Robust music legends, urgent British MCs and beautiful jazz women on the first day of North Sea Jazz

What a typical, pleasantly familiar image it always is at North Sea Jazz: jazz musicians, at least as devout as the audience, listening to performances by colleagues. Bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spaldingthe artist-in-residence of this festival edition, could barely keep her body still during the concert of the pioneering drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. Everything moved rhythmically. Suddenly Spalding jumped up, disappeared, only to be on stage ten minutes later with double bass with the strong women’s band. That turned out to be a performance that had everything you look for in jazz: adventurous rhythm structures, strong instrumentalists and a story: Carrington only performed compositions by women.

North Sea Jazz, this weekend for the 46th time and wonderfully varied in about 15 halls (lots of jazz, a solid share of pop and certainly also some soul and blues) has started. The program on the first day of the festival, in and around the rather crowded Ahoy in Rotterdam (30,000 visitors), slalomed energetically between nostalgia and innovation. The proportion of strong jazz women was striking – Esperanza Spalding’s singing performance with the renowned pianist was blissfully tingling Fred Hersh. And also how bass player Linda May Han Oh tried to find peace in chaos: beautiful.

The halls were packed with robust music legends of age. Grand dame of classical soul, Mavis Staples (83), glorified on a small stage for her with a modest driving band. As usual, her classics sounded deep and raw. And what charisma and urgency.

The 87-year-old star guitarist at the end of this month Buddy Guy ended half a century as the spider-in-the-web of blues history with his ‘Damn Right Farewell’ farewell tour. From opener ‘Damn Right, I’ve Got The Blues’ he let his guitar scream and cry mercilessly once more. The blues legend was laid-back, charismatic and funny on stage, performing tricks with his guitar, and catching his breath when his bandmates played solos.

‘The Diaspora Suite’

Was a showpiece The Diaspora Suite. North Sea Jazz has given itself an important assignment this year: to make colonial history audible. Shortly after King Willem Alexander’s historic apology for the Dutch slavery past, the subject returns throughout the weekend within the theme ‘Sounds of Diversity – A Shared Musical Heritage’. The Diaspora Suite kicked off that theme strongly. It just all fit on the stage of the RTM internship: the Metropolitan Orchestra with conductor Jules Buckley, it LIKE THIS! Gospel choir and then another guest vocalist or speaker.

It was as hoped: a beautifully layered concert in which musical diversity was amply celebrated in solid arrangements. Singers Arooj Aftab and Corinne Bailey Raebut also a flautist Ronald Snijders and violinist Shauntell Baumgard lifted up. However, at a festival that actually just started and where so much else entices and seduces, it turned out to be difficult to bind visitors for a long time with such a top-heavy program. Especially with confrontational lectures, such as the work of Anton de Kom.

The public looks, tastes and moves on. Violinist struggled there Yannick Hiwat, who had been given the composition assignment this year, also participated a bit. After a moving soulful opening, he and his collective went into his Surinamese world, in particular the Frimangron district in Paramaribo. Jazz, soul and hip-hop logically mixed in his songs, but the performance had some dips.

Playing pleasure and quality spattered from the great singing talent Yaya Bey. Of MonoNeon the festival had a colorful, technically strong Bootsy Collins clone in house.

British hip hop

Prominent was the attention in the pop route for urgent and high-quality British MCs, Friday evening there were no fewer than three heavyweights in the large Nile hall. The British Loyl Carner, a candid rapper who controls his personal lyrics and lets them flow relaxed, kicked off with an impressive set with a band that played his jazzy music live smoothly, convincingly and with solid clapping funky drums. With Carner, every word was given crystal-clear emphasis.

Grime superstar Stormzy was actually very subdued. In ‘a tailor-made show’ for this festival, he sang soulfully along with his choir on glowing piano tones, echoing guitar sounds and cutting rim shots. It was a remarkably long melodic, audience-friendly counterpart to the incendiary grime shows with which Stormzy built his live reputation.

The pop performance of the evening followed with an unleashed and also very strong rapping live Little Simz. From opener ‘Silhouette’, with dancing white silhouettes on a big screen behind her, she was convincing and in control. On her own on hard funky drums, sharp, full of focus; and from raucous raging tongue twisters on thumping kick drums to vocally calmer verses that build to gospel glowing choruses in the choruses. She was soulful, charismatic, stoic – a superstar.

There stuck Van Morrison (77), whose hall had to be closed to the festival audience at five o’clock in the afternoon because of the incredible run-up – completely exhausted. The focus was not on his hits but on covers of the skiffle music that Van Morisson once grew up with. The rudimentary genre is a crucial source of inspiration for him, but live it remained flat and routine, lacking real musical enthusiasm.