Cologne Concert 11th May 2011

I attended the recent concert in the Stadtgarten in Cologne Germany (11th May 2011) :

Steve Coleman and Five Elements:
Astronomical/Astrological Music Project


with Jen Shyu (vocals), Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), David Virelles
(piano) & Miles Okazaki (guitar)

Notable here was the absence of drums / percussion. This gave a welcome transparency (in my view) to this music consisting of complex interweaving lines and probably requiring greater rhythmic precision on the part of the musicians - no cymbal crashes to hide behind . The overall effect was that of a music which could almost be classified as contemporary classical music - at least as much as being understood as jazz. Basslines were provided by the piano with support from the guitar. After this concert I really have the impression that percussion could (generally) be more descretely employed in most Steve Colemans recent music - I write this as someone who has been enthralled by the playing of the likes of Tyshawn Sorey at past venues. At this concert there was no sense of the drums being missing.
As always at Steve Coleman concerts there were a couple of pieces which I would like to listen to again - but which are not on any CD that I know of and presumably will not be recorded on some future album.
Bernard H. 28.05.2011

Hi Bernard,

I've found some recording of a concert in Paris around the same date as the one you are talking about, Ill see if I can upload it somewhere.
The concert is really really great, difficult to stop listening to it !

Hallo Dimitri

Thanks for your efforts ! If you have time to upload the Paris Concert that would be
great ! Hope things are going ok for you if you're still in or around Abidjan.

Regards
Bernard

surbahar wrote:

Hallo Dimitri

Thanks for your efforts ! If you have time to upload the Paris Concert that would be
great ! Hope things are going ok for you if you're still in or around Abidjan.

Regards
Bernard

Hi Bernard,

Im currently uploading the Paris concert, Ill give you the link when ready.

Dimitri.

ok, here it is.

This is a raw audio files with french comments at some various points in the concert but it's not overlapping any music

http://dl.free.fr/qengG96sc
password is : scarchives

Quality is mp3 at 224Kbps from Radio, mix is good.

Enjoy,

Dimitri

Hi Dimitri

Many thanks - I truly appreciate your efforts. I've already listened to the concert a couple times (I transferred it to 3 X audio CDs), and I agree with you, there's a lot of stuff here that needs to be heard several times to be fully appreciated . The anouncements in between are also improving my french a little bit.

Regards
Bernard

I love that concert, something's special to me, dont know what yet !

Dimitri.