Punk Jazz: The Thing at Kung Fu Necktie

by Anthony Medici in Concert Reviews, Musician Reviews, Opinion Posts, Reviews

No, not “Thing,” that disembodied hand that creeped you out in “The Addams Family.”  No, “The Thing” I’m talking about is the kick-butt Scandinavian free jazz trio, with Swede Mats Gustafsson on tenor sax, and Norwegians Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums.  The band has been touring the U.S. behind its new album, “”Bag It,” and a new CD box set.  These guys are as much influenced by the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash, as they are by Coltrane, Ornette,  and Albert Ayler.  When you go, you know it is going to be loud, intense and full of high-voltage energy.  I could feel that energy traveling way down to DC, enough so to make me drop what I was doing and make the two and a half hour trek to club Kung Fu Necktie (no, I have no idea either what the name means) on North Front Street, in Philadelphia, this past Friday night.    

KFN is a hip neighborhood bar with loads of artistic character.  It also has a small stage with a vaulted wooden ceiling (I can’t say I’ve ever seen that in a club). I’m not sure about the acoustical properties, but it hardly seemed to matter once The Thing fired up a maelstrom of sound that sucked in everyone in the room.  The band is a perfect example of managed chaos.  The band hits hard from the beginning, and Gustafsson wields the sax like a punk rocker .  Håker Flaten is as intense on bass as I’ve ever seen.  Compared to Gustafsson and Håker Flaten, Nilssen-Love might be called relatively restrained, although he more than keeps up with the other members and provides some interesting percussion effects.

                Friday’s performance delivered an extra added attraction (as they say in show biz), in the form of the great sax player Joe McPhee.  I hereby propose that “Great” be permanently affixed to McPhee’s f name, as in Great Joe McPhee.  McPhee has been joining the band on its U.S. tour.  He can match Gustafsson when the blowing gets heavy, but he also provided some beautiful counterpoint, and a strand of the blues throughout that gave the music a depth of feeling and authenticity.  It was not all sound and fury.  The band can take it low and slow and evoke some lovely spirits.  But it’s really on its game when the spirit moves them to gale force sound.  Mind you, it’s not merely sheer noise (but they’re not  afraid of that either), but taking music beyond the places even such avatars as Ayler and Brotzmann have visited.    And here’s the punch line:  it’s exciting.  It’s energizing.  It’s fun. 

                And her e is another amazing thing about the concert:  the folks in the audience were predominately in their 20s and 30s, an observation one usually cannot make about jazz shows these days, especially those performances that seem determined to turn back the clock to the 50s and 60s, with endless recycling of bebop and hard bop conventions.  That approach to the music is not going to bring in the next generation of fans, who grew up on rock, punk, hip hop and other alternative music.  As the American jazz scene becomes more and more ossified in tired conventions, the Europeans are still trying to move forward, not afraid to face the fact that this is the 21st century.  The Thing is like a cold, stiff, invigorating blast of Scandinavian winter air.  They demonstrate that jazz can still excite.