Quick notes/blurb repostings on a pair of upcoming London jazz events:
* * * * * * * *
“Named after a wish-fulfilling and divine tree in Hindu mythology, Kalpadruma is an exciting 12-piece mixed ensemble that also functions as a jazz quintet. It was recently formed to explore connections between contemporary, jazz, Indian, Arabic, Turkish and flamenco musics. It’s a culturally and stylistically diverse band (jazz quintet, flute, bass clarinet, trumpet, saxophone feature alongside a string quartet with occasional bansuri flute).
“Kalpadruma comprises some of the finest emerging players from Guildhall, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. The core quintet features 2018 BBC Young Jazz Musician finalist Reuben Goldmark on piano, Joe Parks on cajon and percussion, Charlie Heywood on guitar, Harry Pearce on bass guitar and Asha Parkinson on alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, and has played at venues ranging from the 100 club to the Union Chapel. The unorthodox line-up goes with the group’s unusual sonic identity, offering what’s been described as “a fiery feast of additive rhythms and Messaienesque harmonies and “feel-good” melodies”. The ‘Kalpadruma Suite’ is a six-movement work bringing together all these influences.
“‘Triggers’ is the title of a new three-movement saxophone concerto for soprano and alto saxophone and chamber orchestra, conducted by Noah Max and written and performed by Asha, whose work regularly crosses the boundaries between traditions. Described as a “fiery tenor saxophonist”, she was twice semi-finalist in the BBC Young Jazz Musician competition and was shortlisted in 2016 BBC Inspire Composers Competition. Additionally she was one of twenty young people internationally to win the Diana Legacy Award for her initiative Voices Beyond Divisions. Currently in her third year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Asha has studied with the likes of Mark Lockheart, Iain Ballamy, Trish Clowes, Matthew King, Gareth Lockrane and Christian Forshaw.
“The narrative of the piece reflects the all-too-human struggle to quell negative emotions and establish a very practical and and effective “inner” peace in order to improve our relationship with the world around us. The starting point for which is becoming aware of and then “breaking” the “triggers” of negative emotions. The saxophone undergoes a transformation that parallels this change in dialogue with the orchestra, incorporating both improvisation and prepared composition.”
OK, this is a little unclear even after being carefully sifted and welded together from two different sources. I’m not quite sure whether this is a two-work bonanza for the price of one – but as regards price, it’s free; and as regards content, it’s intriguing.
I’d also urge a closer look at the Voices Beyond Divisions project. Initiated by Asha while she was still in her mid-teens, it’s a cross-faith singing project bringing Christian, Jewish and Muslim children together to perform music stressing the shared values of peacefulness and responsibility which feature in parallel in all of said faiths, drawing on passages from the Q’uran, the Talmud and the Bible. The finished performances involve schoolchildren, rising teenaged singers and instrumentalists and professional oud and ney players (representing instrumental traditions from the Middle East) and are based on quotations on a theme of peace from the Q’uran, the Talmud and the Bible. A little obvious, perhaps; but at a time when militant differences and brutal wedges driven between communities are being stressed and fostered so much, we need our do-gooding and our worldwide conscience drives even more than ever.
* * * * * * * *
Also available – the last tickets for the imminent Village Underground show by Maisha, drummer Jake Long’s sextet collective featuring anointed sax star Nubya Garcia on saxophone, her Tomorrow’s Warrior colleague Shirley Tetteh on guitar, double bassist Twm Dylan, Amané Suganami on piano/Wurlitzer, and doubled percussion provision care of Yahael Camara-Onono and Tim Doyle. As a band, they’re in the growing diasporan-sensitive vein that’s been characterising London jazz for a while now, “channeling the lineage of spiritual jazz, taking inspiration from Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and Idris Mohammad, (and) fus(ing) their jazz influences with West African and Afro-beat rhythms.”
In support (and pointing up the same scene’s cofraternity with dance music) is Tim Doyle’s electronic dance alter ego Chiminyo, for which his live drumming triggers synthetic cascades of percussive and harmonic exotica. Also around is Arabian/West African slanted double bassist Ben Hayes, this time plying his skills as a DJ.
* * * * * * * *
Dates:
Kalpadruma presents:
‘Triggers: The Music Of Change’ Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Silk Street, Barbican, London, EC2Y 8DT, England
Thursday 23rd May 2019, 7.00pm – free event – information here and here
Maisha + Chiminyo + DJ Ben Hayes Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3PQ, England
Monday 27th May 2019, 7.30pm – information here, here and here
When landlords and developers mark a city building for extra, blander profit – and when they put the squeeze on an existing tenant – they don’t only change and narrow the future, they can also asphyxiate the past. I don’t mean that they somehow delete what’s come before, it’s more that they pinch it off and remove its potential for continuance. The meaning that’s associated with a building and what goes on inside it, its history, becomes obscured to people who’ve not had the chance to discover it yet; or to people who might, in the future, grow up nearby never knowing what used to take place there.
For myself, I feel pretty damn ignorant for not having known about Hackney music space Total Refreshment Centre until, ooh, last year. It seems that, in various forms, it harboured and encouraged music for at least half of my lifetime, curating the historical while encouraging the current and never losing touch of the ethos that music should be inherent to and conversant with its community rather than being a little rarified enclave. The fact that sometime, quietly, last summer, the TRC was forced to shut down (presumably to make way for luxury flats or something which can generate a greater ground rent) makes me angry. Fortunately, the place is resilient enough as an idea – effectively, as a movement – not to rely entirely on bricks and mortar. Scheduled gigs have continued (still run by the existing team but moved to other venues), the programs still run; the concept of the place still has legs.
In some respects the people involved with the TRC are making a virtue of their new and more itinerant existence, using it to spread the word a little wider; extending their ongoing work in what ‘Clash Music’ has called“a means of pursing social engineering, a way to build communities up at a time when the political establishment seem content to break communities apart… Music can be used to re-imagine your surroundings, to transform concrete, glass, and brick into something magical.” Still, it must make life a little tougher, a little more challenging, that much more of a forced hack at a time when it’s already pretty exhausting.
With that in mind, it’s good to see that the TRC gets its own jazz tribute – more accurately, its own self-propelled celebratory showcase – this coming weekend at one of London’s more inviolable culture fortresses, the Barbican. There’s an opportunity here to carp about centralization, or about how certain establishments are protected while others are not (and for distasteful reasons – race and class also have a role to play here), but let’s just sound the obvious note here and move on. Better to bounce back and roll on as the TRC are doing; better to celebrate the recognition and cooperation which such a show also represents.
There are still a few tickets available for what’s promising to be one of the events of the London jazz year. Blurb follows:
“Total Refreshment Centre is part and parcel of east London’s recent music history. The building’s musical journey started as a Caribbean social club and studio and evolved into the musical hub that it is today. On April 13th, the Barbican Centre will host Dreaming The City, celebrating a previously untold story in east London’s music history. To mark nearly thirty years of influential music in the building, TRC has teamed up with Boiler Room – the revered global music broadcasting platform – who will broadcast the gig live.
“The concept of the show is a live mixtape exploring three decades of musical excellence that took place inside an Edwardian warehouse in Hackney. The building began life as a confectionary factory and by the 1990s had become Mellow Mix, a Caribbean social club and rehearsal space. In 2012 it began running as Total Refreshment Centre, an influential studio and venue that has played an integral role in the upsurge of new London jazz, which is now gathering worldwide attention. The narrative of ‘Dreaming The City’ is inspired by the history of this building, made special by the communities that inhabited it over the years. This story, researched by writer Emma Warren, is explored fully in her new book, ‘Make Some Space: Tuning Into Total Refreshment Centre (And All Places Like It)‘.
“There’s a strong link between club culture and live music in today’s vibrant music scene – what some have called ‘jazz-rave’ – and Dreaming The City will offer an energetic journey through time, space and London’s rich culture. The evening will start with a celebration of Caribbean sounds, recognising the community that first established the space as a musical hub. Following this, we trace the contemporary lineage of jazz music between inner-city London, West Africa, the Caribbean and continental Europe. Expect a session showcasing household names premiering new outfits, dropping old classics and brand new tunes. The music will reflect the diversity of sounds that have been danced to at TRC, from reggae and dub, to Krautrock via jazz and West African grooves.”
Some glimpses…
…and here’s a short film about the state of London jazz (with plenty of TRC-ing) which was released into the wild a few months ago in January…
* * * * * * * *
Back in January I did some praise singing for Steam Down, the south London jazz collective who bring regular African-inspired but London-cooked communal music events to Deptford. For the benefit of those north and east Londoners who for some reason never cross the river, they’re playing Shoreditch’s Village Underground towards the end of the month.
“Join Steam Down as they take over Village Underground, with members on the decks and some very special guests joining them on stage. Jumping off from the sonic springboard of Afrofuturism, grime and future soul, all fused together with the fearless spontaneity of jazz, Steam Down is an arts collective comprised of Ahnanse, Alex Rita, Brother Portrait, Sawa-Manga, Theon Cross, Nadeem Din-Gabisi, Benjamin Appiah, Dominic Canning and “Nache. The collective congregates mid-weekly for a live performance where healing vibes and compulsive dancing are just as important as the music. Previous sessions have included guest appearances from Kamasi Washington, Sampa The Great, Nubya Garcia, members of Ezra Collective, SEED Ensemble and Sons of Kemet. Every week proves to be a co-creative piece of magic where everyone’s participation matters.”
There’s a new Village Underground interview with Steam Down here, but below is part of what I wrote about them three months ago:
“(An) African-inspired collective ethos… a diverse, voluntary hive mind, their individualities fused and encouraged by common purpose… a simmering pot of phuture soul, West African rhythms and cheerful Afrofuturism, the rapid offset breakbeat-splash and electrophonic edge of grime and broken-beat, and (in particular) spiritual jazz. That said, they’re well aware that they should steer clear of romantic oversimplifications about roots. As Ahnanse remarked in an interview with ‘The Vinyl Factory’ last year, “the roots of what we are creating starts outside of that context, jazz is not the only source of improvised music in the world. It happens in many forms and many cultures, we all come from different spaces and cultures, and it isn’t black American culture, none of us were born there, so actually we are bringing all of those other experiences into this… In a society that is so hegemonic and monotonous it’s nice to surprise yourself and be surprised, by people that you know well.” More than anything else, Steam Down work is inspired by the interlocking of Afro-diasporan culture with week-by-week London life – the information-rich bustle and challenges of a world city made up of people from everywhere, many of them sometimes pushing (or knocking heads) against half-invisible restrictions and oppressions as well as providing broad-mindedness and opportunity.”
* * * * * * * *
Also this spring, guitarist/composer Chris Montague revs up his jazz trio Warmer Than Blood (with bass guitarist Ruth Goller and pianist Kit Downes) for a couple of month-apart gigs in London and Cardiff. As I noted when I wrote about them in February, between them they can draw on a massive range of potential influences (including Sephardic music, manouche, punk jazz, Latin folk and Maghrebian sounds, the bouncing imagined world-jazz of the F-IRE Collective, Chris’ six-string avant-mapping in Future Currents) but in practise tend to go somewhere else – somewhere more uprooted and peril-flecked. Compared to the broad communality of Steam Down or the TRC community, they’re coming from a different place – tenser, more abstract and (if we’re being honest) whiter – but it’s still a collective communal effort, just shrunk down to a smaller chamber and a slender triangular format.
As I wrote last time, “all three are longtime friends and collaborators, seeking yet another new approach. They seem to have found it with Chris’ newest batch of compositions and improvisation-seeding situations, which he suggests consist of “intricate textures, dark pools of harmony, layered melodies, kinetic group improvisation and percussive prepared piano… fractious composed passages can inhabit the same sonic space as spare, ambient melodies, often described as melancholic and uplifting at the same time…” Introverted and ominous, their name-track’s a quiet etiolated piano exploration over a minimal pulsing guitar-chord cycle and locked-in bass rumble. The excerpt from a longer piece, FTM, is a gradual evolver in which Chris hovers in menacing sustain/volume-swell textural clouds and momentary dust-devils over ghost-Latin clicks and bass piano thuds (Kit muting the piano at both ends) before the trio expand into what’s partly a kind of haunted country music (like a Bill Frisell ensemble scoured to the bone by plains wind), and partly like a salsa band coming to terminal grief in a badlands dustbowl.”
Here’s a rare recent live recording and an album taster for their imminent debut…
* * * * * * * *
Dates:
Boiler Room and Total Refreshment Centre present:
BR x Total Refreshment Centre: ‘Dreaming The City’
Barbican Hall @ Barbican Arts Centre, Silk Street, City of London, London, EC2Y 8DS, England
Saturday 13th April 2019, 8.00pm – information here and here
Warmer Than Blood:
The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, England – Monday 22nd April 2019, 7.45pm – information here, here and here
The Flute & Tankard, 4 Windsor Place, Cardiff, CF10 3BX, Wales – Tuesday 21st May 2019, 9.00pm – information here
Steam Down Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3PQ, England
Wednesday 24th April 2019, 7.30pm – information here, here and here
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.
* * * * * * * *
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.
Quick notes on four upcoming London jazz gigs of various kinds, from Jazz Nursery’s more traditional double bill to the contemporary electro-digital fusion soup at Jazz Market, from an Afrocosmic evening in Camden to the cut-up wildness at LUME Lab…
* * * * * * * *
Jazz Nursery presents:
Chimera Trio + Glaser Rapley Robinson IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Thursday 30th March 2017, 7.30pm – information
“The Chimera Trio is a modern take on the classic organ trio sound inspired by the likes of Larry Young and Woody Shaw. The band features Sam Warner on trumpet, Jamie Safiruddin on organ and Dave Ingamells on drums, fusing elements of the organ tradition with more contemporary grooves, melodic ideas and improvisations. The trio started while studying together at Guildhall and went on to be shortlisted for the Chartered Surveyor Jazz Prize.
“Glaser Rapley Robinson (with Matt Robinson on piano, Sam Rapley on tenor sax/clarinet and Will Glaser on drums – all members of Rapley’s music-and-storytelling quintet Fabled) aims to explore early songbook and jazz repertoire in an open and honest way. Although it’s an opportunity to work in a slightly unusual line up, the trio’s focus is on how they improvise collectively and is primarily an excuse for them to play tunes they love together and to see where they can take them.”
* * * * * * * *
Chaos Theory Music Promotions presents:
Jazz Market: Survival Skills + Zeitgeist Strongroom Bar, 120-124 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3SQ, England
Thursday 13th April 2017, 7.30pm – information here and here
“The Jazz Market is all about the spirit and essence of jazz, redefining traditional sounds and approaches to music, so it’s super exciting to have a chance to see what the latest creatives are working on.
“On Thursday 13th April (the night before Easter weekend!) at Strongroom Bar, the legendary Chris Sharkey returns to London with his ever-evolving solo/improvisational electronic project Survival Skills, which involves electronic production and improvised guitar with a mass of effects. We were lucky enough to host the live premiere of Survival Skills in 2014 (at Battleship Grey’s single launch), and then again at Rich Mix last year for Bitch ‘n’ Monk’s album launch. Chris is a truly understated visionary, whose vast CV includes being a guitarist (and more recently a producer) in Acoustic Ladyland, TrioVD, Shiver and The Geordie Approach, and who has performed at countless international festivals in the jazz and math rock scenes. He’s a boundary-pushing artist who only looks forward, and one who captures the true spirit of everything we look for in people we work with.
“Also on the bill are newcomers from Bristol, Zeitgeist, laying down heavy prog funk. A trio of musicians “fusing together the harmony and improvisation of jazz, the robust and hypnotic rhythm of hip-hop and the rhythmic complexity and unusual structure of progressive rock” (according to ‘Leeds Music Scene’), their unique brand of jazz with metal undertones has captured the attention and praise of musicians such as John Gomm and Alpha Male Tea Party. Since their inception in 2011, they’ve amassed a loyal following and are now ready to take on London.”
* * * * * * * *
To the Pyramids: A Journey Through Spiritual Jazz (featuring Collocutor + Ill Considered + The Ashley Henry Trio + DJ Pete (On The Corner Records) The Jazz Café, 5 Parkway, Camden Town, London, NW1 7PG, England
Saturday 15th April 2017, 7.00pm – information here and here
“Spearheaded by the great John Coltrane, the spiritual jazz movement saw a handful of artists striving towards spirituality and transcendence through their music. Players like Coltrane, his wife Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Lonnie Liston Smith, Miles Davis and Pharoah Sanders began taking their music on wild, otherworldly excursions with track recordings often reaching half an hour or more. It’s a sound that has recently come back to the fore thanks to the horn work of Kamasi Washington as well as in the electronic productions of artists like Four Tet and Caribou.
“Off the back of their recent album launch, we’re inviting Tamar Osborn‘s seven-piece group Collocutor to take us on a transportive journey into supreme sound and spirituality – combining jazz with aspects of Afrobeat, Indian classical, Ethiopian roots and minimalism.”
It’s a little unclear as to exactly how many other acts are on the bill, but current evidence suggests there’ll be a set by cosmic/ambient/Afrobeat quartet Ill Considered, a new project headed by former Ibibio Sound Machine and current Fontanelles bassist Leon Brichard (accompanied by saxophonist Idris Rahman, drummer Emre Ramazanoglu and percussionist Yahael Camara-Onono). There might also be one from The Ashley Henry Trio (with the leader’s piano and compositions supported by Sam Gardner on drums and Sam Vicary on bass). There’ll certainly be a DJ set from Pete of the house-to-jazz On The Corner record label.
* * * * * * * *
Also note that on 19th April, Leeds electro-digital splatterjazz exponent Craig Scott will be playing his LUME Lab event at IKLECTIK – more news on that is back on this older post.
LUME presents:
LUME Lab: Craig Scott IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Wednesday 19th April 2017, 8.00pm – information
Swoon. /swo͞on/ A verb. To be emotionally affected by someone or something that one admires; become ecstatic. Here are some people and things that make me swoon. #swoon #swoonage