Bahla & TootArd - AWIL double-bill

Joseph Costi

A double-bill of sensational bands on this A World in London - Bahla and TootArd!
Click to listen: https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/a-world-in-london-31st-january-2018/

Tal Janes

Date - 31st January 2018

Venue - A World In London, Resonance FM, London, UK

Ines Loubet

Bahla
Joseph Costi - piano
Tal Janes - guitar
Ines Loubet - vocals
Andrea Di Biase - bass
Ben Brown - drums

Current album - Imprints (2017)

Ben Brown

Future Performance
2nd FEB 2018 - Anteros Arts Foundation, Norwich
14th FEB 2018 - The Holt, Sheffield
15th FEB 2018 - The Basement, York
16th FEB 2018 - Jazz Cafe, Newcastle
18th FEB 2018 - The Jazz Bar, Edinburgh
19th FEB 2018 - Guild Sessions, Lincoln
20th FEB 2018 - The Peer Hat, Manchester
21st FEB 2018 - Speakeasy, Torquay
22nd FEB 2018 - Broomhill Arts, Barnstaple
27th FEB 2018 - Pizza Express Soho, London

Andrea Di Biase

Bahla opened our show with their wonderful atmospheric concoction of cinematic jazz weaved around Jewish folk music. This five-piece group was formed in London just two years ago by Venezuelan pianist Joseph Costi and guitarist Tal Janes. Along with Andrea Di Biase on double-bass, drummer Ben Brown, and the sublime vocals of Ines Loubet Franco from Portugal, they’ve just released their debut album, ‘Imprints’, and you can catch them on tour across the UK from February 2nd. Their London date will be at Pizza Express in Soho’s Dean Street on February 27th! www.bahla.co.uk

Tootard
Hasan Nakhleh
Rami Nakhleh

Current album - Laisser Passer (2017)

Future Performance
2 FEB 2018 - Cobalt Studios, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
3 FEB 2018 - Celtic Connections, Glasgow

Rami Nakhleh

Next up on this AWIL were Hasan and Rami Nakhleh from TootArd, who’d just flown in from Paris and are set to play Rich Mix on February 1st! TootArd’s superb album ‘Laissez Passer’ has stirred up a whole heap of excitement on the international scene since it emerged last year. Their tracks marry rock guitar with classical Arabic sax,  painting in Maqam riffs and Levant-tinted desert blues, filtered through deep dubby Reggae bass lines and compelling Maghreb rhythms. This charged and infectious winning musical formula of traditional meets urban has been handed down from their father and gleaned from YouTube, whilst their lyrical themes centre around the natural world, love, and travel. This latter point is a poignant one for TootArd having grown up in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Their idyllic small village in the Majdal Shams mountains is constrained by borders yet inhabited by people restricted by their ID pass - Laissez Passer - leaving them effectively stateless & without a sense of belonging. But in TootArd’s case, their bold, unique, and inventive sounds qualify them as citizens of the world-class musician community, and fortunately for all of us, a musical passport to freedom. Find out more here: https://www.tootard.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tootard/                                                                      

Hasan Nakhleh

31/1/18 – AWIL 152  Online: https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/a-world-in-london-31st-january-2018/  Production & pics by Sofia Gaetani-Morris, Norman Druker, Sophie Darling,  and sketches by Alban Low. Also this week non-stop global music at SOAS. Click: https://soasradio.org/music/episodes/a-world-in-london-248  Next week Amanda Noar’s Impact Theatre Co. at SOAS and London’s Night Czar Amy Lamé at Resonance! [http://#AWorldinLondon – IN ITS TWELFTH YEAR! Live on Wednesdays 6.30pm Resonance 104.4  www.resonancefm.com & 4pm SOAS Radio  mixlr.com/soasradio  ]#AWorldinLondon – IN

Zhenya Strigalev - Centrifugal kookiness

Zhenya Strigalev - Alto Saxophone

If this writing takes a surreal turn then forgive me, for it is neither an over exuberance of peyote nor an attack of the Dali's but in truth an exposure to the radioactive world of Zhenya Strigalev that has infected my brain. It you haven't ever experienced the Strigalev phenomena then lets say he is idiosyncratic and well worth dipping your soldiers in his soft boiled egg.



Mark Lewandowski - Bass

Joining him on stage during the final session (12/10/2013) of the Whirlwind festival was Jason Yarde, Ben Brown and Mark Lewandowski. The latter already taking a turn at the Kings Place on Rachael Cohen's album launch the previous day. He played the straight man to his leaders goon, puffing out both cheeks and raising an eyebrows or two because of the unpredictable shifts of music and Strigalev's opening monologues.



Ben Brown - Drums

Yes the bright and vibrant Zhenya Strigalev puts the kook into his opening tune "Cuckoo". His saxophonic diction like a rapid chatterbox who had just left the asylum. In the spirit of the man I jumped into his world with both feet, but others were more circumspect. Maybe it the nature of the beast that those in the eye of the Whirlwind remain calm. Ben Brown on drums is one who displayed remarkable restraint. He has a poetic delicate balance and bounce with sticks in hand.


Jason Yarde - Saxophones

"Unlimited Source of Pleasure" and Zhenya Strigalev's final tune were marmite watersheds for many in the audience but as an artist this was the sort of performance that butters my bread. Strigalev is thick and winding like a yoyo unravelling in slow motion, Jason Yarde joins him on stage, freewheeling, breaking apart, a whirling explosion of centrifugal jazz. Yarde is now the mechanic, building , fixing as Strigalev breaks, rolling his neck like an athlete, even jogging on the spot.

Despite the entrance of Sebastian Scotney with his vaudeville hook nothing is going to stop Zhenya Strigalev and his quartet. Yarde joins his partner in the destruction of the Whirlwind's tidy timekeeping, Strigalev is so engrossed and reaching for that final ounce of expression he squats like a chicken, elbows jutting and still he blows. Imagine an expressive Clarice Cliff tea set, full of colour and zest, now think of it in a hundred shards after smashing at your feet. This is Zhenya Strigalev and that was the sound of Jazz's Antique Roadshow falling off its pedestal.

AL.