I actually went out! In Kuwait! Who’da thunk it?

The Radisson SAS Hotel (the SAS as we call it) held the 4th annual Kuwait Jazz Festival this week and I went to two of the three nights. It was held on the terrace of one of the restaurants there. A very nice place to see music – open and perfectly set up. Except for a few raindrops on Wednesday and a dusty Thursday, it was a very pleasant couple of evenings. The audience (not full either night) was about 90% non-Arab. But just listening you heard Russians, Australians, Germans, British, American and the event was sponsored by the Polish Embassy and the Netherlands Embassy.

Wednesday night was jazz singer/pianist Karen Edwards and Polish guitarist Jarek Śmietana and his trio. Thursday was Egyptian saxophone player Chris Ioannou and his band. Now, both groups were very good and excellent musicians (though I wasn’t impressed with Karen Edwards). But all the music became very… bland. Each night, we were given standards – and I mean SERIOUS standards. Tunes you have heard a BILLION times. And they were done proficiently and professionally. But there was very little life to it all. The composition of all the songs began to blend into each other after a while. The guitarist was very good so I picked up one of his discs at the door: “Out Of The Question” by the Jarek Śmietana Band. Now THAT is what I was hoping for! Recorded live in Kraków, this record sizzles and bops like good jazz should. It is literate and fun and takes you places. Which begs the question: Did these guys have to “dumb down” for their audience?

I have much higher hopes for next weekend when I will be attending the WOMAD Festival in Abu Dhabi. I only heard of this happening because I read Songlines magazine. Over the three day free festival on the Corniche, I will be seeing dozens of artists including Youssou N’Dour (Senegal), Trilok Gurtu (India), Sa Dingding (China), Dulsori (Korea) and numerous others. And – supposedly – Robert Plant will be showing up on the last night. I think I can avoid bland here….

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