Jacky Bastek and Humblo at Stoffel in Frankfurt
EFor a number of years, singer-songwriter Jacky Bastek has performed solo, captivating audiences with just her variable voice and polished acoustic guitar playing. Their virtuosic way of playing, called “fingerstyle”, suggests a small band through percussive attack, snapping strings, sharp riffs and complex sequences without any electronics.
After producing her debut album “Idylls” on her own in 2016, she left her native Eppstein to study at the jazz department of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. The 25-year-old musician has long had her bachelor’s degree in her pocket; the contacts she made at the university were more important. With the slightly younger drummer Felix Ambach, who grew up in Bensheim, and the double bass player Yannik Tiemann, who was born in 1990, she got to know two experienced and sensitive jazz musicians who suit her perfectly. During the pandemic concert break, the trio produced an EP to be released in 2021, a full album has been recorded and is expected to be released in the foreseeable future.
Already the first songs of the performance at “Stoffel” make it clear that Bastek and Humblo are closer to the complexity of jazz than to the offensive catchiness of pop. It is true that Bastek invents clear melodies from time to time, and overall there is little improvisation, and solos are not the focus at all. But Bastek’s unusual vocal lines with surprising twists and turns and intervals stand out far from the usual folk and pop. She varies pointedly between clear as a bell and radiantly bright as well as between thoughtful and irascible rough expression. Sometimes she adopts a deliberate narrative stance with more spoken lines, then she phrases rhythmically, only to bet on long drawn-out notes the next moment. Sophisticated and noticeably emotional, Bastek occasionally evokes memories of Joni Mitchell in her jazz phase of the late seventies.
The fact that Bastek also uses many so-called open tunings on the guitar is only an insignificant parallel. In concerts, Tiemann often plays the role of moderator between the songs, while sometimes laboriously retuning her strings. The distribution of roles results in the band character of the trio, but in addition to the compositions, the subtle to allusive, often very personal English-language texts also come from Bastek’s pen. It is not easy to follow them in concert, because the music, which is equipped with a lot of sophistication, consistently attracts a great deal of attention.