As with the corresponding fixture last year (the appropriately named ‘Jazz Café in the Park I’), at which Zero 7 headlined, Jazz Café in the Park II seemingly started with the admittedly admirable idea to offer what no other mainstream music festival does. ‘Alternative’, ‘niche market’ musical dates with names like Hempstock or Mong-a-pollooza notwithstanding, it is certainly true that the same bands have become ubiquitous on the festival circuit this year (just witness Babyshambles’ shameless prostitution of themselves over recent months), so it’s nice that someone somewhere is at least making an effort to shake things up a bit. Unfortunately, shaking seems to be the last thing on the minds of the bruisingly middle-class attendees of today’s event.
Perhaps predictably for a festival held in the garden of what is effectively the poshest house in the world, Jazz Café-goers seemed, in the most part at least, to be annoyingly comfortable both in terms of their lifestyles and in terms of the blankets, cushions and sun-dried tomato salads that surrounded them. To put it into perspective, I think I counted about five hundred children called Miles. Saying that, however, the domination of summer music dates by the Guardian-reading set has been well documented and, in truth, the only real effect it has is that they’re all awfully conscientious about picking up their litter afterwards. So maybe it’s not all that bad. Maybe if they were attending some sort of androgyny-metal love-in then it’d be different, but Jazz seems conducive to their ripple-of-polite-applause vein of appreciation anyway. Besides, it was hilarious to watch attractive, rich, successful people try to save their John Lewis hampers when it started to pour down with rain.
Musically, the event was something of a success. The line-up was never going to find a home for actual, hardcore, weird time signature Jazz, but that was probably a blessing. In its place was a mixture of funky beats and mellow tunes that, were it not for master of ceremonies Normski’s interminable between-set twittering (“Yo! It’s raining!”), would have fostered incredible relaxation. ACOUSTIC LADYLAND kicked off proceedings with another chapter in their quest to make Jazz approachable, which, I fear, will be ultimately unsuccessful. It’s a shame really, because musically I have rarely seen such a universally high standard of musical skill and, more importantly, nous on stage under one banner. This excellent benchmark was continued by K-OS, who, despite their frankly ridiculous name, produced a set of controlled but still frayed hip-hop which just about succeeded in not seeming out of place.
QUANTIC SOUL ORCHESTRA appeared next and, it has to be said, the standard dropped upon their arrival. It all seemed a little too wannabe-Blues Brothers, the suits reminiscent of a student band who play covers of ‘Midnight Hour’ at their local Sixth Form. The music was efficient enough – to their credit they were the first group to effect a little dancing from the assorted Mileses – but the onstage demeanour cheapened it. Gimmicky.
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Following this, THE HERBALISER injected exactly the sort of contemporary sound that the previous act so sorely missed. They slowed down their potentially too-lively sound to appeal to the crowd, crafting their beats minutely and displaying the kind of commercial acumen that lifts bands higher on the bills of precisely this kind of event. They, perhaps more than any of the other bands today, can expect the biggest percentage increase in CD sales at the canary Wharf branch of HMV this month.
MORCHEEBA – the first of the groups that most of the audience would have heard of – followed The Herbaliser and immediately got off to a start that was as close to barnstorming as one can expect at a festival that was basically a big outdoor coffee shop. Unfortunately, after this promising start they then proceeded to give a blow-by-blow musical account of why no-one really likes them anymore. Their turgid set was admittedly hindered by intermittent rain, but their set was reminiscent of the life story of an uncle of mine who gave me a present that I really liked when I was seven years old but then proceeded to develop severe and debilitating health problems. The uncle in question, perhaps prophetically, has never fully recovered. Read into that what you will.
With the summer air moist around us and the sun setting somewhere behind the treeline, ROYKSOPP – the headliners – started their performance. Melody AM was one of the best albums of 2002 and, thankfully, its highpoints were arranged artfully in a set which drew extensively from new and old material. Predictably, ‘Eple’ draws the best response from the audience; but it is the stuff from acclaimed new album The Understanding that sparkles. Perhaps after a three-year break they had got sick of playing the same music the world over, but their sound came into its own during the likes of recent single ‘Only This Moment’. Despite the venue’s sound quality being less than exceptional, the clarity and depth of the sound seemed to soar with live performance. Although what it had to do with Jazz was lost on me.
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