One hell of a concert

Hot - An Infernal Cabaret,
the latest collaborative project
by Peter Wiegold's 'notes inégales'
and performance poet Murray Lachlan Young.
MALCOLM MILLER was there

An icy winter's evening was transformed into a feverish burning creativity in 'Hot -- An Infernal Cabaret', a remarkable and zestful musical happening given by notes inégales under the direction of their founder Peter Wiegold in the Studio Theatre, Union Chapel, Islington, North London, UK, on Tuesday 29 November 2005. This fringe fusion of progressive jazz improvisation and contemporary avant-garde recalled some of the best experimental events of the 70s and 80s, and featured a line up of first class musicians from around the country in an ensemble to perform a music theatrical programme introduced by and in combination with the performance poet Murray Lachlan Young. Young has previously worked with musicians such as Nigel Kennedy, and in this new departure both for Young and notes inégales, the partnership seemed to reach heights -- or perhaps depths would be more apt -- of inspiration and energy. The members of notes inégales, who gave a Purcell Room recital last February, were here increased with an essential trumpet, the Swedish Torbjorn Hultmark, whose solos in the Miles Davies arrangements were stunningly evocative.

The evening took its title from two works performed in the second half, Rameau's Infernal Airs, in a contemporary arrangement by Martin Butler, the noted composer and pianist of the ensemble, and Franco Donatoni's fiendishly difficult Hot, yet the fire and brimstone imagery, set into a witty contemporary voice, pervaded the evening of words and music. The prologue and epilogue by Peter Wiegold, Drive your cart and plough over the bones of the dead, inspired by Blake's poetry, with its ritornello-like jazz harmony fanfare motifs and pulsating textures, offered a backing for Murray Lachlan Young's rhetorical flourishes in which he invoked the spirits of Miles Davies, Rameau and Donatoni to preside over the devilish proceedings.

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