Incognito@Zeltival
In the evening hours of a warm and sunny sunday, a concert of Incognito took place at the Zeltival (which now more or less is a Hallival, as the Tollhaus built a new large hall during the last year). I’m not exactly a fan of funk, but as I’ve never seen Jean-Paul Maunick and his group live, there was no excuse not to attend.
Many Jazz masters forgot that music was invented to entertain people in the first place. Thus Jazz often is music from musicians – written and played for musicians. I guess all those weird chords, scales and rhythms might have less meaning to the average listener.
Incognito’s funk compacts Jazz into a mass compatible form. They use weird chords and scales as well, but they are not changing them every two beats. This essence gets served in a grooving container, enriched by three black singers (two female, one male) and spiced by a section of three brass instruments. A quite interesting mixture indeed.
The sound in the hall was not the best, except near the mixing desk – my preferred location when attending concerts. Some songs have been built from simple chords (hello II – V), but some even used really weird harmonics. Jean-Paul played the guitar (which I seldom could hear) plus some MIDI controller triggering drum and percussion sounds. He left the solos to the other musicians. Mike Cooper was mainly addicted to an electric piano sound (Yamaha Motif) and some occasional organ (Roland Phantom) and clavinet (Korg Triton) sounds. He used his Roland JP 8000 mainly for some synth effects.
The concert was not exactly cheap, but well worth the bucks. Dividing the 28€ by 120 minutes results in about 25¢ per minute. That’s comparable to the price of an audio CD. OTOH you can listen to the CD more than one time :) .
A very nice concert. I enjoyed every minute. Thanks girls and guys.
