Went out with Magda last night to RURA to hear some jazz.
On this evening Christoph Titz and his band were playing. I hadn’t heard of them before so we had a little listen on MySpace. I have to say I was a little bit apprehensive about the electronic samples and drum loops, and the trumpet sound not quite fitting in with them, thinking OK this might be a little boring or too avante garde.
But happily my doubts we unfounded and it sounded excellent. Perhaps the performance was marred by technical details. For example they repeatedly asked the sound guy for more monitor volume, the microphone didn’t work when he wanted it to, and during the middle of a particularly captivating space dream vibe soundscape, the dude sitting next to me spilt his drink all over the floor and the people sitting in front of us.
Another source of distraction was this shiny white Powerbook:
When on his break during the song Christoph started fiddling with it to change the volume or programme or whatever he was doing. But there is a little MIDI keyboard next to it with keys, buttons, and knobs, so I thought they could have set up that to control everything. Also in the rig is some Roland keyboard with two MIDI cables coming out of it (so perhaps using softsynths on the powermac), and a nice big board, sounded like a Yamaha DX7.
The solos were great, in particular the dummer soloed like a crazy man, but there was no bass solo. I was disappointed by that because he looked a little bit like Charles Mingus.
After the band finished and walked off stage, it took the crowd a little while to cry for more. The RURA crowd seemed a little bit more reserved and quieter than other jazz club audiences I have been in. Perhaps they weren’t rowdy because it was so packed down there that no-one could get to the bar. After the fabulous and well received encore we ascended the staircase out of the basement and into the smokey top bar, put on coats, then stepped out into the wind-chilled night and walked home.