The Brooklyn Rail

Enjoy Jazz might have a mainstream, accessible title for a festival, but all levels are embraced, from an impressive spread of starry names to a strong contingent of adventurous artists, mainly arriving from the jazzed quarter but often representing rock, hip-hop, electronic, global-ethno, or modern classical. It is also distinctive for two other reasons: it spans a whole month, from October 2nd to November 2nd, and it boasts one gig every night around the tri-city span of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and Ludwigshafen. Sometimes there are two gigs in an evening, in different cities, and very occasionally there are three events happening simultaneously. It makes sense to choose a single show, whatever the circumstances, so we’re talking intense delicacy and concentration rather than Winter Jazzfest overload. Pleasure is carefully rationed rather than taken on the run.

Erwin Ditzner is a local drummer and percussionist, witnessed once before at Enjoy Jazz by your scribe, who was pleasingly impressed. It’s a tradition of the festival that Ditzner is given carte blanche to create the circumstances of his set. In 2015, he teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp. It was now time for their reunion. Halfway through this year’s edition, the pair performed at Alte Feuerwache, one of Mannheim’s best venues, which is literally a converted fire station. This was a Wednesday night, and these two would be improvising freely, so it was particularly encouraging that the audience attendance was somewhat strong under the circumstances.

Sharp had brought only his axe across the water, leaving his range of reed instruments at home. He opened by generating loops, or instant soundscapes, laying out leaves of environmental shadings. He also used a small rod to add electric guitar string glissando, blooming further with an Ebow. Ditzner began an ongoing tumble, sensitively ranging around his skins across Sharp’s echo-soaked dronescape. The next development involved the guitarist picking out silver traceries in tandem with his wah-wah-talking pedal.

The improvisation was quite well-behaved, continuing on a linear path, growing rather than jerking off into unexpected directions. Ditzner maintained the rollin’ and tumblin’ at an increasing pace. The lights were low, the mood introverted. When the flashing and flickering started, this was in keeping with an upped volume and intensity. Space crept in, and pauses were possible, dramatic hesitations creating greater tension. Mallets met cymbals and skin, Ditzner’s beats inviting Sharp to pull out his bottleneck, reminding us of his blues-rock aspects. Sharp also operated his abstract bass finger, laying out low lines as a bed for treble scrabble, a riffline prancing out, leading to a pair of encores demanded by the unusually vocal free-improvisation firehouse crowd.

When Pat Metheny played two days later, it was in the gleaming and glitzy sold-out Feierabendhaus, one of Ludwigshafen’s several venues created by the city’s dominant BASF chemical giant (we will remember them for their cassette tapes). Metheny was on his intensive European tour, which seemingly transformed gradually from a celebration of solo album Dream Box to also embrace the even more recent solo album MoonDial (both Metheny Group/BMG). There was a special concentration on the pleasures of the baritone guitar, and an extensive trawl through other phases of Metheny’s output, making this a retrospective that finds this review in need of a firm spoiler warning. For those who balk at Metheny’s often quease-making SynthAxe bloat-outs, it was way more fulfilling to find him in this largely acoustic shape.

This was a very long show, but Metheny loaded it with continual interest, not least by engaging in lengthy anecdotal spinnings, enlightening and amusing in turn. At first there were a mere three guitars in sight. There wasn’t much embellishment of the tunes, which navigated a central spine with a deliberate touch and an embedded lyrical mellowness, showcasing selections from Metheny’s 1997 duo with bassman Charlie Haden (Beyond The Missouri Sky, Verve). He also provided one of the most shocking outbreaks of any set this year, recalling his live LP with the British guitarist Derek Bailey (The Sign of 4, Knitting Factory), bursting into a shattering, aggressive angularity, volume upped and startlingly creative. The dude two seats next to your scribe refused to applaud. Then Metheny’s twelve-string launched into heavy post-Sonic Youth riffing, in an overwhelmingly shocking and powerful statement.

Metheny’s two-necked, forty-two stringed Pikasso guitar was hidden backstage, brought out to emulate angelic harps, with a sitar/koto string-mix. Then, on baritone, he played “Alfie” (Burt Bacharach/Hal David), and “The Girl From Ipanema” (Antônio Carlos Jobim), avoiding the spines of both, taking an alternative bodily route. The MoonDial numbers were recorded on nylon-stringed baritone guitar, this resonance providing a sumptuous tonal attractiveness. As the set neared its climax (and its encores), it turned into a hallucinatory dreamscape, as the heavy curtains swooped aside to reveal Metheny’s massive Orchestrion construction (we had wondered why he needed the massive tour bus that sat outside the venue), his crankily mechanical big band that appears both futuristic and steampunked. Then he had electric axes attached to metal stands, overdubbing loops as a one-man band. The entire performance was an expertly constructed guide to Metheny’s repertoire, playing styles and thematic diversity, and radically more exciting than we might have expected.

The Brad Mehldau Trio provided contrast at the Pfalzbau concert hall, also in Ludwigshafen, three nights earlier. This is a space that’s been rarely used by the Enjoy Jazz festival, a lavish venue that strangely relies on unfixed seating in the name of performance versatility. Mehldau concentrated on his original material, which was a good move, as he’s just as likely to devote sets to his favored rock, pop, or classical themes. Throughout the set, Mehldau appeared somewhat distracted, wringing his hands, as though it was cold up onstage. There also seemed to be little ignition between the trio members drummer Jorge Rossy (returned to the fold) and new bassist Felix Moseholm. Each tune’s conclusion was prey to a sharp dwindling rather than a finishing flourish. Rossy played micro-solos between Mehldau’s Steinway phrases, as the leader repeated and scattered into free-flowing terrain, although always tethered to a consistent line of thought. Mehldau’s sensitive lucidity remained in place, a tender touch for silvery brook continuance. The last time your scribe witnessed the Mehldau trio was at the Belgrade Jazz Festival in 2021—a far superior showing. Some key mysterious quality was absent during this Ludwigshafen set.