To be honest, the festival’s closing show last night by the Bruknahm Project was kind of boring.?? It basically was 5 guys jamming with some programmed beats, which just didn’t provide enough variety to keep me interested.?? Every once in a while it would change key or rhythm, but not very frequently…the players were mostly quite talented on their instruments, but the two guys who led the project seemed the weakest links on their actual instruments.
There was the cheesy front man who couldn’t pronounce “xie xie” right, who tried to freestyle rap but couldn’t hold it up for more than a few rhyming words in a row.?? It occurred to me, maybe he wasn’t actually trying to say thank you to the audience, but rather was saying “7-up” (qi xi).?? He did do a longer rap once in French, but besides that there wasn’t much hip-hop to the music.?? Sure, the beats would nearly all have lent themselves to some good freestyle but it didn’t happen.?? He also played the drum machine with the programmed beats, some of which were pretty hip, but his own playing on the sample pads wasn’t.
The drum set player was sweet, as was the soprano saxophonist.?? They added a lot to the music, but it still wasn’t enough to make it really exciting and dynamic…probably because the electronic beats and synthesizers were always way louder in the mix than any of the acoustic instruments.?? The bass player, who also played some electric guitar, seemed pretty solid and stuck to pretty basic groove patterns most of the time.?? His electric guitar solos were very faint in the mix too, so I can’t really tell if they were good or not.
The keyboardist had some good things to play, very sparse insertions most of the time but also some chort progressions to give the saxophonist a bit more to play over.?? He also added in some DJ record scratches.
Even though a lot of it was rather long-winded and lacked much depth, it was a good contrast to the rest of the groups at the festival and was challenging to many listeners who hadn’t heard anything like that before.?? I think this group would have been a lot of fun to see in a small club where people were dancing a lot, because I get the feeling that is more their element. To be fair, people were dancing at the end and even though a lot of people left before the end, the crowd that stayed was into it…Probably because the band brought out Zeng Xiaofeng, a pipa player, to join them for the last song.?? As soon as he started playing, the crowd went nuts.?? And he was quite good, had a good sense for the music and a tasteful improvisation style.?? Maybe they should have brought him out at the beginning of the show, then a lot fewer people would have left!
Well, until the next jazz festival…
Wow. I am a fan from the New York City scene. Yeah, watched them drive thecrowd wild in a club Knitting Factory. But also in Bern, Switzerland in front of thousands at sumemr jazz festival goers. too bad that “boring” coment made the highlight of the review on teh web. That’s what peopel will see. I agree with your further comments, there is a lot of great musicianship with these guys and a fresh, new approach to the same old mediums. But, again, your “boring”comment leads off and will catch most peopel’s attention ….really too bad. This gorup needs a chance to survive out here !