Cloudmakers Trio - Anybody Hurt?

Jim Hart - Vibes

The Cloudmakers trio created the buzz of the festival on Day 3 (12/10/2013) of the Whirlwind Festival with a combative and ambitious set of just five tunes. Variety and verve were the themes in a numerically challenged set, raining down on the audience until they clapped in jazz soaked revelry.

Jamie Skey - The Quietus

Jim Hart on vibraphone leads from the front, a pathfinder, opening doors of perception in the fearless pursuit of cerebral gymnastics. These contortions aren't just contained between his ears but physically too. On more than one occasion sticks were replaced with bows and he attacked the vibraphone from both sides. Hart, like a Sunday-lunching patriarch carved his roast simultaneously from North and South, jettisoning our emotive stuffing to all four corners of his melodic table.

Michael Janisch - Bass

To my left I spotted an equally animated scribbler, a man with a heroic profile and a beard of Norse proportions. He too seemed energised by the Cloudmakers repertoire, in fact here's the proof. This was Jamie Skey, recent appointee to The Quietus stable as their jazz tip reporter. Check out his review here.

Dave Smith - Drums

The second tune, "Conversation Killer", was anything but. Engaging and upbeat with an ease that ultimately started a germ of an idea, when would the social faux pas be revealed amongst the funk and swing. Although a favourite of mine it was the third, "Post-Stone" that brought the house down, while Hart carved his vibraphone chicken, Michael Janisch's chin worked overtime, proudly thrust in the air, his bass was a rumbling tummy and he eagerly sniffed the vibes' wafting delights. Spikey, aggressive and unforgiving, it swept the audience in a powerful collective moment. The spell was broken by Jim Hart as he reached the microphone and enquired "Anybody Hurt?".



Steve Marchant  - @yorks111

One man with no broken bones was the jazz and cricket 'face', Steve Marchant.  I had seen him at every Whirlwind gig I had attended over the past 3 days, he complimented Jim Hart's development since his Gemini days of the noughties, so I know he had survived a few Hart skirmishes already.

Dave Smith swept us into the "Early Hours" and with Janisch in tow they allowed our minds to wander once more. Creating spaces for playful thoughts after the previous tune had repressed our imaginations by kidnapping them in its high speed chase. They both had time to throw us down a metaphorical escalator in the rhythmical cascade of "Angular Momentum".

Once again no one was hurt but a few swapped tales of jazz bruises as they congregated outside, galvanising constitutions before the final triple bill of the festival.

AL.