Jazzfest Bonn 2025 at Bundeskunsthalle

Part of the so-called museum mile in Bonn, yesterday’s venue at this year’s Jazzfest, the Bundeskunsthalle, hosted two very different artists who both live in Paris. Camille Bertault, who burst onto the scene back in 2016 with her debut album “En Vie” after she had uploaded a video on Youtube of her crazy version of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”, started off her lively, endearing and energetic set with a couple of songs from her latest album called “Bonjour Mon Amour”, which came out in 2023. Backed by her superb musicians, Fady Farah on piano and keys, Julien Alour on trumpet, and Minino Garay on drums and percussion, Camille came across like a little whirlwind, showcasing her immensely versatile talent as a composer and singer.

Her dedication to the city of New York, “Nouvelle York”, which she recorded for her 2018 album “Pas de Géant”, had a hilarious introduction where she copied the typical NYC police car sirens. Elsewhere in the mix, there was a superfast and short Bach snippet where she and pianist Fady delivered a fascinating duet. It was sort of a miracle that Fady not only played piano with his right hand all the time, but also all the bass parts on a keyboard with his left hand. Sometimes it sounded as if there were a lot more people on stage. Equally vivid and with a hard to resist spirit was Minino who was exceptionally present all the time with his contagious soul. Trumpeter Julien was pretty impressive too. Two of his own compositions were featured. There were some hints of Freddie Hubbard in his bop-infected tones. This was a very enjoyable and highly entertaining set.

Guitarist Dominic Miller was next. The musician who is always referred to for playing in Sting’s band since the early 90s, has a lot more to offer of course. Think about his most recent solo albums on ECM for example or his latest quartet album with Jakob Karlzon, Ziv Ravitz, and Nicolas Fiszman, the bassist who was on stage with him last night as were keyboardist Mike Lindup and drummer Nicolas Viccaro. The whole set was a pretty mixed affair, with various jams being thrown in which turned out to be some stop-and-go pieces, with the drummer delivering some excellent solos brimming with vigor. Mike Lindup, founding member and keyboardist of Level 42 who released his own pretty satisfying album “Changes 2” two years ago, was switching between piano and keys, sometimes adding some fusion-type chords into the mix, and sometimes adding some light vocal touches. There were some Sting moments here as well, of course, like a beautiful version of “Fragile” or “La Belle Dame Sans Regrets”, as well as some of his songs from the beautiful 2017 solo album “Silent Light”. And what I really like about his playing is that you seem to immediately recognize him. His strokes and touches are so unique. And there was a lot of genuine playfulness as well. The whole set had some strange imbalance though and sounded more like a potpourri. But still, another impressive set.