I promised Alasdair that this review would actually be about the music. Not me. I intend to keep that promise, so here we go: It was a crisp Autumnal day when I rose from my slumbers. I stretched, scratched and showered with a blissful languor before heaping little black piles of coffee into the machine and watching as the first blobs hung then fell into the pot like inky raindrops. As I watched the brewer steam, splutters and spew I couldn’t help but think of my childhood, iced with snow and tainted with sadness… Then I drank the coffee, left the house and went to see a gig.

Actually it wasn’t a gig, it was a laser, haze and cello spectacular. But more on that later. The plucky Scot and I had been invited by GetJazzical favourite Peter Gregson to King’s Place in Norwth Landon to see him and friends play as part of a series called ‘Faster than sound‘. This was something of a landmark concert for us as:

• The last time we recorded a show was when we played Gregson and I had wistfully mused that we may one day drink a G & T with him at The Hospital Club. Well, shortly after that we did and, in the manner of Chris Evans, Orson Wells and Boyzone, we peaked and let ourselves slide into a mire of Japanese beer, tattooed waitresses and Jude Law. Have you seen Entourage? Well it’s been a lot like that but with classically trained musicians.

• This was the first time we’d actually seen Peter Gregson play. I know. Top quality journalists, right? In our defense we’d totally heard his records and stuff it’s just we’d seen him holding a beer more often than a cello. Whatever, don’t judge us!

When we met Peter for an informal chat after an extended soundcheck, he told us there was enough technology in the hall to cure all disease, but instead they’d chosen to use it to power a ‘hyper bow’ which enabled a sensual string experience of previously unimaginable aural awesomeness. The interview was epic – he dropped gold like a fleeing robber trying to ditch the evidence, but you’ll have to listen the exclusive GetJazzical interview to hear it all!

But I can say we were promised lasers, lights and fake smoke from a man who’d rigged the stage for Jay Z, U2 and the X Factor.   Alasdair was staring hungrily at Peter by this point with what I imagined to be desire, but what turned out was actually just hunger, so we left Peter to be alone with his tea and went to Nando’s.

When.. sorry *where* Peter was playing

Chickens later we returned to the undulating glass and stone pebble which is King’s Place and descended into Hall. One. Hall One. Feeling like a Chilean miner as I stared up at sea level I tried to recall what Peter had told me about the concert: It was part of Tod Machover‘s pioneering work at the MIT media lab into hyperinstruments and the application of technology onto music, sort of Spotify meets Stradivarius. With the aid of “a computer under my chair!” Gregson would control not only computer generated accompanying chords but also the the visual effects (with which body part I did not dare to guess).

The usual suspects made up the audience – geeks, old dears and hip young podcasters. The first half was… technically interesting. All the pieces followed roughly the same format: A chap who looked like he’d be more at home inventing Facebook clambered on stage with a doppelganger in tow (no chicks but loads of ponytails if you know what I mean). One would sit in front of a laptop and the other would pick up an instrument. Now I’ll preface what I’m about to write by admitting that I’m a boring traditionalist who likes melody, rhythm and consonance. With that in mind:

It was daring and undoubtably technically brilliant – I heard instruments like the midi drums, piano and cello making sounds that I had never heard before; first a footstep, then a crash, then a bass throb all from playing with tempo and pitch. It was pretty remarkable but I’m not going to pop on headphone and drift away to it anytime soon.

Confused, wary and a little drunk we took seats (not sure if they were ours by this stage) for the second half and waited. The space was in darkness now and a cello lay in the middle of the stage surrounded by a dozen or so black poles making it look like the instrument was imprisoned. Peter was not lit as he took the stage and the audience did not applaud – it actually felt disorienting and tense: A trip into the unknown.

When Peter began I was struck by a number of things: Firstly he is a fine live musician, the performance felt immersive, visceral and immediate – even if it did look in the gloaming like it was Brains from Thunderbirds playing. Secondly the sound produced was incredible in its depth and intensity, there was an ongoing argument between my ears which could hear chords octaves apart, tremble and bass along with erie reverberating pizzicato over the top and my eyes which could see a dude and his cello. It was all very impressive, but that was before Gregson cued up the visuals. Da wow. LEDs lit up and danced up and down the poles in etherial sync – one minute they would glow orange lighting up the stage and then extinguish before floating around like lanterns caught in the wind. The effect was marvelous and augmented the piece with sublime understatement.

It was a confident and genuinely original twenty minutes of music but I’m not going to say it was easy listening. It wasn’t meant to be. Like a designer dresses his catwalk models in clothes that most find outlandish and extreme, the concert was designed to be a showcase of what can be done and to highlight the possibilities inherent in Machover’s Hyperinstrument project. After all, this is the lab that invented the technology behind Guitar Hero. I can’t wait to see what they do next.  If you missed the gig, don’t worry you can watch it below:

So it was with trepidation that I (Alasdair) headed to Cadogan Hall last night to see Ludovico Einaudi, the oblivious father of GetJazzical. You may have noticed that we mention Einaudi in pretty much every podcast. We also refer to him in every post, and compare every artist we play to him, his style and his influence. If you ask Olly, he would tell you that he was in fact the first person ever to see Ludovico Einaudi live. And back in my school days, I would woo the ladies (or more accurately win a music competition) in my hipster cello/piano ensemble The Sunset Boys playing Due Tramonti.

No photos were allowed during the performance and I BEHAVED MYSELF.

There was another worry floating through my head: Einaudi’s minimalist, contemporary, classical, pop, international amalgamation was great back in the early 2000s when I didn’t know anything more, anything deeper, and there was no real interwebs way of finding out about related artists. But over the years, I’ve moved on musically. If Einaudi was the gateway drug, I’d be down an alley shooting up new, minimalist, screechy classical music into my big toe these days.

As I took my seat amongst all the white middle class people, the lights dimmed and on walked the man. Unassuming in stature, yet instantly recognisable. Black tee and black blazer are to Einaudi as roll neck and jeans are to Jobs.  He began with a piece from his latest offering, Nightbook. He then took the mic to inform us that he was going to be going back in time with the music, starting with his most recent work and seeing how far back he could go with the allotted performance slot. Each piece seemed to flow into the other, with soft, thoughtful playing, sometimes just allowing the chord to bounce off the walls.

Now, I’ve realised I could go two ways with this review. I could either be entirely douchebag hipster about it and say that while Einaudi was once an inspiration to new composers, he’s now become so ubiquitous that I can’t hear a piece without thinking of an X Factor montage, or something to do with Myleene Klass; I could mention that the mere sight of people clutching an Einaudi album and saying “you know, I never thought I’d be into classical music, but this has changed my mind” makes me want to throw a piano at them just so I could hear the resonance; and rant about the fact that he has produced an offspring of imitators who have mistaken scale exercises for actual music. I could also say that the concert was everything my teenage self could ever have hoped for and more: to hear his music played by him live is a completely different experience to hearing it on an album; the music transports you, soothes you, and excites you; and Einaudi is responsible for bringing many people to a deeper, more open understanding of unpretentious, classical music. I could go down either path, but to deny one view or the other would be to do a disservice to Einaudi the composer, and ignore Einaudi the product.

Listening to him reminded me that marketing gets in the way of brilliance. As soon as Einaudi became big, his record company was probably looking for “the next Einaudi”. Composers thought that if they were going to make it now, they had to copy his style. But last night, I realised that I don’t like his style of music. I like his music. I think Divenire is his best work, and is an incredibly daring, moving and haunting album; and while I dismissed Nightbook on its release as a cash in album, listening live suggested that there is a lot more he has yet to offer. The record company may want him to make 5 more albums that sound exactly like Le Onde, but when it’s just Einaudi and a piano, your are treated to the unfiltered, PR free originality of the composer.

As the man took his final bow, I heard a teenager behind me say “I mean, he makes the piano sound so good!” I could have laughed, and made a snide comment to my friend, (actually I did, but that’s not the point) but when I was his age, that was exactly my analysis. I just hope that he, and the rest of the audience, follows Einaudi as an opening into the new world of classical music, instead of following the marketing companies in search for “it’s a bit like Einaudi, but…”

Last night, your fearless classical and jazz music podcast guys headed to North London and to the Camden Roundhouse to see Paloma Faith rocking out at the iTunes festival.  We’re not so good at gigs in Camden, having been thoroughly confused by Charlie Hazlewood’s Beggar’s Opera earlier this year, and realising five minutes after entering a Big Pink gig at the Electric Ballroom that we were out of our depth, were not appropriately dressed, and that the Big Pink weren’t actually coming on stage until well past our respective bedtimes. Incidentally, it was also at that same moment that Alasdair realised he was old, and Olly realised he was older.

However, not ones to pass up on a free gig, or for that matter a 50% discount on a Nando’s bill (thank you clerical error) we returned to that part of the city we so desperately want approval from, and were treated to a sing-a-long of Faith’s best album tracks along with some covers, including a way over the top cover of Etta James’ At Last as an attempted throw back to her jazz and burlesque days. Neither of us, I think it’s fair to say, were in the moment. Apart from the fact that the speakers couldn’t seem to handle the volume, and caused a distortion that sounded like tiny vuvuzelas, Alasdair had forgotten his little soap box that he takes to most “standing up gigs” so that he can see over the adults and onto the stage, and Olly had just realised via wikipedia that the singer we were (well Olly was) now watching used to do adverts for Agent Provocateur, and so was in an entirely different place and an entirely different moment.

This not ideal situation gave us time to consider a question posed by our friends at Wildkat PR about the place for classical music, and the wider question that seems to be buzzing around this year about what needs to happen to classical music concerts to make them more appealing. We’ve stuck our GetJazzical thinking hats on as tight as they go, and can now unveil our list of solutions and suggestions to making a classical concert more successful and more appealing to the  great British public:

1. Props

Paloma had two massive helium inflated balls that she strapped to herself and then walked around the stage with. It was strange. It was Gaga-lite  and vaguely- pre watershed safe -sexual. There was also an angled mirror that didn’t really play a part in the performance but got everyone very excited before Nash, sorry Faith, arrived on stage.  I want to see this in a classical concert.

Paloma walks around with balls strapped to her...I mean, come on...

I want the conductor to be wheeled in on a throne, and the lead violinist wearing a pair of wings, suggesting he might be lifted above the rest of the orchestra, or will do a stage dive at some point.  After a while at a classical music concert you run out of things to look at. You’ve picked out the pretty girl and looked at her for so long you’re sure she’s onto you, and everyone else in the orchestra’s just getting on with playing. Throw some beach balls in the crowd, for goodness sake – just looking at people playing music is BORING.

2. Introduce beer in plastic cups

There are so many reason we believe that beer in plastic cups would make the experience for the audience more enjoyable. We need memories of the concert that no one listening to an album recording can obtain. Beer soaked shoe memories. Also, if we have captured the Zeitgeist  correctly, everyone at a classical music concert holds an air of disdain toward everyone around them for no apparent reason. Let’s direct that disdain towards the people who deserve it. It’s pretty much entrapment, but let’s have a beer bar, and then start hating on the people who go to get a beer during the second movement and work their way through the (standing) crowd with the beer lifted above their heads shouting ” ‘scuse me, beer coming through, watch your head.” I hated that guy. But last night it brought me closer to the woman next to me who also hated that guy.

3.Let people move around whenever they like

Why do you have to be such a stick in the mud, classical music world? Why do you have to tut and sneer at those who cough, sigh, and move about in their seats during a movement? While watching Duffy, sorry Paloma, last night people weren’t just moving about during the songs – they were actively changing places, stretching their legs, and leaving the room to go to the bathroom, to have a smoke, and to fill up on the afore mentioned beer cups, in order so they can re-enter the floor 10 minutes later with more force, and get closer to the stage. Yes, it may have interrupted the piece for EVERYONE they were PUSHING PAST, but chill out grandpa, whatever, it’s not as if you can’t download the gig within an hour after it finishing. Which brings us nicely onto

4. Make the concert instantly downloadable

We’ve had many a conversation at GetJazzical HQ about the point where we stop enjoying concerts and want to start remembering enjoying the concert.  The iTunes festival have made this so vividly possible by making the the entire concert a recording session with free whooping, so they don’t have to shell out for that expensive stock whooping.  This would be a great coup for the classical music world because firstly the audience can try and get on the recording by shouting out during the performance things like “I love you Camilla Kerslake!” or “play Le Onde!” The artists would love it, as it would promote impromptu adulation, and also people would feel more of a part of the experience. Olly shouted “take your top off, Winehouse!” last night. I’m already downloading to see if his holler made the final cut. We need more hollers in classical concerts.

It’s also like a big giant skyplus pause button. And means you can leave before the end and miss the crowds on the way out. Genius.

5.  Play instantly recognisable covers that inadvertently show that your songs aren’t as good.

This might be difficult, as a lot of classical concerts play dead composers, but why not shake it up in your own way. A night of Beethoven? Slip in some Chopin. Oh no they didn’t. Chopin? Now? So versatile! PHILIP GLASS IS PLAYING SOME MAX RICHTER? I’M RECORDING THIS ON MY NEW HD CAMERA ON MY IPHONE4 AND UPLOADING IT STRAIGHT TO YOUTUBE! Crowds love that stuff. It gives them something to talk about, and tweet about, and brag about. “We saw the LSO wedge in a cover of a Puccini track, during a medley of Stravinsky” etc. It makes the audience feel special.

Or even if you’re not playing the entire piece, do a different intro, alluding to something else. I will pay big moneyto see a Brahms piece with the strings of Viva la Vida as an intro. BIG MONEY.

6. Elevate players to a hero/demi-god like status

Paloma was really into this. Like, REALLY into this. She spent more time inviting touching from the audience than she did on stage. And the crowd were all over her. Can you imagine the guy playing the concerto jumping into the press pit area (oh, we have to have this as well) and leaning into the crowd who fondle and grope him as he keeps playing the piece? He dreams of it nightly. Let’s make it a reality.

Imagine it - Paloma is the conductor, guitarist is the flautist. Hot.

7.Name check the whole band

Who cares how long it goes on for? During the last song/movement get the conductor to name everyone who has played that night, and allow them a little moment to do something kooky, crazy, or impressive with a couple of bars of music. Go on, they deserve it. They’ve played all the difficult notes, and no one has noticed them. When they get to lead violin status in a few years and jump into the crowd they won’t be able to cope with all that groping unless they’ve received some love in the early years.

We hope this has aided and moved along the conversation that is being had all over the internet. We’re sure there are many more aspects to a Paloma Faith concert that can make the classical music world more interesting. I mean, we didn’t even get started on the crotch close ups on the big screens, but then maybe that’s because there are some things we’d be better leave to the former burlesque performers.

This is the church where it all went down.

Not a good start. Alasdair  (who has bought these tickets and is therefore responsible) and I are sitting on the cold, hard pews of St. Giles church and my buttocks are aching as very real pain creeps up my spine. Around us people are looking confused as the tortured tinklings of an Icelandic man dressed in black fill the room. This isn’t Jóhann Jóhannsson: Master of minimalist arrangement. This isn’t the man we’ve paid to see and as warm-ups go it’s positively shady. The music is OK. It’s like watching an Autumn breeze ruffling an old oak tree in the calm gloaming of sunset before realising that there are better things you could be doing like watching TV.

I last what I guess are two songs (it’s almost impossible to figure out when the pieces are over, as the piano just sort of dribbles to halt before starting up again with more clunky minor chords) I then rise from the wooden slats designed to remind church-goers of quite how much Christ suffered for their sins and I walk away, Alasdair in aghast tow.

“We can’t walk out!” he hisses as the man in black hammers away at the low notes.

The pub is a bit loud with a cover band lurching between Jason Mraz and The Sex Pistols but the wine’s cheap and it gives me a chance to vent. Alasdair reminds me that he paid for the tickets. I tell him it’s a moot point.

This is not Johann Johannsson but it is in St Giles'.

When we return to the church its spacious interior has filled with people who seem to have got the memo about the late start. I find a prayer cushion and sit on it. It’s completely dark inside, the only light coming from glowing mobile phones and a few solitary candles on the stage. I think the musicians are taking their positions but I can’t see much beyond the man in front of me.

Then, slowly, the music starts and it’s like the voice of the wizard behind the curtain, everyone looks up at the stained glass above the piano where a projector starts rolling black and white clips of workers at a smelting plant, now a flower and now a trickling river. Somehow it’s not trite.

The pieces are audaciously beautiful with the feeling of grand tragedy about them, if the end of mankind ever needs a score it should be ‘Fordlandia’. Jóhannsson segues elegantly between strident riffs that verge on electronica and the flutterings of his 2006 album IBM 1401. He mixes pieces together, swivelling between the keyboard and his laptop to add in samples and effects. He’s a DJ with a Steinway.

This is the kind of arty stuff Olly hates.

Nobody has a clue how to react to this, it’s so personal, I feel like a trespasser watching a private recital. The woman next to me starts to clap and then abruptly stops as the music continues, barely audible. The man to my left has his eyes closed, head bowed down to the floor.

Suddenly I’m glad to be here – the muggers, rapists and rudeboys may be roaming the streets outside but here I’m watching a grainy film of an erupting volcano.

OXJAZZ SPECIAL PART I: We’ve got the first in our roving-reporting-recordings of the splendiferous OxJazz Festival and it’s here NOW for your podcasting pleasure. Featured in this episode are: Alvin Roy, Seb Pipe and Dave O’Higgins. Click here for more info…

BBC INTERVIEW: The chaps at BBC Radio Oxford asked the GetJazzical boys to take care of an interview with Liane Carroll for them and for good measure they also decided to interview our heroes as well, have a gander at the video…

Occasionally in life you stumble across someone who’s been doing the same thing as you all along.  You then kill that person and hope that the vultures eat them before anyone finds out.  For GetJazzical, Nonclassical is that person… Only kidding folks, we have nothing but LOVE in our collective heart (which looks a little like a ying-yang symbol with Olly’s oily black half pervasively oozing hate and mistrust into Alasdair’s pure white and crisp soul) and  we are major fans of what they’re doing.

And ‘they’ are a group founded by composer Gabriel Prokofiev in 2003 and they are nothing if not diverse.  Under the Nonclassical umbrella is a record label, club nights and a small legion of like-minded DJs,mixologists and classically trained musicians looking to change the way Classical music is thought of.  The do this by having live Classical music mixed up by top London DJs in a pub or club.

Here at GetJazzical we feel a kinship with the boys & girls of Nonclassical – we both think that classical is just another genre to be enjoyed however you want – there shouldn’t be rules, dress codes or pretension added as footnotes to the high notes.  We’ve already played them, and you’ll be hearing much more about Nonclassical very shortly.  But for now put this in your diary:

February 4th 2010, 8pm.
The Horse and Groom, 28 Curtain Road, EC2
£4/£3 concessions

See you there!

While Olly is back in NY, living a life of pure hedonistic debauchery and espressos, I (Alasdair) have been plugging away, trying to find the best in new music and new musicians. Last night saw the LSO play at the Barbican, a fantastically “yes our building was built in the 60s and we love it” venue. It was an interesting, 20th Century composer set list, and if my tickets were not free I probably wouldn’t have risked the cash on the concert. Thank heavens for freebies then, as after 15 minutes of Charles Ives and me eyeing the nearest exit, we were introduced to, and I fell in love with, Yuja Wang…

A 22 year old “superhuman” piano playing prodigy, Yuja fired into Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 3 in C major to a mesmerised crowd. The girl had passion, precission, and hair bouncing piano playing that put Myleene Klass to shame. What she also had was soul. She made the piece her own with her own flares and passionate body movement. The girl was gettingJazzical.

As an encore, Yuja returned to play Turkish March, but Turkish March like I’ve never heard it before. But then I suppose the last time I did hear it, was when my big brother played it in his first piano book. The crowd dispersed at the interval whistling the March on the way to the bathrooms, and proving that you can listen to as much atonal 20th century music as you like, it’s not going to be the discordant tubular bells we’ll be humming the next day.

Anyway, where words fail me in describing the beauty of Yuja Wang (and her piano playing mastery), this video might succeed:

An Aside

For those of you who are Spotify inclined, and who wish they had been enjoying a night with GetJazzical, we’ve created a playlist of the concert. It’s not as good as sitting next to us, but it’s probably the closest you’ll ever get.

You know a band’s good when they get played on GetJazzical. You know we’re fans when we play them twice. Now, on top of all that, your favourite hosts are about to step out into the public eye to experience the live sounds of Bad Ass Brass. And we’d love you to come too!

Blagclub is the place to be on Saturday 23rd May, with some Bad Ass Brass and smooth cocktails to compliment these hot summer nights … that we’re expecting soon. More information can be found here, and at £5 a ticket, doors open at 20:00.  Saturday night is going to kick off GetJazzical’s Summer of Jazz with a night not to be missed!

Oh, and you can also e-mail them (badassbrass@live.co.uk) to get on the guest list. Stick with us kids – we’ve got all the hook ups.