Stayed on in Switzerland after the Lucerne Blues Festival to attend the first staging of the Geneva Blues Summit organised by Laurent Gillieron blues fan and guitarist with the Backstroke Blues Band.
Modelled on the Lucerne template with all its attention to detail Laurent and his administration team are motivated by the same principles, to bring a well organised blues event to the Geneva social scene, a scene Laurent describes as a musical desert in terms of live blues activity.
I travelled down to Geneva on a three hour train ride through picture postcard countryside till I finally seen this big internationally renowned city on the Lake Geneva shoreline.Once you get the hang of the bus and train system it’s easy to make your way around the delights of this city bustling with shopping activity, museums, exotic flower gardens on the lakefront and lots of serene old world charm in the old town region. Also paid visits to famous Geneva attractions like the headquarters of the United Nations and the International Red Cross but my favourite haunt was to Starbucks on Rue de Rive whose window seats offer a relaxing view of the hustle and bustle with the nicest mug of coffee decorated with sumptuous cream and sprinklings on top.
The first event in the Geneva Blues Summit was a workshop for local blues guitarists, featuring two separate classes from the headliners, Dave Specter and Steve Freund in the huge Ramada Encore Hotel complex. All the guitarists formed a wide semi circle in each of two rooms with their electric guitars and practice amps and absorbed all the tips and techniques offered by these two excellent American Blues Guitarists. Its was a revealing insight by these two great players into their own individual styles and teaching routines, as well as into the world of ninth chord and seventh chord progressions, into classic Freddie King blues riffs, resolving Robert Johnson style turnarounds, and phrases that transform the chords in theory into waves of emotional magic on stage.
I first came across Dave Specter and The Bluebirds on a visit to Paris in 2004 and was captivated by his wonderful jazzy blue guitar style with his Epiphone Riviera in an All Star Chicago revue that also featured Jimmy Burns and Nora Jean Brusco and would site his versions of Hot Cha from his Speculatin album and People Get Ready from his recent CD release with Steve Freund on It Is What It Is as two favourites on my play list of the year and so it was an eagerly awaited prospect to see him perform again in Geneva.
The Geneva Blues Summit performances the following night took place in a fine old venue with balcony’s and high carved wooden walls and ceilings on the Salle du Faubourg in the centre of Geneva.
All the trappings of a well organised event were on hand staffed by a loyal team of enthusiastic volunteers committed to putting on a top quality night of blues entertainment.
The first band on stage was the Backstroke Blues Band featuring
Laurent Hat Trick Gillieron on guitar, Valerie Snow White Biselx on vocals, Patrick Mr Groove Pegataz on Bass and Jean Christian Boom Boom Barben on Drums. This local blues band formed in 1996 kicked into their well rehearsed set to a warm and enthusiastic attendance and featured a set of original songs and covers influenced by Smokin Joe Kubek, Little Charlie & The Nitecats, T Bone Walker and the guest star Dave Specter. Laurent only took up the guitar at the age of 27 and had spent the last fourteen years well developing his finely honed chops on the fretboard.
The upbeat tempo energised and pumped out the blues, capturing the houserockin’ atmosphere and spirit of this special event with Laurent guitar breaks and Valerie’s soaring vocals, burning across the stage with eagerness and clear passion for live performance.
They were followed on stage by the big band sound of Bluecerne, a blues band up from Lucerne with Heinz Moby Arnold on keyboards and harmonica who had joined the Backstroke Blues Band on stage for a jam, Renato Cazzaniga on vocals who punctuated his stage delivery with some high kicks reminiscent of Van Morrison’s performance on the Last Waltz, Roli Mossman on some very nice subtle and probing Guitar, Michi Butikofer on Bass, Josi Muff on Drums, Patrick Roosli on Saxophone and Martin Scheidegger on Trumpet. It was a fine big brassy energetic performance with plenty of give and take between the musicians, spontaneity, humour and improvisation.
“We‘re here to entertain you
Let’s have a party all through the night
We’ll be up till tomorrow morning
When the sun is shinning bright”
The headliner act Dave Specter & The Bluebirds featuring Steve Freund arrived on stage with a fire and a depth of emotion from the four players on stage that could best be described as 110% craftsmanship quality.
With Otis Rush sideman Harlen Terson on Bass and Mike Schlick on Drums, a marvellously talented rhythm section and regular members of Dave’s Bluebirds revealing the subtlety and shading of experienced road tested blues journeymen, the lush tones of Dave’s Epiphone Riviera and Steve’s harder edged Les Paul creating a joyful feast of tone and phrasing magic on stage.
A tall soft spoken man, Dave Specter is a musicians musician, the modern master of the instrumental, a genre that relies on the voice of the guitar and excels when that voice is as rich and warm as Dave’s eclectic trademark signature sound full of nice melodic phrase sliding, sophisticated slippery riff driven soulful single note lines, double stops, great tone and superb measured composure with a rhythm intensity that adds an hypnotic presence to his songs and covers like Hot Cha on the Speculatin CD and the burner on the night People Get Ready a magical fretboard excursion between Steve on rhythm, some soulful motown mastery on bass from Harlen and Mike Schlick’s incredibly subtle jazzy drumming with the end result sounding like four different languages all conversing fluently and cohesively together on stage.
The beauty of Dave Specter’s style, lies in his smooth blues tinged relaxed grooves that breeze into the atmosphere with the soul of the blues and the sensitivity of fluid, percussive and spontaneously jazzy technical proficiency. What I particularly like about Dave’s staggering music is the toe tapping irresistibility and marvellous charm of the instrumental musicianship.
Steve Freund has been demonstrating his passion to play blues guitar eight day’s a week from the east coast to the west coast his current base, since the early seventies, working with Sunnyland Slim, Eddie Taylor, Luther Allison and Koko Taylor and is now a traditional master of the Chicago blues guitar techniques with an absolutely fantastic blues voice.Steve and Dave work well together on stage and in the studio both being comfortably versed in each others guitar language skills as demonstrated on Steve’s CD I’ll Be Your Mule and Dave and Steve’s latest collaboration It Is What It Is.
Organiser and a really nice guy Laurent Gillieron joined Dave and Steve on Stage for a good old fashioned blues jam and acquitted himself admirably in the company of such skilful guitar wizards and brought proceedings to a satisfying close for everyone in attendance at this first Geneva Blues Summit.
It was a great night clearly enjoyed by the crowd transfixed by the skilful musicians, dancing and taking in all the action on stage.It was a lovely break in Geneva and worth it just to see two calibre players like Dave Specter and Steve Freund perform live on stage in the company of such superb complementary and interesting musicians as Harlen Terson and Mike Schlick.
One observation I did notice was a lack of posters in the local music shops and ticket outlets where many locals seemed surprised and unaware of the event happening which I felt might be a problem in solving the commercial nature of such a blues event in Geneva.
This is a big problem in the bigger cities and likewise in Dublin where event recognition is difficult and crowd attendance inconsistent. Lucerne a smaller city admittedly in terms of coverage was noticeably for its pavement displays around the main streets and massive billboards near festival locations like the Hotel Schweizerhof.
It was the end of a great blues holiday in Switzerland and the next morning I was waiting on a bus to the airport when the Bluecerne van pulled in and gave me a lift on their way back to Lucerne which was much appreciated by these guys who were in great form and are most definitely on the bright side of the road.
Mick Kenny
