Allan Holdsworth/Alan Pasqua Group, London's QEH,

 

Despite evidence of jet lag various members of the band were working and available during the afternoon. Chad Wackerman provided a drum masterclass at 3pm, while I attended a "question & answer" session with Holdsworth and Pasqua at 4.30pm - and this in front of the gear, 9-tenths set up for the evening concert . There was a strong suggestion that the typically public-shy Holdsworth, much preferred to be finishing setting his rig, but eventually Alan Pasqua got a couple of seats and microphones at the front of the stage, kicking the session off 10 minutes late. In truth the Q&A session was shambolic. The half-filled auditorium consisted of a lot of in-awe musos of all ages, who had problems asking questions precisely or concisely. Questions were fielded but when  the "two Alans" had trouble hearing what was said , the rest of us in the audience heard nothing.  Alan Pasqua's academic  background  meant he ended up chairing the session, in part because very few questions were aimed at him. Not surprisingly,  Holdworth was the recipiant who managed in few words  to provide some answers, but admittedly with a few ad lib jokes that involved beer. Pasqua's input to the discussion about music, playing and their approach to many things was therefore restricted.  However, in a far more eloquent and lucid style, he was able  to pick up the crumbs, usually adapting a question on guitars or guitarwork to keyboard playing.

 

Perhaps the most interesting  responses were about learning  to play and practicing their instruments. Holdsworth emphasising not to learn to play "licks" because this he felt approach inhibits improv - rather practice  on scales and adapt your practice improv round these. Pasqua suggested the importance of playing a new piece without error right from the start  - here doing the tune slowly and then speeding it up, thereby encourage the muscle memory  to develop and subsequently be exact and partly subconscious.

 

The Q&A session barely lasted 1 hour - while it was about the same price per ticket as the evening gig. Friends and I thought this event could have been managed far far better, in particular it needed a chair to field questions and it needed an audience microphone so everybody could hear. One friend thought this session might have been hoisted on a reluctant Holdworth. I'm glad to say, that after the Q& A session all the band were available to sat hello and sign their DVD Live At Yooshi's  - btw Jimmy Haslip has an almighty hand crushing grip. Apparently Allan Holdsworth signed my DVD box: "To The 17th Man of Tain" - but I challenge anybody to decode what is written there!

 

In comparison, the evening concert was a real joy, and one of those major gigs I have had the privilege to see. The tunes played largely adhered to what can be seen and heard on Live At Yooshi's - that mix of Lifetime, other Holdsworth and Pasqua compositions, with the odd Haslip piece- - the  arrangements have evolved seemingly quite some distance from last year's DVD recording. The two obvious Tony Williams Lifetime tunes were played, Fred ( a real delight being a favourite of mine) and Proto-cosmos, with the improvs different from the Oakland show, while Wackerman (brilliant and precise throughout), perhap providing more emphasise and an echo of the Tony Williams' style of jazz rock drumming, that can be heard on  the original recordings of these tunes  (i.e the rock steady underpinning beat and the heavy underlining as verse moved to solo).  Holdsworth and Pasqua haven't played together for nearly 30 years but have maintained their friendship, and evidently here as major jazz musicians have clearly have developed and moved on musically in thta period. The old tunes simply didn't sound old, rather new cutting jazz rock fusion. Pasqua keyboard playing matched Holdsworth's guitarwork - clearly they take great pleasure listening to each other during solos. But as I've observed previously, Holdsworth doesn't do duos so each of the group's leaders had their spots. Plenty of room was made for Jimmy Haslip to provide an excellent 6 string (fretless) solo or three, ditto Wackerman with drum solos which were short and to the point,  not outstaying their welcome. Amongst Holdsworth's solo breaks was a spine-tingling soundscape  as a opening, I think to Pud Wud. Otherwise we were given more of that gob-smacking, signature playing:  fast fluid runs with the legato - total music magic coming from those fingers. Having started at 7.40 the gig, with one encore finished just short of 9.30pm  - with the rare vision of Holdworth smiling at the end.

 

I had hoped to spend time talking with the band for slightly longer. However, before the start of the  evening show I found myself spending more time talking with the very accessible (Mighty Boosh's) Julian Barratt, who slipped easily into character stating "I only want to talk jazz rock"....So did I.  It was one of those sort of nights. Marvellous.