Issue 107 / February 2020

PREVIEWS
Now into its eighth year, LIVERPOOL INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL has been well
placed to observe the boom in contemporary jazz in the UK, and has delighted in
pairing various exciting modern day innovators with some of jazz’s leading legends in
its programming. It is testament to the festival’s brave booking that this year’s line-up
offers something mouth-watering for jazz fans of all stripes.
Among the new breed is energetic jazz collective CYKADA, the latest ensemble to emerge from
London’s Total Refreshment Centre melting pot. Engaging with distant poles and analogue worlds,
Cykada’s style fizzes with a host of eastern and western influences, not to mention interweaving
narratives of intriguing beauty and devastation. Featuring members of Ezra Collective and Myriad
Forest (among others), Cykada and their boundary-pushing approach kick off the festival, supported
by Jazz North Introduces act YAATRI, a five-piece crossover quintet from in Leeds.
LIJF’s Saturday finds itself in the presence of SARATHY KORWAR, leader of the UPAJ Collective and
one of the most original voices within the UK jazz scene. Korwar began playing tabla from age of 10,
while growing up in Ahmedabad and Chennai, India. However, due being born in the US, Korwar
THEATRE
NIGHT OF THE LIVING
DEAD – REMIX
Playhouse Theatre – 18/02-22/02
Cykada
FESTIVAL
LIVERPOOL
INTERNATIONAL
JAZZ FESTIVAL
Capstone Theatre – 27/02-03/03
also found himself drawn to American music, including the likes of Ahmad Jamal and John Coltrane.
Korwar’s set will draw from across his three studio albums, including 2019’s More Arriving, a highly
percussive and honest reflection of Korwar’s experience of being an Indian in an increasingly divided
Britain.
Dutch innovators TIN MEN AND THE TELEPHONE (27th February) and Belgians BLOW 3.0 (29th
February) add a touch of futurism to proceedings, and further fresh takes on jazz in all of its forms.
The festival is closed out in slightly more traditional fashion on Sunday 3rd March by TONY KOFI
QUARTET, with support from locals BLIND MONK THEORY?. The Quartet’s performance will
mainly focus on saxophonist Kofi’s work with the legendary Ornette Coleman. After working with
Coleman four years prior, Londoner Tony Kofi became inspired to create a collective consisting of
world class musicians who were all touched and inspired by Coleman’s work.
Individual event tickets and full festival passes can be found at ticketquarter.co.uk.
capstonetheatre.com/jazzfestival
In 1968, Night Of The Living Dead started out as a low-budget independent horror movie telling the
story of seven strangers taking refuge from flesh eating ‘ghouls’ in an isolated farmhouse. 50 years
on from the release of George A. Romero’s zombie cult classic, seven actors now recreate the eerily
foreboding air that cloaks the room with that ominous sense of dread.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD – REMIX is the product of Imitating The Dog, masters of digital theatre and
one of the UK’s most innovative theatre companies. Working through 1,076 edits in 95 minutes, the sevenstrong
crew not only perform a shot-for-shot recreation of the film, they also film and stage it themselves
in real time. Armed with cameras, costumes and defaced Barbie dolls, the cast attempt to stick close to the
paranoia-driven theme of the much-loved film, yet allow space for spontaneity and ingenuity to dictate the
balance of humour and apprehensive fear.
Romero’s original was an apocalyptic vision of paranoia, ruminating on the breakdown of community and the
end of the American dream. Pre-dating the zombie horror craze in cinema, Romero’s film favoured unsettling
social commentary over shock and gore. Archive footage and imagery will be mixed in to the Remix, mirroring
the original’s quasi-documentary style; additional newsreel projections will also focus on riots and the
struggle of the civil rights movement that raged in the US at the time, adding layers of historical context that
can be inferred from the film’s foreboding tone.
This modern adaptation is a love song to the film, a remaking and remixing which attempts to understand
the past in order not to have to repeat it. It is in turns humorous, terrifying, thrilling, thought provoking and
joyous; but, above all, in the retelling it becomes a searing parable for our own complex times.
everymanplayhouse.com
EVENT DISCOVERY PARTNER
ticketquarter.co.uk
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