measure, it is a most perfect way to start the weekend though I strongly suspect that Donald Trump, a man who doesn’t much care for the arts and culture, would absolutely hate it.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from this performance can be found HERE
