Set two: Odessa Blues Suite

Now that was great fun. Mad amount of ground covered during this suite. There probably is a mad amount of ground around Odessa. Also unbelievable emotional contrasts at work, we started somewhere near permafrost with Nils working the high range of his trombone, but the band also plain rocked out – the man who sat beside me laughed with delight.

The players worked like a cast of characters with every man at least a Jekyll and Hyde. Simon’s grandstanding was a joy, when he approaches the cocktail new music slyly, he throws that nagging little phrases that keep tugging the whole thing into different directions. John did great clatter and did his best to unsettle the beat, until he gave up, fell in and everybody honkytonked. Maybe my favourite part were the close voiced (and that means really close, as close as you can get between two microtonal champs) chorales in the slow part. Also Simon taking up a phasing effect from BJ and both doing an electroacoustic back and forth. During Nils’ best breathless Donald Duck impersonation, BJ suddenly discovered he had lost his way. Hayden played solid :-)  

Good times, Lutz