The 2008 Cheltenham Jazz Festival may have opened last week with Eartha Kitt and Van Morrison, and big Saturday-afternoon non-cognoscenti crowds might have gathered around the Budvar Jazz Marquee to hear some easygoing jazz in the sunshine. But an edgier, non-mainstream music is where this creative festival's heart lies.
Outhouse Ruhabi, the intriguing post-Polar Bear quartet, played a mostly incandescent early set with five traditional drummers from the Gambia - a project driven by Africa-devoted Outhouse Ruhabi drummer Dave Smith. Jubilantly gossipy talking-drum exchanges built to frenzied climaxes, while two saxophonists (the laconic Robin Fincker and the jazzier, more legato-inclined Mark Hanslip) wound contrastingly studied, long-lined melodies over the polyrhythmic furore.
A pioneer of that sinuous approach is American saxist Tim Berne, appearing later with his Science Friction electric band. Dark, gothic guitar motifs and churchy organ sounds (from the ferocious Marc Ducret and flawless keyboardist Craig Taborn) were swept into racing jazz time or free-funk thrashes, with free-improv wrigglings turning to slashing heavy metal or boppish note conundrums. It was like hearing a summary of post-60s jazz (and a lot more) being crushed into an hour.
Young Wales-based pianist Dave Stapleton favours a more familiarly jazzy, Blue Note sound, but his late-afternoon set reiterated his group's melodic flair, varied repertoire, punchy rhythmic feel and solo diversity. Very classy, but more muted (at times, overly so) was the Jerwood commission for ingenious saxist Iain Ballamy and Swedish drummer Peter Danemo. The band was a postbop supergroup, including bass giant Palle Danielsson, guitarist John Parricelli, and trumpeter Staffen Svensson (an unfalteringly agile and imaginative interpreter of mid-60s Miles Davis), and the music was coolly lyrical and beautifully crafted. A shade more colour in its cheeks was the only missing ingredient.