Bridgetower
A Jazz Operaby Julian Joseph and Mike Phillips
If there were ever two more contrasting words jazz and opera are two of them. Even though I’ve been classically trained for a large proportion of my musical upbringing I can’t help feeling slightly negative towards Opera in general. There’s something I find unsettling about the vibrato they use and the tone of their voices that for some reason sets me on edge. So when asked to attend the opening night of Bridgetower I was slightly apprehensive – mainly because I didn’t want my own biases to interfere with the review of the night. I was also secretly hoping to get my own aversion to Opera dispelled that night!
The band was filled with great jazz musicians from the Julian Joseph Big Band – players like Toni Kofi, Russell Bennett and Mark Hodgeson were just a few names to be picked from the hot list. The overture that began the night was finger snapping and attention grabbing. The pieces shifted quickly and merged into different genres and styles – subtly moving from into ¾ for a jazz waltz and out as easily. There were moments where the band wasn’t as tight as it could have been, but with first night nerves and an almost packed house it was to be expected. As soon as they were settled the band was red-hot. Shifting easily and blending well together. Leading Julian Joseph was able to add his gentle touch to the ivory keys and work his magic in the band. It would have been nice to hear Julian featured a bit more, but as he was leading the ensemble through some tricky shifts it was understandable he wasn’t able to sit back and do what he does best.
The stage was pretty basic and with the band hoisted on the stage it meant that there wasn’t much room for the cast to move around during the show quite as much, but it did mean that the band was in full view and I could watch David Jean-Baptiste swapping effortlessly between clarinet and bass clarinet. Still, the singers managed well to recreate different settings well in their limited space and though the props were few, it was ample to set the scene so the audience knew what was happening.
As I mentioned the music was superb, each member of the band working hard to carefully balance which must have been hard for Mark Mondesir on drums as he was so far above everyone yet he still managed to blend well with the band. The lines between the band and the cast were blurred when Steve Williamson acted as Black Billy Waters and used his sublime soprano playing to link some of the scenes. There was only one moments that the band lead the way a bit too far and almost drowned the vocalists, it was during a fast polyphonic movement and was probably due to the fact that the band was enjoying blowing than anything else. For the most part the singers held there own and coped well with the complex charts they had been given. Some of the harmonies were so complex they verged on clashing, only to resolve at the last moment – perhaps with a cheeky interjection from Christian Garrick on violin. The lead vocalists coped well with the challenging material and although some words were lost within the layered music’s their ability to portray the emotion behind their lines was apparent and needed no words to explain them. At times I felt that the chorus would have been better amplified but perhaps with a bit more confidence to belt the tricky words out the same effect might have been achieved.
The vocalists in Bridgetower have as many credits to their biographies as the band does – just reading the program is like glancing through a who’s-who of musical talent. Abigail Kelly has won many awards including the Birmingham Conservatoire Prize and Frenz Hepburn was one of the six finalists for Operatunity. Each singer brought their own style and sound to the jazz-opera. Jonathan Peter Kenny’s impressive falsetto contrasted wonderfully with Hepburn’s rumbling bass lines. For me the best vocal talent came from Hackney based Cleveland Watkiss and as he won ‘Best Vocalist’ in the Wire / Guardian Jazz Awards for three consecutive years I would hope so too. There was something about his voice that just shone through. When he sang a duet with Abigail Kelly you could almost feel the electricity and chemistry between the characters.
The whole night was about building textures and layers – Julian Joseph’s Big Band reduced to 10 players, the five lead vocalist and quite a small chorus meant that each of the intricate lines were heard and performed well. It was almost like watching a tapestry being weaved. With each thread working within each other to create a picture before you. Due to my own slight misgivings about the whole opera genre part of me would have enjoyed the night perhaps slightly more if a gospel choir were used for the chorus or just jazz vocalists, but for the most part I was impressed by the music and style so could accept that opera can be made to sound good.
From the standing ovation given to the players from the stalls it wasn’t just me who thought this. There was everything in it – great music, a chance to see some of the best jazz musicians play, good vocals and a bit of humour thrown in there just to spice it up for you! But what impressed me most about this night was the atmosphere. There was such a friendly relaxed atmosphere at the Hackney Empire that night that you could almost hear everyone willing the jazz-opera to do well and meet our expectations. It did and it excelled further.
Rachael Forsyth