Hot jazz on a balmy evening
Standing: Mark Giordano, Joost Zoeteman Sitting: Micheal Gusturoff, and Stefan De Ridder.
IF MICHAEL Gustorff, German-born jazz violinist and guest member of the Dutch jazz group Collectif, decides to embark on a career as scat vocalist, this writer can perhaps take some credit for it. For, in response to my request to do "A Night in Tunisia", he started off with scat-singing the tune for two minutes before his colleagues and he very gamely got down to playing it on their instruments. After which he confessed he had never sung as a professional performer!
Joost Zoeteman on solo guitar, Marc Giordano on acoustic bass guitar, and Stefan de Ridder on rhythm guitar, making up the core of Collectif, ably collaborated with Gustorff to give a sterling performance of classic jazz last Saturday evening at Windsor Sheraton and Towers. Obviously unprepared for "... Tunisia'', by rising to the challenge and improvising their way through it they gave the audience an object lesson in what jazz is all about. Their repertoire is based on the swing hits of the '30s and '40s, especially the repertoire of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France (QHCF). Even the composition of the group is inspired by QCHF, which starred Django Reinhardt on solo guitar and Stéphane Grappelli on violin, supported by two rhythm guitarists and a bassist. But for bass guitar in place of (double) bass and one less rhythm guitarist, the music, if not the ambience, was almost like it was in the night clubs of Paris six or seven decades ago.
Zoeteman and Gustorff fitted each other like a glove fits a hand, recreating the magic of the legendary Belgian gypsy Reinhardt and his equally legendary foil Grappelli. On several numbers one of them took the lead on the theme before the other jumped in for a solo improvisation, followed by the other's solo. Giordano too got a fair share of solos, in another departure from QCHF's practice.
The most exciting numbers were those on which, after the longer improvised solos, Zoeteman and Gustorff alternated with each other in a series of short solo exchanges. The opening number "Minor Swing", "Undecided", "What Is This Thing Called Love?" (with a Latin beat for its intro), "How High the Moon", "C-Jam Blues" (which they speeded up on the request of their sponsor, Seagram's whisky, for "fast music" and jokingly renamed "Sea-Gram Blues"), "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing" (another of this writer's requests) were all marked by Zoeteman-Gustorff exchanges and the kind of pace that must have satisfied the sponsor in addition to pleasing the audience. But the slower numbers too went down well, as they well deserved it too.
If there was something slightly incongruous for the contemporary jazz buff, it was the fact that there was one musician in the severely limited role of rhythm guitarist.
After all, the bass guitarist took solos, like bassists, bass guitarists and almost everyone else in contemporary jazz groups, even those that play classic swing jazz, often do. Incorporating this one feature of modern jazz would have added to the beauty of the recreated past rather than detracted from it.
JAZZEBEL
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