COOL RUNNINGS 2012 No. 2 – Orphy Robinson

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Paul Brad

OrphyNUFF GREETINGS… it’s true, the end of 2012 is virtually upon us and we pick up where Jody Gillett left off. This time round it’s jazz warrior, vibes and marimba master, Orphy Robinson, who reflects on the events and artefacts that made his life in battered and bruised Con-Dem Britain (and beyond) bearable or, as we’ve said, even thrilling…

NEW BANDS, SINGERS & PLAYERS….

Universal Mind Systems  –  Renell Shaw & Michael Antoniou.  Seriously talented duo and hard working back team as well.

Psylus – Watch out for this new group. Well cool.  http://www.psylus.co.uk/

Zuri Jarrett-Boswell  is a young piano/keyboardist that I have known for some time now… soon to become a strong creative voice on the scene.

Jerome Thomas.. . his band The Soulnotes came 3rd in a major national new bands comp, seriously strong material and vocals. Youth from Hackney. Love his material. http://www.jeromeandthesoulnotes.com/

Ava LeighAva Leigh… Strong new artist and voice on the scene. Her recorded material is a cross between lovers rock and cool jazz standards. Classy, tight,  crisp production style from Jonathon Shorten and Neville Malcolm. Live… the band is  hard core.  Off the chain. Watch this one blow up in 2013.  http://www.avaleighofficial.com

GIGS OF 2012 (Other peoples!)

Bassdrumbone   at Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen Festival feat. Ray Anderson,  Gerry Hemingway and Mark Helias.

Kenny Garrett  @ Pizza Express London

Raul Midon @ Union chapel London

BADDEST  VENUE

Café Oto … Dalston

Crea8 Lifestyle Centre, Hackney Wick

The Spin , Oxford

The Chapel, Kings College, London

TOP ALBUMS!

Kenny GarrtettKenny Garrett – Seeds From The Underground  Cd

Wadada Leo Smith – Ten Freedom Summers (4CD) [Box Set]

Christian Scott – Christian  and Tunde Adjuah

Django Bates – Beloved

Yotam Silberstein – Brasil

 RE-ISSUES

VA – Spiritual Jazz 2  (Jazzman Records)

lol 2MUSICIANS I AM GOING TO MISS…

RIP – Tony Marsh and  Lol Coxhill (see pic).  Two gentle giants of sound.

BADDEST SESSIONS  (Mine… ones that I’ve been part of…)

"Shake Keane... Shake Keane!" Photography: Roger Thomas

“Shake Keane… Shake Keane!” Photography: Roger Thomas

1. Black Top 5 @ Café Oto with Byron Wallen, Cleveland Watkiss and Steve Williamson during the London Jazz Festival.

2. Performing with Wadada Leo Smith @ Café Oto

3. Sacred music/ Sacred Spaces (A love Supreme) at Kings chapel… Great musicians and fantastic arrangements from Rowland Sutherland.

4. Steve Williamson and myself performing with The Necks at Nickelsdorf.   We joined The Necks’  Tony Buck [drums, percussion] and Lloyd Swanton [double bass] onstage to fill in for piano player Chris Abrahams who had impaled himself on a bass spike 5 mins before going on stage. Nasty. I played a huge… very long… African marimba… and the  set we did  made the place go nuts! Extremely memorable and working with The Necks…  that’s another project we need to pursue.

2013…  LOOKING FORWARD TO…..

Pat Thomas - Black Top Pic: Roger Thomas

Pat Thomas – Black Top Pic: Roger Thomas

Black Top. Audience response and review… ALL GOOD… this outfit is breaking new ground.

Sacred Music/Sacred Spaces… the tour… we’ve got to do the tour… UK and outernational.

The Jazz Warriors International will be launching a whole heap of goodness… kicking with a DJ led session… Draw 2 Tune @ Charlie Wrights  and a series of concerts – all  guaranteed to blow your mind – in St Georges, the Hawksmoor  Church in Bloomsbury. The only church in London to be attended by HIM Haile Selassie I. Info: https://www.facebook.com/TheJazzWarriors

 

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2012 RUNNINGS: Best Of… No. 1 – Jody Gillett

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Paul Brad

GREETINGS… as the end of 2012 is virtually upon us I thought I ask a few erudite and knowledable cultural compadres what events and artefacts made life in recession ridden Tory Britain and elsewhere bearable or even thrilling…

First up comes Jody Gillett, former editor of  the English speaking version of http://www.mondomix.com, Braziliophile, budding film maker and a key player in the annual WOMAD camping circle.

ARTIST
Sam Lee
(www.samleesong.co.uk)

sam leeA wonderful singer doing beautiful things with a repertoire built up over years of song collecting with Gypsy and Traveller communities across the UK. What Sam Lee brings with the new arrangements on his debut album (the Mercury nominated Ground Of Its Own) is a very young band which makes the whole project feel exciting and on the move. I’ve seen them three times – first at the 2009 launch of Will Hodgkinson’s great book A Ballad Of Britain, then at an intimate happening at the Bedford pub and most recently at Womex where he wowed a global music industry crowd. Every time he was barefoot, charismatic and funny. And the songs? Ancient, unusual melodies and all heart. (check out Goodbye My Darling and The Tan Yard Side.)
Also:  Os Nelsons – https://soundcloud.com/os-nelsons

RADIO
wfmu.org/The Best Show
(www.wfmu.org/playlists/BS)
Tom ScharplingI came across this recently, thanks to persistent insomnia episodes. It’s a 3 hour phone-in show on the New Jersey community station, presented by Tom Scharpling, a grumpy humanist and comedy writer with a deep knowledge of daytime US TV (Storage Wars, anyone?) and American rock lore. He responds to genuinely random callers from all over the country (plus occasional set-ups with collaborator Jon Wurster) like they’re hecklers, variously interesting fellow-citizens or just triggers for rants. Good if you’re into US popular culture (aka what’s happening in Huntsville, Alabama of a Tuesday night) or harsh hang-up-the-phone etiquette. It’s rambling, funny freeform radio with strangely touching moments, punctuated by silences and the sound of Tom clicking his pen.

FILM
Mission To Lars
(www.missiontolars.com)
mission to larsSweet, moving film with jeopardy, love and courage at its core. It was also a pretty revealing portrait of a family and a lesson in how so-called campaign films can be effective in multiple ways – raising money for Mencap and making you feel gooey about heavy metal. Mission to Lars was made by a brother and sister with Tom Spicer, their elder brother who has Fragile X Syndrome and who’s obsessed with meeting Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich. It’s a window on autism, family dynamics and film-making. It’s also a road movie, which is always good.

Also:
Bill Cunningham’s New York (dir. Richard Press)
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Swandown (dir. Andrew Kötting)

RE-ISSUE
Rodriguez – Cold Fact (1970) + Coming From Reality (1971) (www.lightintheattic.net)
RodriguezThanks to the film release this year, Sixto Rodriguez had his two early 1970s albums re-issued (and this time he’ll see the royalties). Back then they bombed in the US, but boomed in South Africa and Australia, unbeknowst to him, who worked on construction sites for decades while raising his three daughters. The magic in Malik Bendjelloul’s documentary (Searching For Sugar Man) is Rodriguez himself. What an inspiring guy. I went to see him at Royal Festival Hall in November. His backing band were okay…where were the strings though? But the man wrote some great songs. And he got up there and sang them in a 70s bubble, it was unexpectedly moving. The place was packed with fans, and he came across exactly as you’d wish – humble and real. At “a solid 70” he is almost blind, but his voice was all there. And the albums too. Respect, Rodriguez.
Also:  The Existential soul of Tim Maia/Nobody Can Live Forever  (Luaka Bop)

Other inspiring 2012 highlights:

banner sqCONCERT:  The awesome summer solstice happening…

Sacred Music :  Sacred Spaces: A Re-envisioning of John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ at The Chapel, King’s College.

EXHIBITION: Jeremy Deller’s JOY IN PEOPLE at The Hayward.

SPOKEN WORD: Kate Tempest’s Brand New Ancients at Battersea Arts Centre.

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Saul Williams… CHORUS – A Literary Mixtape… a combination of trash, heart, and craft… an anthology in rant!

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Paul Brad

Saul Williams

Last week we dropped into the QEH on London’s South Bank to experience the latest lyrical venture of master poet / wordsmith Saul Williams and what a night it was. The hall was packed and anticipation high. Our host was a young poet, GREEdS, (Generating Rhymes to Engage the EnlighteneD soul) who whipped up the vibe before dropping a selection of his own works that introduced his Nigerian mother as “an African Bruce Lee”. His incisive and witty urban tales were followed by Inua Ellams, a One Taste regular with 7 books under his belt and one of a hundred poets to have his words featured in Saul’s latest venture – Chorus. Inua’s offerings dealt with “faith in a time of double dip recession” and celebrated urban gardeners and midnight runs. London based Warsan Shire, a Kenyan-born Somali poet and writer, stepped up next, took up the spoken word baton and pinned us to our seats with powerful and painful reading that focused on the “art of healing through narrative”.

Saul-Williams1-580x812

Saul Williams stepped onstage to rapturous applause. He explained that Chorus came from an appeal through social media for poems. They arrived in their thousands and with the assistance of his compadres they eventually whittled them down to a thousand and then to one hundred. Saul then enlarged the poems, pasted them to his living room wall and then proceeded to live with them for the next six months in order to organise them as one voice, as if one was a DJ. Titles and names were removed and poetic mix-tape was born (the contributors poems are numbered and are listed in the back of the book  like film credits). Anthemic in vibe, Chorus introduces a new generation of poets unified by the desire to transcend the identity politics of the day and begin to be seen as one. One hundred voices woven through testimony and new testament.

Out of the words that construct this  epic endeavour Saul Williams has selected individual words (all highlighted in the book) to create a meta-poem of his own and it was that which he chose to deliver first  while scattering his notes to the floor. And believe me, when Saul Williams took flight we, the listeners, were whipped along in it’s slipstream, grasping at the essence at the epicentre of a tornado of words that spun through the air.

Saul Williams’ love of hip hop has continually collided with his frustration at the art form’s  inability to meet up with his own vision, go beyond the gangsta-ism, bling and machismo to connect with it’s feminine side … the goddess… with the earth mother. Twice The First Time is revisited…

…. i won’t rhyme on top no tracks
niggas on a chain gang used to do that (Huh) way back

i won’t rhyme over tracks
niggas on a chain gang used to do that (Huh) way back

don’t drop the beat no
don’t drop the beat noooo

not until you’ve listen to Rakim on a rocky mountain top
have you heard hip hop
extract the urban element which created it
and let a open wide country side illustrate it
riding in a freight train
in the freezing rain
listening to Coltrane
my reality went insane….

A borrowed copy of The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop was clutched, briefly referred to, sprayed with spit and finally dropped to ground after an exhausting and exhilarating rant that transported us to a higher realm of consciousness.

I have been a dedicated follower of Saul Williams from Straight No Chaser days… since those early days before his wiry presence filled the big screen in Slam. Whether in ‘Volcanic Sunlight’ or as an ‘Amethyst Rock Star’ he is a man you need on your radar. Saul Williams is a poet, a wordsmith, a ranter possessed with the spirit who trancends time and demands to be listened to. And on this night at the QEH we all listened.

CHORUS: A Literary Mixtape is Edited by Saul Williams with Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet. Check it.

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TIME OUT: Dave Brubeck leaves us aged 91

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Paul Brad

Back in 1958 Dave Brubeck broke with the bop tradition and dropped a tune featuring alto player Paul Desmond entitled ‘Take 5’. Today, that tune remains a jazz anthem. The album that it came from – ‘Time Out – sold over a million copies and it took his music around the globe. Despite his popularity the powers that be in the racist southern states of America refused to play host to his mixed race band and as a result Brubeck cancelled 23 dates of the proposed tour. Throughout the Sixties and the rest of his life the pianist remained a staunch supporter of the struggle for civil rights. Ironically, during the same era he was also chosen by the US State Department to engage in the war against communism by carrying the jazz message behind the “Iron Curtain”.

Dave

The above shot features a young Brubeck in the company of Cal Tjader – another jazz musician who was also destined to extend the jazz repertoire by engaging with other musical traditions – and I’ll leave the last word on the pianist, who passed away one day shy of of his 92 birthday, to President Barack Obama: “You can’t understand America without understanding Jazz. And you can understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck.”

Dave Brubeck RIP: 06.12.1920 – 05.12.2012

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COMING SOON – IRON MONK

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Paul Brad

In the tradition of the legendary Shaw Brothers’ kung fu classics comes a brand new indie martial arts movie that’s located not in Hong Kong but in London’s China Town.  IRON MONK  is produced by veteran stuntman and actor Jason Ninh Cao and features 34th generation Shaolin Master Yanzi Shi in the lead role. Unlike the current wave of martial art epics from China … Ip Man, Fearless, Bodyguards &Assassins… there are no wires, no CGI. Both the film’s director, Mat Sunderlandand, it’s fight choreographer, Vincent Wang, maintain all the action is 100% authentic. In his daily life Shifu Yanzi Shi is the currently the head monk at the ShaolinTemple UK in Tufnell Park  but in this film he plays a Shaolin monk who tries to spread a message of peace and zen in Chinatown. Unfortunately, his opposition to drugs and prostitution attract the attention and ire of the local Triads who become  determined to destroy the monk and his peaceful teachings once and for all. And as cinematic history has shown we all know where that leads. Coming soon to the big screen.

For news / release dates check:  http://www.jncproductions.co.uk

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Yessss, My Selector! Nov.012

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Paul Brad

Somehow,  I still seem to accumulate a few tunes every week – soundcloud promos, downloads, cd’s and even the odd 7″ . and therefore feel I should pass  the word on those little gems that are worth seeking out.

Pic from Raphael Sebbag’s Facebook Timelime. UFO baby!

First up is a release on Gerald The Jazzman’s imprint – Jazzman Records, I was sent a soundcloud link to this and I am definitely smitten. This is the follow up to Jazzman’s  ‘Jukebox Jam’ and it’s appropriately entitled ‘Jukebox Mambo’. This equally rocking selection sheds light on the influence of Afro-Cuban and Latin rhythms on R&B and Jazz during the mid-20th century by dishing up dynamite cuts from Joe Lutcher, Dave Bartlolomew, Red Callendar, Mabel Scott et al. That might sound like eons ago but this music is as  fresh as the day it was recorded. This music hauls me back to smokey, sweaty, boozy, Thursday nights in the Sol Y Sombra with Dave Hucker or Gossips with Gaz Mayall and respect is most definitely due to compiler and DJ Liam Large who lives up to the  Jazzman motto of “diggin’ deeper”. As usual Jazman deliver nuff formats. There’s a 22 track CD with 16 page booklet and a Deluxe Double Gatefold LP with liners, pics and full colour insert. However, if you’re looking for that elusive Xmas gift check the SUPER DELUXE “MUSICAL BOOK”  (see pic!) containing 6×10” records, colour booklet insert with liners and pics & four bonus tracks!

Check the gumbo here: http://soundcloud.com/djfryer/sets/jukebox-mambo-cd-dbl-lp-hard/

On a totally different tip, also from  Jazzman Records, comes Isle Of White based pianist Greg Foat with a follow up to last year’s much lauded  ‘Dark Is The Sun’.  This  fresh installment of filmic and jazz-ual soundscapes is entitled ‘Girl And Robot With Flowers‘ and further reflects the man’s  passion for analogue sound, all kinds of keyboards and sci fi  (‘Dark Is The Sun was inspired by the novel by Philip José Farmer ). Like it’s predecessor  the new album is recorded at Mattias Glava’s Kungalv Studio in Gothenberg on a mixing desk that used to belong to Donald Fagan and oozes that dynamic, spacious, warm sound that can only be achieved by recording direct to tape through high quality vintage equipment. The album’s title track  is delivered in 5 parts and is interspersed with a handful of  tracks like ‘Have Spacesuit Will Travel’ and ‘Cast Adrift’.  To get a taste: http://soundcloud.com/djfryer/sets/the-greg-foat-group-girl-and

Cecilia Stalin

Next up  is a labour of love on the part of Cecilia Stalin. You should know Cecilia for her vocals with Koop, The Streets and The Charles Tolliver Big Band. When word reached me that she had immersed herself in the works of John Coltrane and recorded a new album I was eager to hear the results. Having just been immersed in Trane’s music myself, as the curator for Sacred Music Sacred Spaces, I was naturally stoked to hear where she had taken the music.

The album is called ‘Step Like A Giant’ and Cecilia maintains the  project was born when she first heard and fell in love with the melody of ‘Naima’. According to the singer the album is her way way of reaching out to people today that haven’t been introduced to the music of John Coltrane – ” to people who don’t know jazz at all” – and to enable people to comprehend  what John Coltrane contributed to the musical platforms we all use today… “hiphop/grime/soul/neo-soul/nu-jazz/broken beat/house/ dub step/garage/blues/pop/rock…and all the ones in between”.

Like John Coltrane and his contemporaries Cecilia wants her music to speak out against injustice, to push the boundaries and this is what she has done. The saxophonist’s timeless compositions are her launch pad.  Don’t expect jazz singer meets classic acoustic quartet, this is a 21st century affair  and if you’re feeling the concept you need to check her bandcamp page right now…. touch the tracks and buy the album!

http://ccstalin.bandcamp.com/album/step-like-a-giant-2012

I came to this album via Mancunian trumpet player Matt Hallsall.   Go Go Penguin’s ‘Fanfares’ LP has just been released on Gondwana and features the classically tinged piano outings of Chris Illingworth colliding with profound double B lines from Grant Russell and the excellent shuffling trap drums of Rob Turner who betrays a strong passion for post junglistic expression. I’ve got a distinct feeling that ‘Fanfares’ is going to win this trio a whole new audience.!

OK. This next trio of deep double CD’s come courtesy of R2’s Kiri Patsalides . The R2 classics series dishes up a serious dose of Classic Fusion from The Headhunters, Ramsey Lewis and Larry Young.  It wasn’t until I got hooked on the UK Jazz Dance scene in the mid eighties that I discovered Fusion.  Before that I was into straight ahead stuff or the avante garde. Miles’ ‘Bitches Brew’ was about as far into Fusion as I was willing to go. Anyway, through hanging out with a host of DJs who’d come through the suburban soul and funk scene, the hard core jazz dance sessions and pirate radio I got a taste of Fusion that was to turn my prejudices around. These two-album packages are off their time and some of the tracks reflect that but there are a host of cuts here like Larry Young’s ‘Turn Out The Lights’ that continue to transcend time and remain totally radical.

The Headhunters’ first album ‘Survival Of The Fittest’ was a huge seller (selling more than ‘Bitches Brew’!) and perfectly reflects time when funk, rock and jazz musicians were taking it to the bridge. Some of this stuff is strictly for those cats who can Dance Jazz… they are fast ‘n’ furious and truly off the hook… try ‘Slick’ from Ramsey Lewis’ ‘Salongo’. It’s killin’… love that! Produced by Earth Wind & Fire’s Maurice White and the great Charles Stepney.  If you don’t know these records intimately you need to.  They have inspired a generation. Think heritage. Think Dilla, Mobb Deep, Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees…

Kaidi Tatham..

And from there we have to drop into Tatham, Mensah, Lord & Ranks which has just surfaced on Dego’s 2000BLACK imprint.  It’s a fact that this crew of Bruk Beat pioneers are the genuine heirs to the music contained on the R2 Classics and on this album they continue to proudly fly the flag but in their own inimitable West London style. Kaidi Tathan is an inspirational keys whizz who forever brings something new to the table and guests like Eric Lau,  Bembe Segue, Serina Leah and Ferraz add their own flava to the mix. Sadly I missed their album launch at Jazz Refreshed last night but I’m told by a very reliable source that it was smoking!

Finally, ’cause I’m getting tired… and need to do the work I should be doin’… a couple of 7″singles. The first single features Juaneco Y Su Combo – La Cumbia Del Pacurro / Paco Zambrano Y Su Combo – Meshkalina and is pure vintage Peruvian funk-psych-cumbia and it’s comin’ ‘atcha on Martin Morales’ Tiger’s Milk label. Straight outta his newly opened Peruvian restaurant in Soho. Bless! The second single is on the Stick Label, is entitled ‘Wildfire’ and features Harold Martin & Larry Young Jnr.  One very chilled out jam… Yeahhhh!!

OK, I’m out. Laterrrrrs.

PS. Check out Taurus Riley‘s ‘Unplugged’LP. Played it earlier today. A conscious youth with a message that you can sing-a-long  to! Whoops…  forget to mention the latest Brownswood Bubblers No. 8... always worth a visit… where else you gonna find the groundbreaking Hello Skinny followed a contemporary jazzy vocal  gem like ‘Mr New York’ followed by the genius that is Criolo.  Thirteen bubblers… another marker in time… merci GP.

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Crescent City’s Hot 8 Brass Band rocking ‘Ghost Town’ post Katrina!

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Paul Brad
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ON THE FESTIVAL FRINGE…. BLACK TOP RISES IN DALSTON

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Paul Brad

Monday night and our destination is improv central – Cafe Oto – Dalston on the East side. We have gathered to hear BLACK TOP who, on this night, will feature six homegrown Master Musicians that continue to shape this thing called “jazz” in our own inner city.


Over on the Southbank the London Jazz Festival is hosting two highly anticipated and sold out sessions. The legend that is Herbie Hancock is poised to deliver Plugged In: A Set Solo Explorations while Bill Frissell’s quartet is premiering, The Great Flood, an 85 minute soundtrack to a film inspired by the most destructive river flood America ever experienced. As Black Top didn’t even score as a “Festival Pick” in the Jazz Festival newspaper we should have felt adrift, lost in the Festival’s oversubscribed margins but the session is sold out and there’s a real sense of anticipation in the air.

Black Top Photography: Roger Thomas

Cafe Oto has provided a home for four previous Black Top sessions and it’s DIY ambience succeeds in recreating what I imagine to have been the the vibe in Sam and Bea Rivers’ legendary New York Loft sessions. Black Top is vibes-master Orphy Robinson and the bear like experimental pianist Pat Thomas. The duo then extend an invitations to a like -minded fellow musician like saxophonists Steve Williamson and Jason Yarde, vocalist Cleveland Watkiss or trumpet player Byron Wallen to collaborate.

Black Top: Steve & Cleve Photography: Roger Thomas

So, just to get this right. On this night. We have not one guest but four! Onstage we have Orphy Robinson – original Jazz warrior who tours the world with virtuoso violist Nigel Kennedy; Pat Thomas – an Oxford based master improviser with a legendary reputation across Europe; Cleveland Watkiss – an original Jazz warrior and one-time member of the Metalheadz crew; Steve Williamson – an original Jazz Warrior and the most innovative saxophonist of his generation; Byron Wallen – a trumpet player who plays with Jack De Johnette, Andrew Hill and Mulatu Astatke and whose knowledge of global musics is Deep!and finally, a new generation marimba master, Corey Mwamba.

There is no plan, just a few potential lift-off points for the journey that we are about follow. All onstage are of African descent. Four have roots in Jamaica and out the buzz and crackle of Orphy’s electronic devices emerges the ghostly sounds of Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari and a narration by Sam Brown. Pat Thomas concentrates on his electronic pulses and shards of sound and Steve Williamson stalks the left hand side of the stage in his macintosh wafting melodies from his tenor that Cleveland picks up and feeds into his own electronic devices.

The interplay between these musicians is respectful. Filled with awareness of each others potential they nudge, play with, cajole a riff or a fleeting melody. It’s almost leisurely and and then without warning they lift it skywards, filling the room with sound until it builds and fractures only to find another elusive pulse to settle on. Cleveland delivers a Jamaican proverb. The singer is resplendent in a red silk scarf and shirt and he regularly dips into the poetic works of Shake Keane – a trumpeter, a forefather. The tradition continues and respect is paid. Shake Keane!

“Shake Keane… Shake Keane!” Photography: Roger Thomas

It feels like Orphy, who remains in the shadows, is the helmsman on his JX3P keyboard. There are smiles all round as he delivers his inspired choice of voice recordings (that have you straining to connect with and decipher) and Studio One classics… ‘You better run, run, run, as fast as you can…”. He even pays tribute the Dalston’s reggae infused past with Rupie Edwards’ ‘Irie Feelings’… ‘Skanga.. .Skanga… Skanga…’

In the second set Corey Mwamba steps in on marimba which Orphy has largely ingnored so far. They enjoy a racey duet that lifts the whole room but in the blink of an eye Orphy slips back into the shadows to work his mischief. Steve Williamson soprano slung round his neck opts for blasts on the tenor. He is caught between Pat’s insistent electronic riffs and a constant electronic buzz from Orphy behind him. He needs more in the monitors and it pressures him to take his solos up a couple of notches.

The force field generated by Steve Willamson’s explorations are taken up by Byron Wallen who dazzles with lyrical free flowing passages and solos with wild piercing blast of sound. He has complete control of that trumpet and his breathing is amazing. When he picks up an instrument that’s a cross between a flugel horn and a euphonium we are only left to marvel at the fluidity of his statements and the blasts of sound he can conjure up.

What’s compelling about Black Top? They groove. I find it hard to stand still when they’re playing. Cleveland is schooled in the art of beat boxing. He has lived through the junglist nights of rolling bass lines and waves of drum beats and on the mic he effortlessly carves out and crafts his own grooves. On this night, there are wordless African songs – maybe echoes of what he heard on a recent trip to Ghana. There are more poems and the odd Fact. There are loops and there are beats. The beats are taken up by Pat Thomas and at one point, Quietus Reporter Andy Thomas and I felt we were riding a house rhythm that would have had Moodymann or Theo Parrish jealously bouncing off the walls.

Pat Thomas Photography: Roger Thomas

During the late Sixties and Seventies I was totally inspired by the centrality of culture in the struggle for Civil Rights and revolutionary change in the US. It was a small but influential tribe of renegade African American musicians who recognized that freedom in the music was synonymous with fundamental change. Politically, we desperately needed that added cultural dimension here in the UK. However, it was reggae, rather than “jazz”, that carried the sound of resistance into the mainstream and became the sound that underpinned the resistance against unemployment and racism. Three decades on it seems fitting that these UK born musicians should mesh their own Afro-Caribbean musical roots with the liberating experiments of the AACM, The Art Ensemble, Sun Ra, Tribe, Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, Wadada Leo Smith, Sam Rivers, David Murray, Black Arthur Blythe et al in order to create something fresh and continually evolving.

Black Top: Pat, Steve, Cleveland, Corey, Byron, Orphy Pic: Roger Thomas

I’m sure I would have dug Herbie’s set at the RFH but I’m sorry, there’s no way it could ever match what these musicians, just laid on us. Black Top’s music was urgent, it was raw, it was sophisticated, it was uplifting, it made us smile and it was NOW. I had that same feeling when I first saw the Art Ensemble at The Roundhouse or  Sun Ra at The Mean Fiddler or Dudu and Mongezi at the Jazz Centre Society. I feel blessed that I was in the house and pray that Orphy and Pat, along with their collaborators, continue to take Black Top down the the same radical path, with the same energy, humour and intuitive sense of enlightenment.

LIVE PAINTINGS by GINA SOUTHGATE + Thanks to Roger Thomas

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TOP RESULT!!! FOUR MORE YEARS… THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Paul Brad

Just as Mercury moved into retrograde I was preparing myself a bad day. That said,  at 7am this morning I turned on the mac only to discover that Obama was back in the White House… YESSSS!!

Now, that is good news. While it’s still not going to be an easy ride for the Democrats the tone has been set. Obama needs to mobilise the people to move the program forward.

Also, we can give thanks that the offbeat 200-year-old White Horse prophecy has not come to fruition in the shape of the contender, former Mormon missionary and Bishop, Mitt Romney. The prophesy is a centerpiece of Mormon doctrine which predicts that when the United States Constitution is hanging by a thread that a great White Horse Savior will rescue the United States. Well, not this time baby!

The spirit of Hope prevails, as does “The American Dream”. This is how President Obama put it in his acceptance speech:

“I believe we can keep the promise of our founding, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, abled, disabled, gay or straight. (Cheers, applause.) You can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.”

Can I get a witness?

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JAZZMEIA HORN: Once Voice Leaves Another Comes Through.

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Paul Brad

Just over a week ago, on October 21st, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center they held the inaugural Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition – “a search for the world’s next great female jazz vocalists “ – and out of 800 contestants it was 21 year old Jazzmeia Horn who was hailed as a “stand out” vocalist and the recipient up their “Rising Star Award”.

Originally from Dallas, Texas, Jazzmeia Horn is currently enrolled in the New School Jazz program in NYC.  As far as I can see, she is no relation to the Miles Davis’ favourite jazz singer, Shirley Horn, but if it’s tradition we are talking about, it’s her  ability to turn a musical phrase from words to feeling that has  earned her comparisons with another great woman vocalist… yes, you’ve got it…. the late great Sarah Vaughan.

“I’ve always wanted to sing. Since I was young, I wanted to learn every song, remember every line, and then find a way to craft them into my statements, to find a way to make them me.”

While Jazzmeia’s been spotted on the club circuit doing tunes like ‘People Make The World Go Round’ this young singer is is obviously deep into the jazz songbook.  Good thing? Bad thing? I’m not sure. Some of those songs sound unbearably quaint in these times, so my choice of video had to offer a twist on that. Check the vocals she drops on her wikkid version of Charlie Parker’s ‘Billie’s Bounce’.  Jazzmeia Horn owns a voice that is truly her own. Watch out for her.

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