Roundup for a couple of imminent jazz gigs…
Squelch
Total Refreshment Centre, 2a Foulden Road, Shacklewell, London, N16 7UR, London, England
Sunday 6th May 2018, 6.30pm – information here and here
Inspired in more or less equal measure by “Arctic landscapes, reindeer herding and certain stations on the Piccadilly Line”, Squelch Quartet are the family team of saxophonist Colin Izod and drummer Liam Izod (also the men behind arts education team Big Heart Media), plus pianist Emilio Salice and double bass player Hector Page. Claiming the ECM sound as their prime influence (Esbjorn Svensson, Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarrett in particular, though they’ll also admit to a liking for Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman and for zippy electric fusion-popsters Snarky Puppy) they play an unsurprisingly Nordic-toned jazz: easygoing, open-sounding and straying subtly into folk and free improvisation. Fairly recent emergers, they’ve played around London and succeeded in pursuing their inspirations up to Norway (where they landed a slot at the Varanger Jazz Festival and tried out a collaboration with Sam yoik-pop artist Elle Márjá Eira.
For this show in the rough-and-ready environment of the Total Refreshment Centre, perennial guest-star (and effective fifth member) Ben Allum will be joining in again on viola. Meanwhile, see below for performances of their own Emilio-written Jericho plus their arrangements of Joni Mitchell’s I Had A King and of Elle Márjá Eira’s Russojievja, some of which feature Ben.
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Real Oddity presents:
Jazz @ DIY: Ill Considered + PYJÆN + WondRWomN & The Band
DIY Space For London, 96-108 Ormside Street, South Bermondsey, London, SE15 1TF, England
Thursday 10th May 2018, 7.00pm – information here, here and here
Bassist Leon Brichard and saxophonist Idris Rahman previously came together in spiritual world-jazz trio Wildflower (taking imprints from Bengali folk music to North African Gnawa, and inspiration from Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Yusuf Lateef and the Coltranes). For ILL Considered they join up with drummer Emre Ramazanoglu and percussionist Satin Singh for their own free-jazz take on jam-banding. Usually working from Leon’s insistent whale-hook bass motifs, or sometimes from simple pre-written themes, they create music on the spot, preferably with no discussion.
Here’s what they sounded at Total Refreshment Centre back in March (in a live album released about a week ago), while their debut album-track Dawn Lit Metropolis (recorded with original percussionist Yahael Camara-Onono) sets their central elements into play. Steamy but danceable: the bass statement, the pacey club-inspired carpet of drumming and percussion, the flowing commentary of quizzical, discursive sax.
A product of Trinity Laban’s music department, jazz-fusion quintet PYJÆN feature the rhythm team of guitarist Dani Diodato, drummer Charlie Hutchinson and bass guitarist Ben Crane with a brass frontline of saxophonist Ben Vize and trumpeter Dylan Jones. As evidenced on their debut mini-album ‘Prologue’ (which emerged in November last year) they treat pacey cool jazz, African funk and yaketting R’n’B as close-knit blocks in the same small lively self-assured neighbourhood: working with busy rhythmic assurance and a variety of brass voices. Dani is also a master of guitar tones from choppy earthy funk mutters to spatial, silvery ringing post-punk space chords, from joyfully clucking Afro pick-pops to strange MIDI-pedal patches like fluting backwards organs.
I’ve only previously heard about Mary Otumahana – a.k.a. Tottenham R&B singer WondRWomN, a.k.a. “the girl next door, that raps” -through her appearance at a SOIF Soiree last autumn. It seems I’ve been asleep on the job, since she’s been in action for over a decade now; first as teenaged rapper KidWondR and then, since 2014, under her current moniker.
With a debut album behind her, she’s been performing around London and Bristol for the past three years. A follow-up EP is due shortly on the Prodigies Of Nature label/lifestyle brand she set up in 2017 alongside her free-access Tottenham recording studio programme The RecordShop. Her DIY Space performance will feature backing from a full band brewing up grooves from psychedelic soul, funk, rap and “grit pop”. Many emerging British jazz acts are making deep inroads into hip hop for their influences: it’s good to see some pushback.
As with all DIY Space gigs, this is a members-only occasion, so it’s no good just rocking up at the door – get annual membership in advance for only two quid, and go on from there.
Misfit City 
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