It is possible to get along fine with contemporary music when you are not sure what the artists are doing, as long as you believe they have a pretty good idea themselves. But when the people on the stage seem undecided, things can get a little uneasy.
Not that Friday's Barbican double bill, featuring guitarist John Scofield's funk quartet Uberjam and the Swedish jazz-and-samplers ensemble Koop, didn't have its moments - particularly when Scofield, that most earthy of sophisticated jazz virtuosi, sailed into his characteristically long, flowing extemporisations. But a pervasive uncertainty nagged at both shows. Koop, who became stars in Sweden for their mix of samples and simple song-hooks with a jazz instrumental flavour, seemed here to want to play like an old straightahead swing band. Scofield, on the other hand, tried to avoid the long lines and pliable rhythms of jazz for much of his set. But he never managed to make Uberjam sound quite as fresh and cutting-edge as perhaps it thinks it is. Both bands sought salvation in a prominent role for the Apple Powerbook.
Koop's hour on stage had plenty of longueurs, despite some ruthlessly tight percussion and an excellent, fast-moving vibraphone player in Matthias Stahl. The group's use of sampled swing-jazz brass licks was certainly attractive, and provided some of the liveliest episodes of the set. Singer Yukimi Nagano, who somehow combines the yearning and the impassive, operated in a deadpan manner that was hypnotic at first but soporific after several songs in the same vein. The English lyrics ("Autumn is here/ All the colours are changing") didn't help.
Scofield followed, and flung himself into freefall just often enough to remind Koop that there is no substitute for improvisation. Uberjam is unquestionably an exciting, hard-groove group, driven by Adam Deitch's flawless drumming, Andy Hess's earthquake bass sound and thrilling rhythm-guitar playing from Avi Bortnick that deservedly drew cheers usually reserved for solos.
Scofield sometimes improvised with his own choruses through the electronics, and he and Bortnick triggered a periodic decks-like squeal and chatter. Chinese-violin sounds and sampled voices mimicking Indian tabla-licks veered in and out. A furious, bluesy disco-blast (Freakin' Disco) and a typically sinewy ballad left vivid memories. And something very close to John McLaughlin's famous guitar riff from In a Silent Way released some of Scofield's fiercest and freest spontaneous playing, drawing him away from the effects pedals with which he had been preoccupied, toward the centre of the stage. When it comes to the relationship between Scofield and his hardware, the tail may just be wagging the dog.
