We flippin’ love jazz here at One on One HQ.
In all honesty, we can’t see why you wouldn’t. There’s the strange timings, and the cool instruments. You’ve got the atypical jazzer’s complete inability to give a damn about whether their songs are ‘radio-friendly’, too. Oh, and need we even mention the fact that a bunch of the world’s most famous jazz musicians have really, really cool nicknames, too?
Our favourite thing of all about The World Of Jazz, though, is that the people who produce and record great jazz music are always – without exception – very, very good at playing their instruments. In our eyes, it goes without saying that in order to truly master the intricacies of funky time signatures and smoothly subtle bass licks, you need to be a pretty good musician. Like this guy:
He wasn’t half bad, old Buddy Rich
Now, if you’ve been perusing the pages of One on One for a while, you might’ve noticed that there are two things in particular that we enjoy here at One on One Towers: good music, and great gigs.
The one thing we really enjoy, though, is when those two worlds collide. In our eyes there really is nothing better than watching a great band performing a great song. Nothing.
Well, kinda. Forgive us for misleading you, dear reader, but there is actually one thing that’s better than that. One thing so life-affirming, so pure, and so wholly enjoyable that we’d be quite happy to find ourselves doing it every single night. That is, specifically, watching two great bands performing a whole bunch of great songs.
This really was one hell of a show
When we got our tickets for Puma Blue‘s show in Bristol, we had no idea that he’d be bringing local lad Harvey Causon along with him; but, we couldn’t be happier that he did. Harvey‘s half-hour set may have been short, but by God was it sweet – in fact, we wouldn’t be lying if we said that we haven’t seen a young singer-songwriter with this much potential for a long, long time.
It’s hard to describe his music – but, if you ask us, that’s half of his appeal. For every serving of jazz, you’ve got a double-dose of electronica; for every hint of a pop chorus, you get a layer of synth-bass that could’ve come straight from some of Daft Punk‘s more wibbly-wobbly moments. We think that he’s great, and we wouldn’t be surprised at all if he turns out to be one of the breakout stars of the UK music scene within the next few years.
We were pretty impressed by Puma Blue, too
Then, of course, we had to sit through an hour-long set from Puma Blue. Fear not, though: as human beings with (generally) functioning hearing systems, we couldn’t help but to be seriously impressed by the London-born multi-instrumentalist’s seamless blend of jazz, funk and soul. If you haven’t heard about him before, you’re majorly missing out: the man somehow manages to take his bucketloads of musical prowess and package them into something that’s not only technically impressive, but accessible to even the most ardent fan of 4/4 timings and four-to-the-floor drum beats. It’s fantastic on record, and even better live – we urge you to check him out if you ever get the chance.