Hud o'r gegin,
hud hefyd o'r tafarn llawn:
y blas o'r swn.
The band's name are Burum (yeast) and last Thursday myself and my older daughter went to see them launch their latest cd 'Caniadau' (songs) at Cafe Jazz in Cardiff.
Before that we went to Cafe Citta in Church Street, a small family-run Italian restaurant and a joy to behold nestled in amongst all those pizza chains.
Here, in the baking oven heat of a summer finally come, I tasted the power of yeast and dough in the form of the best pizza in town and a tiramisu just right in its moist sweetness, not a bit cloying. My daughter's seafood pasta was equally fresh and satisfying, she insisted.
The owners are so friendly and chatty you feel you're a regular even for the first time.
From the plain of a pizza we walked a short distance away , to encounter a sense of hills and mountains ; the rising and browning of a unique music from Cymru.
They are definitely a rising band, if not yet fully risen. They have substance and air aplenty and both qualities are vital.
The substance comes from the piano, double bass and drums who operate as a tight trio (indeed, they also play as a separate entity, the Dave Jones Trio).
The piano seems like a messenger between earth and air: a bird which feeds off the land, then lifts up into clouds and currents of flute, trumpet and saxophone.
The air of the latter often floats on ballads such as 'Lisa Lan', or can be a frenetic storm of tones, as on 'Hen Ferchetan'.
Their unique nature comes from this reworking of almost exclusively traditional Welsh tunes (or airs?).
At a time when so many bands appear content to remain grounded and follow well-mapped routes, Burum have taken a bold course by fusing folk and jazz.
It is risky because folk purists might well long for the lyrics, acknowledge well-known melodies and then become frustrated when they are taken to new heights by the arrangements of band members, especially Daniel and Tomos Williams.
Jazz buffs however, could well be deterred by the strong folk influence provided by Ceri Rhys Matthews in particular ; more notably on the cd, where he plays Welsh pipes ( for some reason,he didn't live).
Burum do not always come together. Sometimes there's a jarring between those influences and Matthews' flute doesn't tally or the brass harmonies are too strident for the overall atmosphere of the song.
However, Burum are the real thing and Cymru ignores them at its own loss. I was shocked when Daniel Williams told the audience that only one track had been played on Radio Cymru!
This is a sure indictment of the way radio works, with music having to fit into distinct categories. This is ridiculous when the best music seeks to break down those old barriers.
What I relish about listening to jazz is the way it can lift you just like that piano-bird, whose call ascends first and is followed by giddy flight.
The wordlessness of most of the jazz I love releases unexpected images and phrases. As I was listening to Burum I was transported back to the kitchen of my gran in Barry......a keen amateur opera singer, she would have appreciated their Welsh airs.
I thought of the bread she baked so lovingly and joy of eating her tasty teas. As well as delicious white bread, she specialized in sponges, small almond cakes and 'teisen crwn', a large round cake cooked on a bake-stone and full of apples. In my experience,she's the only one who ever made it.
Music and memories joined like the two rivers of my childhood home of Aber : Ystwyth and Rheidol.
'aber' means confluence and also estuary and so much of poetry - for me anyway - happens at an estuary of imagination, a mingling of thoughts and feelings from two directions.
Freshwater and salt of the sea. The smell of newly-baked bread after the magic of yeast.
The taste of sounds of a summer evening.
BURUM
My grandmother's knobbly hands
needing the flour and water ;
the simplicity of dough,
fleshy, belly-like, swollen
into the heat of the tavern,
the fists and pummel of bass and drums,
the shaping hands of the pianist
all along the keys
and into the brass basin
of trumpet and saxophone ;
flute a wooden spoon
mixing, beating ; in the oven
of the jazz cafe we taste
the crisp crust, the airiness
of soft white bread torn,
flour shaken from it,
just as my gran would make
in her Barry kitchen, knowing
the score of her recipe
by heart, a familiar song.
hud hefyd o'r tafarn llawn:
y blas o'r swn.
The band's name are Burum (yeast) and last Thursday myself and my older daughter went to see them launch their latest cd 'Caniadau' (songs) at Cafe Jazz in Cardiff.
Before that we went to Cafe Citta in Church Street, a small family-run Italian restaurant and a joy to behold nestled in amongst all those pizza chains.
Here, in the baking oven heat of a summer finally come, I tasted the power of yeast and dough in the form of the best pizza in town and a tiramisu just right in its moist sweetness, not a bit cloying. My daughter's seafood pasta was equally fresh and satisfying, she insisted.
The owners are so friendly and chatty you feel you're a regular even for the first time.
From the plain of a pizza we walked a short distance away , to encounter a sense of hills and mountains ; the rising and browning of a unique music from Cymru.
They are definitely a rising band, if not yet fully risen. They have substance and air aplenty and both qualities are vital.
The substance comes from the piano, double bass and drums who operate as a tight trio (indeed, they also play as a separate entity, the Dave Jones Trio).
The piano seems like a messenger between earth and air: a bird which feeds off the land, then lifts up into clouds and currents of flute, trumpet and saxophone.
The air of the latter often floats on ballads such as 'Lisa Lan', or can be a frenetic storm of tones, as on 'Hen Ferchetan'.
Their unique nature comes from this reworking of almost exclusively traditional Welsh tunes (or airs?).
At a time when so many bands appear content to remain grounded and follow well-mapped routes, Burum have taken a bold course by fusing folk and jazz.
It is risky because folk purists might well long for the lyrics, acknowledge well-known melodies and then become frustrated when they are taken to new heights by the arrangements of band members, especially Daniel and Tomos Williams.
Jazz buffs however, could well be deterred by the strong folk influence provided by Ceri Rhys Matthews in particular ; more notably on the cd, where he plays Welsh pipes ( for some reason,he didn't live).
Burum do not always come together. Sometimes there's a jarring between those influences and Matthews' flute doesn't tally or the brass harmonies are too strident for the overall atmosphere of the song.
However, Burum are the real thing and Cymru ignores them at its own loss. I was shocked when Daniel Williams told the audience that only one track had been played on Radio Cymru!
This is a sure indictment of the way radio works, with music having to fit into distinct categories. This is ridiculous when the best music seeks to break down those old barriers.
What I relish about listening to jazz is the way it can lift you just like that piano-bird, whose call ascends first and is followed by giddy flight.
The wordlessness of most of the jazz I love releases unexpected images and phrases. As I was listening to Burum I was transported back to the kitchen of my gran in Barry......a keen amateur opera singer, she would have appreciated their Welsh airs.
I thought of the bread she baked so lovingly and joy of eating her tasty teas. As well as delicious white bread, she specialized in sponges, small almond cakes and 'teisen crwn', a large round cake cooked on a bake-stone and full of apples. In my experience,she's the only one who ever made it.
Music and memories joined like the two rivers of my childhood home of Aber : Ystwyth and Rheidol.
'aber' means confluence and also estuary and so much of poetry - for me anyway - happens at an estuary of imagination, a mingling of thoughts and feelings from two directions.
Freshwater and salt of the sea. The smell of newly-baked bread after the magic of yeast.
The taste of sounds of a summer evening.
BURUM
My grandmother's knobbly hands
needing the flour and water ;
the simplicity of dough,
fleshy, belly-like, swollen
into the heat of the tavern,
the fists and pummel of bass and drums,
the shaping hands of the pianist
all along the keys
and into the brass basin
of trumpet and saxophone ;
flute a wooden spoon
mixing, beating ; in the oven
of the jazz cafe we taste
the crisp crust, the airiness
of soft white bread torn,
flour shaken from it,
just as my gran would make
in her Barry kitchen, knowing
the score of her recipe
by heart, a familiar song.
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