Guardian Live review published 3 Sept 2007.
Jazz
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford
Pigalle, London, Friday 31 August 2007
**** (four stars)
For the Mercury-nominated Basquiat Strings this is the best of times. Since the nomination announcement, the live bookings and album sales have been rolling in. The Mercury (results announced on Tuesday 4 Sept) is a win-win proposition, since they have scored a considerable victory for their string-driven creative music. But here at the Pigalle (playing opposite the feelgood Congo Faith Healers), it’s a no-win situation. Parked just a few metres from the stage are several tables of revellers, noisily ignoring the band - who might have well been turntables. Those who are here for the music have to sit further away.
Yet the Basquiats are amazingly stoic, playing their complex, moving numbers with great finesse. They open with the driving Junk and segue confidently into Bobette, both from the album Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford (F-IRE). How Do Birds Hear Music, with its Psycho-like stabs from violinist Emma Smith, is another composition by laid-back leader and cellist Ben Davis.
Davis’s arrangement of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman is intense and dense, while his re-invention of Infant Eyes finds additional emotion in the gorgeous chords of Wayne Shorter’s 1960s tune (though the quiet, improvised solo cello introduction slips under the noise floor).
The Basquiats play two new titles including Ten Pin Bowling, a showy number with “big band” sections reminiscent of Harry Lookofsky’s experiments. It’s on pieces like this, and Forceful Beast, that they’re closest to a regular jazz group; Davis and violinist Vicky Fifield solo very effectively over the swinging bass and drums.
They finish the gig with Double Dares, starting with a nicely dirty cello riff before digging hard into its gritty ensemble theme. This tune makes the most of Rochford’s range of sounds and drum feels, and the band play with great confidence, communicating to anyone prepared to listen.
John L. Walters