The curation of a jazz festival's lineup is an interesting thing, isn't it? Jazz at Lincoln Center—a key cultural institution in New York City—describes jazz as “a metaphor for Democracy. Because jazz is improvisational, it celebrates personal freedom and encourages individual expression.”
While not every artist was swinging on the ride cymbal, had saxophone or trumpet solos, or walked to the scale of an upright bass player, the artists who played spoke to the freedom and individual expression of the genre. Perhaps jazz has broadened itself through its own fundamental, democratic components.
I certainly find those ideas—along with unconventional rhythmic patterns and front and centre bass parts—in the music of ELLIP, a six-piece band that played at Fotografiska in Tallinn on Friday August 27th, as well as a solo terrace concert the following afternoon with lead singer and songwriter Pille-Riin Karro.
Take a listen to “Shivers” and “Fool”, from ELLIP's 2020 EP Four Words, and you'll come across stylish moments of glitches and skips in the drum beat. And then there's that earworm of a chorus in the latest single “Square One,” that moves like a swift left and right stomping dance routine.
(Read more: Estonian Life No. 36 2021 paber- and PDF/digi)
Written by Vincent Teetsov, Toronto
