Scene 37
ART MATTERS
ALL THAT JAZZ
) Brighton-based artist Joshua Uvieghara works from his Phoenix Studio space. The way he uses scale and colour enlivening the fruits of his labour, giving them more impact when seen in real life or virtually.
REVIEWS
BY ENZO MARRA
He tends to work on a number of paintings at a time and traverse between them, their scale ranging from the more intimate to the immense wall filling proportioned works. Working on unstretched canvas to collage them together onto larger supports, using a wide variety of pigments from the household to acrylics and oil-based paints to create each image. The vividness of the palette, which he can dive into with full abandon and could so easily verge into crass eye catching colouration, informs upon the scenes depicted and doesn’t override the relationships which exist on each support. His personal response to figurative stimuli, equally balanced in terms of recognisable forms and the hues that make each element individual yet part of a bigger whole. His subject matter ranging from the filmic, evocations of place, the presence and meaning that is inspired by their evocation, the feelings of loss and hope that are too human to be refused, the concepts of identity and otherness which guide how we feel about ourselves and our place in the world, and memory and truth which are more fluid than we would ever want them to be. To Joshua, the thingness of his work is important, the whole idea of thingness is articulated by the philosopher Heidegger. It’s like something you can point to and see but not name. Art has a way of pointing at the thing in an exquisite way when it works. It’s a poetic idea really and it’s about the ineffable too. The aim to enliven the poetic in people, an admirable and difficult quest to follow.. The human experience he’s trying to convey to the viewer, the sense of our involvement in place, our role to see and then be affected, be part of something much larger and expansive than ourselves, an important thing to dwell on in these difficult times. The role of the visual arts to allow us to escape but also be rooted in our lived days, something which I have always valued and partaken in when a painted portal drew me closer to it. Somehow looking at your own works never has the same effect, maybe being the creator you are too close, too involved, have knowledge of how it came about. Joshua’s works allow me to be somewhere else, be other, away from the realities which can become unpalatable as the days drag out. Even if you have to resort to the less resonant computer experience, the journeys you can take are as vivid as they can possibly be, visual medicine to keep us afloat.
BY SIMON ADAMS
) ELLA FITZGERALD The Lost Berlin Tapes (Verve). This recording of an Ella Fitzgerald concert in West Berlin in March 1962 was not so much lost as hidden by her manager, Norman Granz. He may have planned it for future release and then forgotten it or wanted it for his private collection. Whatever its history, the appearance at last of this fine double CD set is most welcome. Backed by her regular trio of the time – Paul Smith on piano, Wilfred Middlebrooks on bass, Stan Levey on drums – Ella swings confidently through Cheek to Cheek, is slowly reflective on both Angel Eyes and Summertime, and then delivers a straight version of Cry Me A River that is a thousand miles from the seduction of Julie London, with whom the song is forever associated. The concert ends firstly with Mack The Knife, which she had sung so wonderfully on her previous visit to the city, and then with a sublime reading of Wee Baby Blues. Judging by the roar of the audience, it was good night out in Berlin. ) THELONIOUS MONK Palo Alto (Impulse!). As racial tensions increased across America during the increasingly violent summer of 1968, 16-year-old school student Danny Scher attempted to bring the divided communities of Palo Alto, California together by getting pianist Thelonious Monk and his quartet to play at his high school. Amazingly, Monk agreed, and so took to the school stage at 2pm on the afternoon of 27 October. Monk was past his best by this time, but he pulled out all the stops for a magical performance. The opening ballad Ruby, My Dear positively skips along, Well, You Needn’t is full of detail and event, while Blue Monk almost rocks with pleasure. Even Monk’s squeaky piano stool joins in the fun. A school gig usually promises little, but this performance was breathtaking. Never doubt the power of a schoolboy to get what he wants! ) ELINA DUNI/ROB LUFT Lost Ships (ECM). Albanian–Swiss singer Elina Duni’s fourth album for ECM finds her partnering with British guitarist Rob Luft in a set of collaborative performances alongside Swiss flugelhorn player Matthieu Michel and British pianist and multiinstrumentalist Fred Thomas. Duni and Luft first played together in 2017 and from there developed this set of songs of love and exile, producing “an album about contemporary issues facing us all … also an album about the places we’ve been and loved, places that no longer exist or continue to exist only as a fragment of our imagination.” Duni’s voice – she sings in four languages here – is clear and expressive in tone, both knowing and naïve in equal measure, while Luft’s guitar laps quietly away in the background. It’s all very subdued, and all the more wonderful for it.
