Venice on a Wednesday

Sketch by Francesca Sciarretta

Francesca told me that Wednesday is a good night for music in Venice. So it’s not surprising that I found Franca Pullia performing with her quintet at the local bar, Osteria Poppa in Santa Croce, where they perform each Wednesday.

I first heard a latin tune, so expected jazz, but although there were some jazz tunes, and a clear jazz influence in the sax, this was more a pop/funk band, playing Stevie Wonder and similar worthy and popular and funky material. What’s not to like in this repertoire? The Beatles’ Come together, Nancy Sinatra’s Bang bang, an interesting mix of Fly me to the moon sandwiched by Walking on the Moon, Sonny, Higher ground, Superstition. All very popular and perfectly good entertainment to go with your beer (except perhaps for All of me, which I prefer not to think of as jazz anyway). The bass and sax and drums set a nice and steady groove, if sometimes a little rushed. The acoustic bass guitar tone was very satisfying; the keys changed to organ and clavinet as required; the drums were effective despite the small kit although I would have liked to hear the snare switched in more. I noticed that the band didn’t carry much equipment, but given transport in Venice, I’m not surprised. Franca sang in English with a good, strong voice and a lovely latin accent that said Brazil to me, although Italy is really the latin country par excellence (after all, where is Latin from if not from Rome). Aldo was sitting in for the normal sax player Guglielmo Pagnozzi, and did a great job on soprano, adding a jazz sensibility in the mix with its complexity and richness. I particularly liked his playing on the final number, Superstition, where he took the single chord and soloed in some Middle-Eastern scale that gave unexpected, unresolved tones that were a joy to my ear.

I was also pleased to meet Francesca who was sketching the band. Her daytime role is in civil engineering and preservation of buildings (she’s currently working on the Palazzo Ducale) for which there’s a real need here in Venice, of course. But she also does a good line in band sketches. I’ve included a link below to her Facebook site with more sketches of Venetian bands. This one is a finished sketch of a local blues band. The one above is Francesca's finished sketch of Franca's band playing at the Poppa. Nice one.

It’s been an interesting night in Venice. I enjoy the depth of cultural time here in Europe and everyone falls in love with this place. I sometimes feel the old world is a place stuck in its history and that the new world is actually where change is happening. But I’d eaten at a very good and less traditional restaurant (another local, La Zucca), found a lively bar, and enjoyed local live music: this is quite like my local Canberra experience. But the babies in the bar and the busy, familial air and mix of generations in the local Piazza di San Giacomo d’Orio seem different. So although we share many common experiences these days, there remain differences that justify travel. And despite increasing corporatisation and globalization, hopefully it may ever be.

Franca Pullia (vocals) led her resident quintet, Frankie Back From Hollywood, at the Osteria Poppa in Venice with Max Bustreo (keyboards), Loris Tagliapietra (acoustic bass guitar) and Giovanni Natoli (drums). Aldo Via (soprano sax) sat in for Guglielmo Pagnozzi. Francesca Sciarretta was sketching.

Francesca Sciarretta's FB site with sketches

Green honey

Green honey was an allusion from one of the poems that William Parker read as he started his solo bass concert in Rome. Solo double bass needs to be leavened with other forms, and the introduction with poetry and bamboo flute was gentle and personal, and seemed to set a scene that was beyond just music and sound, entering into myth and spirit. I wondered if these may be American native myths, talking of sun and animals and death, because the concerns sounded somewhat like our own Australian indigenous dreamtime. One poem explained why the eagle has black tips to its feathers (it had given a tail feather to the sun, and so it was scorched). William also spoke of many fellow musicians, many now passed away, and of a particular debt to “my teacher, Philly Joe Jones”.

But to the playing. Just four tunes, I think, over about 100 minutes. Mostly with German bow on a Czech-Ease double bass. There was a studio condenser mic and a Realist pickup and a very impressive PA, but the tone was acoustic and clear and volume was delightfully restrained and the PA unnoticed. His sound with the bow was short on fundamentals and rich on harmonics, so somewhat thin. On the other hand, his pizzicato was firm and rounded. I often heard fourths in the movements, but then the bass in built on fourths. I also heard easy and fast but searching improvisations on scales rich in alterations and dissonance, plays on dissonant double stops, simple searches for the right interval. As for the tunes, he seemed to have charts. I didn’t so much hear structure, as passages that would reappear, that perhaps paralleled a head or a bridge. There were also some unconventional techniques, like rolling the hand to form the note with the back of the fingers or palm.

But these are all technical matters, and do little justice to a performance like this. The audience was sometimes fidgety, and this was not for the fainthearted. But close your eyes, and there were florid waves of notes or searching melodies, sometimes simple but seldom obviously repeated. There was a richness of ideas seeking expression. Free of obvious structure, but not lost or bereft; more distant and mysterious. Towards the end, we came back to earth. Firstly with a bluesy riff with some singing (“Ï go down to the river…but I don’t know how to swim”). Then William joked of using your bootie and of Beyoncé and of his iPhone. Then he started on a simple repetitive riff (I-bVI-V-V in triple time) and had the audience clapping. It was a pleasant breaking of the ice. I don’t actually like the clapping thing, and this clapping was desperately inexact (to William’s obvious, although friendly, frustration) but it lightened the mood, and I went out humming the tune, which was the essence of his last “music as health” message.

Rome is a place of architecture rather than music for me. To find a renowned free jazz bassist playing a solo set in Renzo Piano’s Auditorium Parco della Musica was a pleasure on multiple fronts. It was not an easy concert but it was one to treasure: a gentle man playing musical myths and realities for a fairly intimate audience. William Parker played a solo double bass concert at Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.

BTW, this is CJBlog post no. 400.

San Marco not square

Venice was a theme park hundreds of years before Disneyland was invented, but it’s a civilized theme park. Piazza San Marco is the delightful and glorious centre of Venice and, not surprisingly, it can be replete with visitors. I was once there for the famed final Carnevale night of Martedi grasso (Shrove Tuesday), and the crowds were expected and enjoyed, but mostly it’s just oppressive. But the nights can be a relief.

Along with a few minor masterpieces and the tourists, Piazza San Marco is also the home of some of the most fabulous cafes in the world, which vie with each other for custom through opulent surroundings and music presentations. The tourists line up behind the empty chairs for a free listen, and sometimes take the costly plunge of a coffee. The bands join the competition between cafes by alternating tunes, and the music seems to go on from evening to midnight. Mostly the bands are soft and classically smooth, playing latin or jazz or standards or gentle classics in a mild and romantic chamber style, but I caught some very capable jazzers playing at Grand Café Chioggia around the corner, opposite the Doge’s Palace.

These were just a few tunes before the midnight close (Take the A Train and St Thomas), but there was verve and inventiveness that belied the location. The bass was committed and hard swinging and well in touch with the soloists, the sax was sweet in melodies but edgy in its solos, and the piano was strong in its solo conceptions, playing to the edge of dissonance and frequently dropping in. The sound was good, too, with a grand piano, and just a bit of reverb from the massive corridors and awnings that these bands perform from.

It was very nice to catch such a capable and exciting trio playing in a space which could be so bland. But Venice is a very, very civilized theme park. Dianelle Iabelli (piano), Piergiorgio Caveron (alto, soprano sax) and Roberto Veronese (bass) played at Grand Café Chioggia in Piazza San Marco in Venice.

Venetian tribute

It was to be stormy and very, very wet in Venice the next day, and we walked through some light rain getting to the Venice Jazz Club. The club itself is indicated by a red light on an otherwise quiet little canal across the Ponte dell’Academia. We entered through several sound limiting doors to find a cellar with round tables and a small crowd. It was towards the end of the night (they can only legally play to 11pm), we ordered some drinks, and listened to a Miles & Trane tribute.

We heard Seven steps to Heaven, Footprints and Someday my prince will come, and an encore of Days of wine and roses. The small crowd was attentive, and the band was serious and concentrated. Despite the Miles & Coltrane reference, the band was led by a pianist with guitar, bass and drums. No horns, but the leader explained later they felt Trane (and presumably Miles) in their performance. The music was well played, although fairly mild and chamber-cool. The guitar sounded of Scofield, but the lines were more melodic and tonal, less bluesy and slippery. The piano was similarly tonal, with excitement coming from rhythmic rather than harmonic explorations. The bass was wonderfully solid and comfortable and nicely expressive. Sometimes with a German bow or a solid and fluid walk at prompt speeds. I thought I judged a classical background, and he confirmed that to me later. The drums were similarly solid rather than flightly and cymbal-ic, and he took several solos that followed the song structure clearly. The improvisation was there, but not so much as individual efforts. I felt the best effect was when the band moved feel as a composite whole, perhaps a changed bass line that would lead to a different band feel, or a bowed bass, or a different drum groove. Nice for the ensemble feel and less the individual expression. I didn’t particularly feel the Miles and Trane references, but the playing was entertaining nonetheless.

I don’t think Venice is a jazz centre, but it’s nice to see you can find jazz here regularly, although at the steep Euro prices that I’ve come to expect over here. These are small, intimate venues where people listen rather than drink so you need a decent income from the door to cover the band. It seems the way over here. Thanks to management who let me in for the last few tunes, just charging for the drinks.

Just a few final items of interest. The bassist’s name was Alvise. It was not a name I knew: he told me it’s Venetian. And sure enough, the next day I saw a portrait of a doge with the name Alvise. The other story is a Canberra connection. Jimmy Weinstein, the drummer, came over to chat when he heard of my Canberra connection. He was originally from Chicago, but had known Canberra flautist Cecilia Kemezys very well about twenty years back in Boston. Small world.

Federico Nalesso (piano), Nicola Cristante (guitar), Alvise Seggi (bass) and Jimmy Weinstein (drums) played at the Venice Jazz Club.

http://www.venicejazzclub.com/

La Serennissima

Venice is, of course, La Serennissima, although you may not think that as the rain tumbles down and the acqua alta is threatening. But so it is for music. There are multiple concerts every night of the most popular and gentle musics around: Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Albinoni and the like. And so we attended one, along with some of the many tourists infesting this town.

The quartet was the Ensemble Antonio Vivaldi and they performed in Chiesa di San Giacometto. It’s reputed to the oldest church in Venice (or at least there’s been a church on this spot the longest time), located just 100 metres form the Ponte Rialto, with a clock tower that is a subject of derision for never having kept decent time. Inside, it’s a mix of bare and exhuberant and with decent acoustics.

The ensemble was a string quartet with a lyric soprano for about half the tunes. The tunes were recognisable; immensely attractive, sweet and lyrical. It’s a period music that still enthralls, although it’s hardly at the limits. But so lovely, and so big in an acoustic space like this. It seems the program is more steady than the ensemble. I collected a brochure that lists alternating concerts of this program and Vivaldi’s Four seasons. It’s a similar program to that in at least two other locations we’ve passed in walking through Venice. I felt the changing players showed in not sitting quite comfortably. Sometimes intonation was testing, the first and second violins seemed to not merge tonally, the soprano was too big and uneven and overwhelmed the strings, and the acoustics weren’t quite the ringing clarity of some such spaces. But I quibble. Everyone enjoyed it, obviously including the musicians. The music was delightful and the rain had stopped. So all was well. The spot I most enjoyed was some particularly rapid playing by the cello, I think on Vivaldi’s Concerto in Sol min (G minor), where he played long rapidly falling triplet lines. I particularly enjoyed listening to the cello. He seemed very steady and at home, and it was interesting to listen to the bass role at this stage of development. The violins were expressive and high and expressive. I lost the viola a little, but my guess it’s the fate suffered by this instrument being sandwiched between the prominent violins and the solid cello. Altos in choirs tell me they suffer a similar fate.

So a lovely evening, eminently serene, a stage away from the jazz I more often attend, and a perfect accompaniment to some days in Venice. The quartet was Constantin Beschieru (first violin), Marco Toso (second violin), Barbara Zennaro (viola), Antonio Folligioni (cello) and Sara Pretegiani (soprano). The music was by Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Albinoni, Pachelbel, Mozart and Verdi. This program (musiche di Vivalsi, Mozart, Pachelbel, Verdi) is performed Wednesdays and Sundays, and Four seasons, Pachelbel’s Canon and Albinoni’s Adagio Fridays. It’s a good thing, and you know what to do when you’re on a good thing.

www.ensembleantoniovivaldi.com