Jazz Sous Les Pommiers, Coutances, France, May 16-20

There’s an increasing number of jazz festivals that feature global-traditional-fusion artists, and Jazz Sous Les Pommiers (in the small French town of Coutances) has, in its latest edition, managed to increase that ratio close to 50%. The usual population becomes massively enlarged, as the entire town’s venues are employed for mostly sold-out shows.

DakhaBrakha (photo by Francis Bellamy)

On the final night of the festival, the Ukrainian electro-folkers DakhaBrakha unveiled their new set. They’ve intensified their touring pace during recent months, and unsurprisingly these new songs have a doomier aspect, accompanied by matching big-screen visuals. Bordering on propaganda, their flashing images and messages nevertheless exude positivity. There’s also a simultaneous strain of empowered optimism, creating a blended emotional flavour. DakhaBrakha benefited from a pristine sonic power in the Théâtre de Coutances, quaking through the capacity crowd. All four of them play some sort of percussion, as the three female voices merge in an entwined relationship, while accordionist Marko Halanevych competes very strongly in the falsetto stakes. Actually, he tends to over-employ this range and would be advised to increase the presence of his deeper, sonorous voice. Groaning cello and Nord keyboards complete the main spread, along with a minimalist drumkit.

Femi Kuti admitted that he was heavily distracted by the recent arrest of his brother Seun, but soldiered on with his sports-hall show, throwing masses of energy into his singing, playing and dancing, and urging his band, The Positive Force, on with vigorous arm signals. Even so, the Nigerian Kuti failed to ignite the atmosphere on a potent gut level, though the set was generally a success. As he grows older, there’s certainly no reduction in the power of Femi’s dance moves.

Femi Kuti (photo by Pierre-Yves Le Meur)

In the same hall, two nights earlier, the Mauritanian singer Noura Mint Seymali was billed as the guest of French electro-violinist Théo Ceccaldi’s (coincidentally named) group Kuti, but unfortunately, she only appeared for two songs. As Kuti’s cynically commercialised pop-Ethiopian stomp-disco bordered on the unwatchable, it was remarkable that Seymali and her chosen numbers had the power to completely convert this same band into a positive force. This is a prime illustration of how a leader can often dictate the quality of a potentially malleable band.

The Spanish flamenco singer-saxophonist Antonio Lizana played two sold-out sets in the town’s cosy cinema, joined by a keyboardist, electric bassist and drummer, as well as a singer who doubled as a dancer (or was that the other way around?). This was prime jazz-flamenco fusion, hard on the former, earthy on the latter, delivered with complete passion and involvement. It’s a commercial sound, but also comes across as genuine and gritty, played with a zestful virtuosity. The cinema became a heated flamenco club.

Robert Cray is another now-veteran performer who is playing better than ever before. Amazingly this Georgia bluesman (soulman and funkman) is now on the brink of 70, but is singing with ever-greater poignancy, sending out repeated guitar solos of perfectly shaped atonality, capsule statements of fried, sweet-voiced hyper-power. Unusually, fine songwriter that he is, Cray also dropped in a few old chestnuts: ‘Sittin’ On Top Of The World’ and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland’s ‘Deep In My Soul’. His tender vibrato stings the heart, as the Hammond organ purrs, and Cray takes another shakin’-moan solo. Cray is completely uncompromising in his adoration of blues, soul and funk, streaking his originals with an extremely dark sense of despair, resignation, loss, smouldering anger, and of fate’s inevitability. Every solo is a cry for consolation. The oldies still hold an almost sinister resonance: ‘Bad Influence’, ‘Phone Booth’, ‘Strong Persuader’. When Cray sings the odd lighter, even joyous song, this holds a kind of secret-weapon strength of surprise.