April Jazz 2023 - An Adroit Attempt to Serve Something for Everyone

Pianist Kenny Banks takes a look at the audience on the balcony during a solo at Lizz Wright’s concert on April 28, 2023, in Tapiolasali in Espoo. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

That, one of my favorite expressions, couldn’t have been more accurate when Billy Cobham Band took the stage at the Espoo Cultural Center in Tapiola on April 29 as the definite highlight of the April Jazz festival. The festival, which was arranged between April 21 and 29, took place in various venues sprinkled across the metropolitan area.

Some venues suited their respective artists better than others.

While Cobham’s group could have benefited from a more natural-sounding venue, Cobham, who is one of the greatest drummers of our times, kept the full attention of the crowd for almost two hours despite the church-like echo in Tapiolasali that pretty much swallowed every instrument from keyboards to bass into the abyss.

Billy Cobham seemed to enjoy every note and groove. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

But the drummer was not turned off by this, which I would imagine could have, at times, felt like playing a duet with a ghost in the balcony as the echo of the snare drum and cymbals came falling back at him.  When the going gets weird ….

Having heard the man playing live a few years back at the Savoy Theater in a room with more pleasing sound, he this time, at 78 years of age, seemed, perhaps, even more relaxed, more into it.

For example, during the lengthy drum solo before the beginning of “Stratus,” Cobham gave a few solid hits on the toms with the sticks and then pulled out the tuning key, and after turning the drumheads tighter he seemed to snap his fingers on the toms near the overhead producing a sound that glued the spectators’ concentration to this simple, yet, elegant snap!

After the rudiments and the paradiddles came the snare roll followed by the famous bassline played in Espoo by Victor Cisternas. The short guitar stabs of Emilio Garcia and the ta-da-da-daa keyboard chords of Camelia Ben Nacur ignited the tune.

Cobham’s set continued with lengthy improvisational tunes with him controlling the pace. He many times closed his eyes with his head nodding to the beat while immersing into the rhythm while bullets of sweat dripped down under his bandana that was folded around his forehead.

The audience was treated to songs like the slow, funky burner “Red Baron” and the spacey “Spanish Moss.”

These tunes, like “Stratus,” were some of the best bangers from Cobham’s early albums Spectrum (1973) and Crosswinds (1974).

I didn’t recognize many songs from his later career. On a personal note, a song like “The Muffin Talks Back” could have benefited the set, if only for the uptempo feel and sheer fun.

When it came down to the final songs of the set, Cobham said that they will unfortunately soon finish because “they have to get back home and enjoy beer.”

“Beer is important,” Cobham said.

The audience cheered.

Another gig we observed earlier was by another American, Judith Hill, whose oeuvre covers backing vocals to Michael Jackson, Prince and others.

At Korjaamo in Helsinki’s Taka-Töölö district, however, she was the lead performer, singing, playing the electric guitar and occasionally the keyboard.

Funky as she is, Hill grabbed the beer-enjoying crowd by the collar with tunes like “Americana” and “Baby, I’m Hollywood.” Many of the songs, including the aforementioned, had a blues tinge and were coated in Jimi Hendrix style guitar work.

John Staten’s drums, though, seemed at times to roll off the hill, which did no favors to Hill’s more tender vocal cords and the light use of guitar distortion. At times, Hill’s sound was buried under the hammering wham of Staten’s snare. Maybe he and she liked it that way? Or maybe it was a sound mixing problem?  Nevertheless, the sound was a big contrast to Hill’s albums where the sound is balanced, but the show went on, and the bar was crowded.

Lizz Wright’s performance the day before Cobham’s set was at the other end of the spectrum compared to the aforementioned or Hill, for that matter.

Wright took control of the quite crowded Tapiolasali with deep, bassy, sassy vocals that, for sure, reached even those sitting highest in the gallery thanks to the large echo of the venue that this time actually benefited the group.

Wright opened with “The Nearness of You,” a hefty ballad with undertones of gospel.

“I’m Confessin’” was an unbosoming of love, and the crowd seemed to love the ballad, too, while evaluating the loudness of the applause.

“I Remember, I Believe” followed soon with some of the lyrics going like this: “My God calls to me in the morning dew / The power of the universe, It knows my name ….”

Some necks in the audience pecked back and forth during the song, which was one of the slowest of ballads.

They surely felt Wright’s presence and, perhaps, the power of the universe, too.