A tale of two festivals

I was just starting to get mildly enthusiastic about April's New Zealand International Jazz and Blues Festival (which despite the grandiose title is very much a local Christchurch event), mainly due to the participation of Mike Nock, a much-underrated New Zealand jazz pianist whose illustrious career stretches back to the 1960s, when he took over from a young Keith Jarrett as the pianist in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and who also led a seminal fusion group called The Fourth Way (is that a Gurdjieff connection?). But I've just seen the programme for March's Wellington Jazz Festival, which despite its far more modest title boasts a lineup that puts the Christchurch event to shame.

How's this for a weekend of fine jazz? Friday night: Mingus Big Band. Saturday night: Tomasz Stańko Quartet. Sunday night: Brad Mehldau Trio. And they've got Mike Nock too, playing in a concert with classical pianist Michael Houstoun. The only slightly disappointing thing about the programme is the description of Stańko as "the Polish Miles Davis". That's about as meaningless as describing Beethoven as "the German Mozart". Still, it's not as bad as the description of Keith Jarrett as "a classical Billy Joel" in this unenlightened review of Jarrett's latest triumph at Carnegie Hall. That's just wrong! The guy doesn't deserve to be at a Keith Jarrett concert. He should have given the ticket to me. And paid for my airfare to New York.