Glasgow Jazz Festival
Charnett Moffett Nettwork Trio
Old Fruitmarket
Taylor McFerrin & Marcus Gilmore
Rio Club
Rob Adams
THREE STARS
Glasgow Jazz Festival closed its Merchant City business for another year with two gigs for which turning up late might not have placed you at a disadvantage.
The instrumental virtuosity of bass guitarist Charnett Moffett and his partners in the Nettwork trio, guitar tapping pioneer Stanley Jordan and drummer Jeff 'Tain' Watts, was never in doubt. For periods in their exploration of international folk music-like themes, however, it was the sheer strength in Moffett's fingers that caused feelings of awe rather than the music itself.
Then Jordan's solo study for guitar and piano, in which his hands operated a kind of musical relay, moving from fretboard to keyboard in mesmerising patterns, proved a turning point and having tried with only sporadic success to engage the audience in hand-clapping and finger-snapping accompaniment, Moffett followed a stunning Turkish-Indian sequence by generating a party spirit, winding up with a funky chant that embodied both ferocious musical facility and audience involvement and with its theme of social inclusion, might not have been out of place at the Family Stone gig up at the 02ABC.
Parts of Taylor McFerrin's set at the Rio Club may well turn up on his next album as he and drummer Marcus Gilmore jammed on potential Fender Rhodes, synth and drum backing tracks. These are two talented guys. McFerrin's beat-boxing was real chip off the old block stuff with attention to tone and musicality and Gilmore's washes of cymbals and snare were genuinely thrilling. It took some time, though, for them to build sustained momentum and excitement, although when it arrived it was worth the wait.
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