Review: Br?tzmann & Leigh/Les Diaboliques

Arnolfini/Cube, Sunday November 21

Talk about a game of two halves. Like many arriving at the Arnolfini my anticipation of some great improvised music was tinged with regret at missing an equally tempting gig at The Cube. Full marks, therefore, to promoters QuJunktion for delaying the start of Brotzmann/Leigh’s Cube set to allow us to leg it across and thus catch both performances. Back at the Arnolfini, however, we were treated to a chilly reception as, unfathomably, the air conditioning seemed to be running full tilt in the theatre space. Fortunately opening quartet Halftone had brought some pretty sensible knitwear with them but many in the audience were soon putting their coats back on. 

Halftone’s instrumentation – flute, violin, cello, double bass – suggested a classical quartet and, indeed, much of their ‘part-composed’ music seemed rooted in mid-20th century classical music, albeit as viewed through a contemporary improvisational approach. Thus moments of chamber music led to breathy vocalisations, loud bursts and sudden silences interspersed with the kind of instrument abuse (slapping, bashing, scraping) that would give a music teacher nightmares. Playing with eyes closed throughout the four players were clearly listening intently and following an emotional logic that gave a continuity to their single extended piece.

If that was serious stuff Les Diaboliques were a hoot from the get-go, as bassist Joëlle Léandre left in search of her colleagues while an offstage vocalist Maggie Nicols asked the promoter to fetch pianist Irène Schweizer from upstairs so she herself wouldn’t get out of breath. When the trio finally assembled onstage there was an issue with the brightly-clad Nicols bemoaning her choice of socks, resulting in an exchange of footwear with someone in the audience, the bemused promoter trying to announce the band notwithstanding. For this brilliant threesome it was impossible to tell when the performance had started, theatricality and comedy being as much part of their act as music, but start it did with a strangely Arabic feel, Ms Nicols babbling and crooning as a groove emerged from piano and bass and a more conventional jazz scat took off. Maggie Nicols’ vocal vocabulary is enormous, with stylistic devices learnt from Middle Europe, Africa and the Arctic, and all this fitted together perfectly while her comical observations about the cold room (“I wish I’d put me vest on”) and her colleagues behaviour (“That’s so unprofessional!”) roll in and out of focus. When she slipped into fragments of songs like Every Time We Say Goodbye it was apparent how beautiful her voice can be, 

She was not the only one to improvise vocally, with Mme Léandre contributing a surreal protest in French, given comic subtitles from the singer and culminating in the pronouncement that it was ‘The end of haricots!” while Maggie sang the anarchist anthem Bandiera Rossa. The counterpoint to all this was Irene Schweizer, sat demurely behind the piano and mostly maintaining the stern visage of a disapproving adult. A creative player herself she spent as much time craning into the piano as playing the keys, creating angelic swoops of harp music as well as rattling percussion. Importantly she kept her eyes firmly on the bass player and the pair worked together perfectly to create a jazz-tinged soundtrack to some perfect nonsense. Lighthearted it may have been and foolish it often was but all of it impeccably judged and brilliantly executed.

And then it was a hasty dash to join a capacity audience at The Cube for Brötzmann/Leigh, a decidedly untheatrical contrast, with the two players quietly engrossed in their playing on a darkened stage. Peter Brötzmann picked his instruments from a collection of saxophones on a table beside him, Heather Leigh sat, shrouded in her cascade of hair, bent over her steel guitar. Their music was a mutual exploration of form, generally starting from patterns of rhythm and harmonics generated by Leigh playing solo, then fielded by Brötzmann and reconstructed, sometimes into extended solo expositions pushed along with short repetitive phrases. Both players made a virtue of economy, building simpler musical ingredients into ambient moods. Leigh’s control of the sounds available to her was precise and decisive in setting the context, Brötzmann’s energetic wrangling was relentless. The musical process was laid bare by the clarity of the duo setting, however, and made it a fascinating dialogue that was all-too soon over.