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The thing is once they come they keep on coming. That’s what American jazz fans are discovering. A decade ago it was Jamie Cullum who toured relentlessly in the US. But instrumental music is different, and it wasn’t a Britjazz artist who broke through next from Europe. That was EST but they too cracked “Jazz America" the hard way (probably the only way) through soul-destroying touring, the hard grind of supporting a mainstream artist, initially with only cynical local label support on the ground, and then finally a cover story on Downbeat. Acceptance and it had only just begin, only for cruel fate to intervene with the death of Esbjörn Svensson. Last year Neil Cowley Trio and Get the Blessing took up the baton to lay down impressive markers, but it’s early days still although a template has been set in the global jazz era for a band to make it on their own terms from Europe. The sheer talent of the new breed of artists just waiting to be taken seriously by American audiences from this side of the Atlantic is not going away. It’s not the cognoscenti these bands are aiming for, it’s the still to-be-won-over college kids and older adults disenchanted with the inanities of much alternative rock or the stultifying orthodoxies of their own insular jazz scene hamstrung by the “tradition” and imposed strictures by overbearing college curricula that clings like the smell of disappointment. So the time is right for Phronesis, already known a bit by the jazz heads in the States and Canada, to try their luck. The north American onslaught begins on 22 June in Vancouver at the TD Vancouver international jazz festival, moves on to Edmonton three days later for the festival there, and then into New York state for the Xerox Rochester international jazz festival on 28 June. Further dates are at the Montreal jazz festival on 1 July and then in New York city at the Jazz Standard next day. Walking Dark just missed out on winning at the Parliamentary awards last week but Phronesis don’t need to be an awards band: it’s all about connecting in America by force of personality, musicality, and charisma and there’s no doubt at all this trio has it – in abundance. MB
Anton Eger above left, Ivo Neame, and Jasper Høiby