Right, 2007, let’s be having you.  Time to brush off the cobwebs and kick out the jams.  To provide some heat on this coldest of winter nights, The Spitz gave us American free jazz legend Noah Howard.  I’ve got a few of his records – The Black Ark (one of The Wire’s great out-of-print records in a list a few years back), Message to South Africa with the Chris McGregor, and Uhuru Na Umoja with Frank Wright – but beyond those he has played with the likes of The Art Ensemble, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, and the one who seems to have had a biggest impact on his sax playing, Albert Ayler.  Some pedigree.  And some pick-up band for the occasion – arguably the finest tenor, bass and drums in the country at present in Evan Parker, John Edwards and Chris Corsano.

To start the fire, we had guitar/drums duo Ascension.  I don’t know much about these two and, let’s face it, googling Ascension free improvisation was never going to help (stupid name, really stupid name, the equivalent of some electronic musicians calling themselves “Chiastic Slide”, or some avant-rock band calling themselves “Daydream Nation”?). 

The drummer brought to mind a cabbie reading The Sun on the dashboard whilst flicking hand signals to passing cabbie mates, and demonstrated calm unhurried precision as he drove the music through some pretty rough sidestreets.  The guitarist was possessed of such lank-haired geek nonchalance, as if he had been called from the IT service desk to fix your printer; Derek Bailey pings and bongs built to Sonny Sharrock splintered glass before some Thurston-esque amp-fiddling cut the power to the guitar altogether.  They never really recovered the considerable momentum they had built to that point, and the obsessional cable-fiddling distracted somewhat thereafter.

Noah Howard may have looked younger than sixty-three, but either he has the mind of an older man or was displaying something bordering on ignorance or contempt by seemingly not bothering to learn the names of his stellar companions on stage.  I cringed at his continual name-free references to “these local geniuses” and his repeated imploring for us to come out and support them whenever they played live, as if they were a bunch up young up-and-comers.

A typical piece would begin with Howard playing an Ayler-esque theme and getting a surprisingly deferential Parker to double on it.  Howard would put a straightjacket on Corsano by getting him to play some straight-up backbeats and marching drums – I’m not sure if the smile on the drummer’s face was rueful, or one of genuine enjoyment.  Still, it was fun to watch Corsano try to wriggle free, angling his way in amongst Edwards bass thwonks before clattering around until Howard cut him off.  It was “my bass player”, as he was called by Noah all evening, who seemed to be the apple of his eye, given the repeated solos he was commanded to take (awesome, all of them, building into loud thumping runs down the strings).

When Howard let the band off the leash, they veered from the straight-yet-swingy stuff towards the Black Ark and straight on through, at times forcing their leader (this was no genuine democratic free improvisation group; they were Noah Howard’s band and they knew it) to the side of the stage, nodding appreciatively.  By the time Howard and Parker had marched off Arkestra-fashion through the crowd at the end, these sections of fire music had well and truly melted the snow on the roof of the venue.