2023-08-06 09:30:13
Last night, Saturday, the IV Santander International Jazz Festival closed in style, which has achieved double success: artistic, with all the concerts showing a high level, and public, filling every night (500 souls). except that of the lesser known of the cartel, the Italians The Grasso Brothers, who on Thursday recorded three entrance rooms under the tent of the Circo Quimera, installed in the Parque de Mesones, in the Sardinero.
We dare to order the qualitative scale: the best concert was given by the four trumpeters of the tribute to Thad Jones with the Yankee guest Randy Brecker (Friday); in second place would be Robin McKelle’s big band (Saturday; but we won’t discuss if someone prefers to place it first); in third place we would put the Franco-Dominican vocalist Cyrille Aimée (Wednesday); fourth to be bop by the aforementioned The Grasso Brothers (Thursday); and in fifth position, ‘last but not least’, the last but not the least, we would install the Yankee pianist Bill Charlap (Tuesday).
This Saturday it rained a lot hours before the show of the 47-year-old New York vocalist Robin McKelle, with which the nearby barracks interrupted their activity and no siren slipped into the circus tent during the performance of 15 pieces in 100 minutes with the singer backed by the Barcelona Jazz Orchestra, a total of 15 instrumentalists: piano (Ignasi terrace), double bass and drums plus twelve wind instruments: five saxes (Víctor de Diego from Bilbao playing one of the tenors), three trombones (one in the hands of the only girl, Marina Planellas) and four trumpets.
La big band abriendo fuego con ‘Something’s gotta give’.
O.C
It was an infrequent luxury to be able to hear and enjoy the Catalan big band, very well arranged, although at times plethoric in their expressions, so much so that they crushed the singer on more than a few occasions. A singer who at times seemed to be trying to stick her neck out under Niagara Falls, who was nice and close to the audience (what an end to hers, with people clapping to the beat, singing in response to her…), although she he lacked charisma, treble and timbre and for this reason he was often seen drowned in the winds, for example in the initials ‘Something’s gotta give’, in the Sinatriana ‘Night and day’ or in ‘A tisket a tasket’ by Ella Fitzgerald, one of her influences, to which she dedicates her latest album, ‘Impressiones of Ella’, although little scat, few vocalizations was provided by the New Yorker in her growing performance.
Robin McKelle joked a lot (“greetings to those of you behind, my hair is fine today, I hope other parts of my body are fine too”, she released in reference to her priceless booty under an orange dress and sort of padded and in bloomers) , he was concerned that his message would reach 500 souls (“do you understand what I’m saying?”, he inquired before the lack of reaction after his jokes), and in the epilogue he managed to make the audience eat out of his hand (palms rhythmic, choirs let’s say them lolailos, and the coda with the bye bye I have to go and you too…).
The Catalan orchestra imposed its weight, from swing to blues (and rhythm and blues a la Colin James or the Roomful Of Blues), but there were times when the BJO thinned out its participation, or pushed with more compactness (with less richness harmonica), and things worked better and Kelly was able to breathe, for example in ‘Taking a chance on me’ by Ella and included in her last album, in ‘Lover man’ with the big band joining in the final part of a piece included on his second album (“I recorded my first two albums with a big band, but I had to abandon it because it was too expensive,” he said not so jokingly), in a content ‘April in Paris’, in a crackling Sinatrian ‘I ‘ve got the world on a string’, in the only number accompanied solely by piano, double bass and drums (that is, in ‘Embraceable you’, with Kelly a balladeer from a nightclub and Sublime Terrace on piano), and the rock ‘Abracadabra’ by the Steve Miller Band, very well tricked out with swing and no pachanguero varnish.
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