From Jeff Waye Sent Mon, Jul 12th 1999, 19:15
From Jeff Waye Sent Mon, Jul 12th 1999, 19:15
Hey Yo's Yeah, Koala rocked it in a short set stylee. The Coldcut tune was 'Panopticon', Amon track was 'Sordid' (for anyone at the Amon gig the previous Sunday, the first 40 minutes was all dub plates of stuff of his next record), the trumpet bit solo is called 'Drunken Trumpet' and will be on his record. Innerzone reaction was pretty extreme here. People either loved or hated (which is usually a good thing anyway). I thought it suffered from some sound problems, in that I think I enjoyed it more than most as I've heard the record and could tell what funky bits that were there but buried in the mix. Anyway, it was definitly a good step away from the usual tourist crap they book for the main event. Plus it was wicked seeing A-Trak, Koala, and Innerzone infront of 100 000 people. Oh ya, buy the Innerzone record. It's really excellent, don't expect Paperclip People hits or anything, expect some really good downbeat jazz...and an excellent take (intentional or not) on the old latin tune 'Jingo' (was that Eddie Palmieri?...the one Santana made popular...) When all was said and done though the award for best show of the festival has to go to Art Ensemble of Chicago. I went expecting a group of old guys who couldn't live up to my expectations, and instead got more scronk then even I had bargained for. Not a hint of melody for almost the first hour (...a good thing by the way), lots of full on horn blowing, Cecil Taylor style piano smacking, some good face paint, lots of 'serious jazz' people leaving (again, a sure sign of quality). Fucking awesome Take Care Jeff >hello. Just wanted to drop a line that anyone who was at the montreal jazz >festival tuesday night should have witnessed an awesome show. it was the >pre-Carl Craig show (he was playing nxt, or rather once he started i couldn't >really figure out what he was doing.. it was he and the "Innerzone >Orchestra", and i think he was the guy ranting over the music about the >future of techno and stuff. anyway for 2 tracks it was rough organny jazzy >breakbeaty fast stuff and then a bunch of african guys came out and did >tribal dance sort of things with cowbells. isn't he supposed to be a detroit >techno guy?) Anyway, A-trak (spelling?) came on first and did some amazing >beat juggling and all sorts of those famous turntable tricks. really >impressive. i'm sure someone will tell me he sucked but this is the first >time i've ever seen a DJ like him do this sort of thing so Peace! my friends >and i almost completely forgot about A-trak, however, after Kid Koala's >performance, until we listened to the minidisc we recorded during the show. >Kid K's was a more musical set, starting with that Coldcut track, don't >remember the title, and doing scratchy bits over it. He would play along >with it by picking up the needle and placing it on another groove of the >record, over and over, adjusting the pitch to create melody! Then there was >the heaviest/beatiest of the Amon Tobin tracks with really amazing >scratching. finally a real jazzy number was backing him, it was sort of a >swing, and he scratched a trumpet along to it. he was practically playing the >trumpet, changing the notes played with different speed scratch strokes, >except he could reverse it too =). we were pretty much blown away. one of >the coolest shows i've ever seen, and groovy. some of them canadians are >weird tho -- hardly anyone was groovin their body to the musics, most of >which were just droolin with funky chunks. we'll try and get up an MP3 of >those two DJ sets sometime. > >bye >krzysztof graves >===