Billy Childs opened his Kilbourn Hall show in a
gallop and hardly let up throughout the hour-long set. He played the piano with
the sort of wild abandon that can only come after decades of painstaking
practice and extensive experience. His quartet — with Dayna Stephens on
saxophone; Ben Williams, bass; and Ari Hoenig, drums — operated like a
well-oiled machine, perfectly in sync with Childs.
Childs played mostly original compositions and each one was
totally distinct from the others. While the opener, “Backwards Bop,” was a
hard-bop burner, his other tunes experimented with time signatures in complex ways.
No matter what the tune was, Childs’s solos were brilliant, with shimmering
right-hand runs punctuated by chordal bursts. He would play in time, syncopate
to the time, and venture outside the time, but made perfect sense every time.
Another great featured soloist, Stephens tended to play in
John Coltrane-style sheets of sound. Williams contributed a beautiful bass solo
on “Peace,” the one non-original tune and the only ballad of the set. Hoenig
excelled on every short solo he took trading eights.
The Billy Childs
Quartet won’t perform again during this year’s XRIJF. billychilds.com.
When I took a seat at the Lutheran Church, I wondered if I
would prefer Eivør in the context
of Yggdrasil more than on her own. That notion was quickly
dispelled. Eivør has an absolutely remarkable voice, and I couldn’t get enough
of it.
There was a difference; in general, the tunes were catchier
and more pop-oriented than those of Yggdrasil. But they were wonderful songs, a
strange combination of her Faroe Islands folk roots and the music of the global
village she now lives in. Even the instrumentation was a cross between the
primitive (a Faroe Island hand drum) and the futuristic (synthesizers and
petals). Her two bandmates were excellent, one providing bass, keys, effects,
and guitar, the other on drums and absolutely perfect harmonies.
The audience in the church hung on every word of her ethereal
singing. There seems to be some Kate Bush influence in her style, but there is
more than enough originality to make it her own. The set was dominated by
original songs, many in Faroese, but she also sang a lovely version of Leonard
Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat.”
Eivør’s stories — one about stalking Leonard Cohen, finding
his house, and knocking on his door (he wasn’t home) — were always endearing.
The local crowd appreciated her account of visiting the House of Guitars on her
first visit here 12 years ago and buying her first electric guitar, and how she
ended up there again today. “I knew it would be dangerous,” she said as she
held up a second electric guitar that she proceeded to play for the first time.
Eivør isn’t performing
again during XRIJF 2017. For more, check out eivor.com.
I ended the evening at Xerox Auditorium where the Gabriel
Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet was laying down a rhythmic feast. Every time
percussionist Freddy Lobatón took a solo on his Cajón (a wooden
box that he coaxed an extraordinary range of sounds from) the audience
responded enthusiastically.
Solos by Alegria (trumpet) and Laura Andrea Leguia
(saxophone) also excelled. The set was pretty free-ranging, with a
Peruvian-tinged rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” evolving into a long parade of other tunes, resulting in a half-hour of
non-stop music.
That’s it for the
Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet, but you can find more at gabrielalegria.com.
Sunday night, I’m looking forward to hearing Bill
Frisell at Kilbourn Hall. Then I’ll head over to the Lutheran Church to
check out Jochen Rueckert. And I’ll end the night at The Little Theatre with
saxophonist Adam Kolker.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2017.
