PRINT
Time Out – listingsGuardian Guide – Pick of the Week 21st & 28th MayGuardian – live review by John Fordham 30th May
ONLINE
Jazzwise – Breaking News story 4 May
JazzBreakfast blog – preview by Peter Bacon
AccessAllAreas – previewJazz Journal – preview
TheJazzMann - preview
LondonJazz – preview
The Wire – listings
A World In London - DJ Ritu listed Gypsy Band show on her website/ podcast
RADIO
BBC Radio 3: Late Junction – Fiona Talkington mentioned all the shows and played Thot
BBC Radio 3: Jazz On 3 – mentioned the festival 23rd May but did not have time to play a track
Jazz FM: Helen Mayhew plugged all the dates on her Sunday show, but did not want an interview
UK Jazz Radio – Peter Slavid plugged all the dates
COMMENTS
The Guide - During the weekend of 21st May we were in competition with Robert Glasper and Charlie Haden for previews (they were both previewed), both of which John Fordham felt he had to cover
Time Out – again, we clashed with Glasper (he got the Critic's Choice), although the issue we needed did not run any jazz previews. However, Mike Flynn did say this "the F-ire lot have been around for ages and it's hard to always spin a new line about 'how exciting' they are"
REVIEW
John Fordham, the Guardian
Monday 30 May 2011 14.48 BST
F-ire festival – review
The closing concert of the F-ire collective's annual Rhythmic Frontiers festival was given by Django Bates's trio. And, even if Bates was operating in his most jazz-specific mode by reworking Charlie Parker's 60-year-old music, and F-ire ordinarily has a sweeping world-music remit, in which contemporary rhythmic experiments are about the only unifying element, it felt an appropriate choice.
Bates's originality and dynamism – notably as part of the charismatic 80s collective Loose Tubes - was an acknowledged early inspiration for F- ire. The closing night took in a workshop for founder Barak Schmool's Royal Academy students, Bates's Beloved Bird Trio, and world-music guitarist Jonny Phillips's Oriole, playing the cinematic sonic-travelogue from the group's upcoming Every New Day album.
The F-IRE philosophy was at the core of Phillips's show. An evolving relationship between Schmool on congas and Bosco de Oliveira on drums furnished absorbing contrasts: with the lyrical and softly propulsive sound of the leader's acoustic guitar; with a texture-rich lineup including the imaginative cellist Ben Davis and powerful tenor saxist Idris Rahman. Glowering Spanish harmonies, rhythmically devious sambas and broad-horizon ruminations characterised Phillips's atmospherically songlike music, and its periodic jazz diversions sharpened the edges.
The edges, of course, were more audible throughout Bates's gig, with his fellow Anglo-Danes – bassist Petter Eldh and drummer Peter Bruun – unleashing a restless undercurrent of deft countermelody, fast-shuffling grooves, free-time and explosive accents under the leader's radically bent Parker themes and flying improvisations. He breezily Latinised Scrapple from the Apple, turned Billie's Bounce into an alternation of surges and pauses, and gave Ah-Leu-Cha a zen-like calm – but rhythmically, Bates's trio is right in F-ire's ballpark. A majestic, and very restrained, ballad rendition of Iain Ballamy's This World, however, almost stole the show.
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