PRESS / F-IRE Collective CMN tour 2005

From Birmingham Post - 24/10/2005

F-ire is start of something big

F-ire Collective CBSO Centre, Berkley Street

A whole new wave of emerging British jazz talent splashed down at the CBSO Centre on Friday as the musicians from pacesetting bands like Acoustic Ladyland, Jade Fox and Polar Bear pooled their
talents.

Passing through the city as part of a national tour produced by Birmingham Jazz for the Contemporary Music Network, the F-ire Collective fielded up to 16 players for their biggest arrangements. The music spans a wide spectrum, but there's a preference for
unpredictable, asymmetrical compositions which range across boundaries into pop, funk and musical idioms you might struggle to put a name to. Even so, I did wonder whether I was going to find the
idea of the F-ire Collective more attractive than its music, several of the early pieces coming across as clever rather than emotionally involving.

But just before the interval Pete Wareham's Remember took the show on to a more visceral level with its massive slams of sound, and after it the baton was picked up by Finn Peters' Machine Gun,
introduced by Ivesian marching bands closing in on the stage from the back of the room.

Ingrid Laubrock's Monologue Man brought some of the rawest playing of the night, and the second set built to a worthy climax in guitarist David Okumu's Ransom. The latter stages of this lengthy
number featuring an extended tuba solo from Oren Marshall over lightweight percussion, with the saxes sketching a gradually hardening riff.

Then the first of two encores sprang yet another surprise with a finger-popping a capella number. If this is still jazz it's probably only because there's no point in thinking of another name for it.

Given the apparent shift in pop towards traditional "live" values, perhaps we can look forward to a more interesting phase of musical promiscuity than we've enjoyed for a while

Terry Grimley