A Celebration of Keith Tippett
(Pig Data. 266 minutes – Blu-ray/obtain overview by Mark McKergow)

Pianist, composer, improviser and educator Keith Tippett died in 2020 aged 72. A fearless musician whose profession took him from a secondary trendy faculty in Bristol’s Southmead to the Royal Albert Corridor to High Of The Pops, around the globe and again to his native Gloucestershire, the Brunel-sideburned, cider-drinking Tippett was very pleased with his roots. His latter-day status rests a superb deal on solo piano improvisations however his profession encompassed the massive 50-piece Centipede undertaking, teams in lots of configurations, the Mujician improvising quartet and the Dedication Orchestra who carried out large-scale preparations of tunes by the South African Blue Notes who fled to London within the mid Nineteen Sixties.

It was becoming that this collection of concert events celebrating Keith Tippett must be organised in Bristol, that includes many musicians from the town who had labored with the maestro through the years, together with friends from across the nation. These six units, every round 40 minutes, occurred over a single day in October 2021.

They’ve now eventually been launched for us all to take pleasure in; within the outdated days this might have been a six-LP field set at a excessive value, so the asking value (£15 for obtain, £20 for a Blu-Ray disk of the entire thing on video) is a steal.

The primary of the six units sees Matthew Bourne paired with Glen Leach on two grand pianos. Bourne carried out with Tippett in a two-piano function from 2017-2019 together with a present at London’s Union Chapel which turned out to be Keith’s final. There’s a great deal of working contained in the piano, plucking and holding strings, with superb bass rumbles and tense rippling earlier than a elegant transcendent end fades away.

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The following set sees vocalists Julie Tippetts (Keith’s widow) and Maggie Nicols in one other improvised duo. They begin out in virtually telepathic reference to notes, phrases, phrases, rhythms spilling out in a circulate of mesmerising music. Nicols strikes to the piano and provides one other dimension. The efficiency spills into bickering noises and phrases, thumb piano rhythms tinkling away. When Julie Tippetts intones “He was a pressure to be reckoned with”, we all know to whom she is referring. The viewers applauds wildly – however the present isn’t over. Nicols says that she will be able to’t do the splits any extra (in her 70s) after which sees if she’s proper or not. (You’ll must get the Blu-Ray to search out out.) Musical containers (one other Tippett favorite) seem earlier than the efficiency fades into respiration.

Tippett’s 2011 suite From Granite To Wind is recreated by a robust septet together with three saxophonists (Kevin Figes, Ben Waghorn and James Gardiner-Bateman) from the unique recording. Bristol’s go-to pianist Jim Blomfield has the unenviable job of opening the piece with Tippett’s piano introduction and proves himself very a lot as much as the duty. The second the swinging South African-inflected melody seems is complete pleasure – well worth the value of admission alone. Jake McMurchie (Get The Blessing) takes an prolonged tenor saxophone solo to nice impact, whereas the engine-room of Al Swainger (double bass) and veteran Tony Orrell (drums) powers together with vitality and verve.

Double Dreamtime has trumpeter Jim Dvorak main a distinguished solid recalling the Dreamtime group with whom Keith Tippett was a key participant from the Nineteen Eighties onwards. The ‘double’ parts imply that every instrument is doubled as per their Double Hassle recording; the musicians coming in two by two in a nod to Tippett’s love of this format, most notably in his Ark unit. Authentic members Jim Le Baigue (drums) and Roberto Bellatella (bass), together with Paul Dunmall (saxophones) and Kevin G Davy (trumpet) and Mark Sanders (drums) from the Double band are joined by Harrison Smith (tenor sax), Paul Rogers (bass), and Alan Tomlinson & Richard Foote (trombones). A spotlight of this set is Tippett’s tune Billy Goes To City, a swaggering twelve bar blues with Dunmall and Smith seizing their moments.

The Paul Dunmall Quartet set inevitably brings again recollections of Mujician, the improvising quartet led by Keith Tippett with Dunmall and Paul Rogers from the Nineteen Eighties. Right here Mark Sanders is on drums changing authentic member Tony Levin whose demise in 2011 introduced down the curtain on the band, and Liam Noble is on the piano. In fact, the music produced by the 4 is of the very best high quality; one part sees Dunmall on alto duelling with Rogers’ double bass, whereas Sanders lets rip with a terrific drum solo in the direction of the top. These musicians are all masters in listening in addition to enjoying, they usually make area for one another seamlessly because the efficiency goes alongside.

The finale of the occasion sees the Celebration Orchestra, led by Kevin Figes and specifically constituted for the event, play a few of Keith Tippett’s massive group music. Miles Levin joins on drums, one other hyperlink to Tippett’s life and work. Keith’s personal association of Harry Miller’s tune Traumatic Expertise opens the set, adopted by a part of Centipede’s Septober Power with Julie Tippetts, daughter Inca and Maggie Nicols becoming a member of in for the vocal part. A Music and Could Day each function alto sax leads, with Figes and James Gardiner-Bateman stepping ahead with confidence and sensitivity. The present closes with Dudu Pukwana’s tune MRA, organized by Sean Bergin for the Dedication Orchestra – a nice show of all-in part enjoying to convey the occasion to a rousing end.

This bold and profitable tribute was put collectively by Kevin Figes together with an organising committee together with Janinka Diverio, Ian Storrer and Nod Knowles. The sound high quality of the recordings is superb (bravo engineer Jonathan Scott) and to have all of it one video implies that the visible and bodily exchanges so key to this music are captured for us all to take pleasure in. This set is a worthy reminder of the maverick, hard-working and completely dedicated life that Keith Tippett led. His perception within the energy of music, notably improvised music, to move audiences and remodel the world was unshakeable. “Unite for each nation, unite for all the lands, unite for liberation, unite for freedom of man”, he wrote in for Centipede in 1969. Like a lot of Tippett’s music that is nonetheless present and nonetheless important.

LINKS: Full particulars / buy hyperlink for A Celebration of Keith Tippett on Pig Data
Tony Dudley-Evans’ LJN overview of the unique concert events