Music Review: Jan Garbarek Group, Philharmonic Hall

Nov 19 2007 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

THE great gigs just keep on coming at the Phil, which continues to bring some of the choicest musical morsels to the city for the first time.

Their current jazz programme staged at both home base and St George's Hall Concert Room is proving to be a case in point.

The latest visitors, Norwegian tenor/soprano saxophonist Jan Garbarek and his talented band of musical brothers, conjured up a blistering two hour set that had a responsive audience purring with delight.

This was music to clear the head, a breath of fresh air cutting through the stagnant and the accepted,. the equivalent of a lozenge to clear the musical sinuses.

A pioneer of ambient jazz composition, Garbarek’s style has the ethereal feel of old Arabia, a hypnotic Moorish (correct) blend with the essences of the Kasbah and the desert blowing through it.

Half familiar themes were weaved between these structures by the brilliant work of his seasoned collaborator Rainer Brunninghaus, who sat poised throughout over his keyboards like a wise old owl waiting to pounce on an errant mouse.

Yuri Daniel, clearly relaxed and enjoying himself, effortlessly ran through the gamut of a bass man’s box of tricks while Garbarek’s ECM label mate drummer Manu Katche, was a veritable pop gun of non-stop activity, crisp, sharp and occasionally explosive.

Overall it was an exercise in controlled power, disciplined and showing almost a telepathic understanding between the four of precisely when to let it off the leash.

More uncanny was that not a word apparently passed between them during the whole set and the prolonged applause that greeted the end of each composition was received with smiles and barely discernible silent bows by each of the musicians.

After all, these were true craftsman who let their music do the talking.

And what a gratifying experience it proved to be.