Soweto Kinch combines rap, sax and the LSO at London Jazz Festival

The Barbican opened its final EFG London Jazz Festival weekend with a grand spectacle. Soweto Kinch’s new work White Juju blended Kinch’s own articulate rap and small-group jazz with the subtle textures of the London Symphony Orchestra and probed present and past with a mixture of soundbites and archive film. These ranged from clips of George Floyd’s funeral and footage of the Ku Klux Klan to talking heads and newsreels of riots and peaceful parades.

Kinch’s fine-tuned orchestral score repurposes familiar orchestral practices. Violins sweep, brass and double bass combine on angular modernist lines, while flutes, clarinets and trumpets blend to magical effect. Jittery violin riffs and short flutters of flute conform to the demands of hip-hop or add counterpoint to the rhythm section’s lines.

The 10-part work began with the recorded birdsong of “Dawn” and continued with “The Old Normal”, dissecting the recent past; disturbingly, a clip of Boris Johnson introducing lockdown seemed from a bygone age. Floaty free jazz scattered into abstraction and chirrups from the orchestra’s flutes soothed the nerves.

Later, images of the sugar trade’s infrastructure came with a baroque orchestral pastiche, and Stravinsky-like strings bounced behind newsreels. Thus inspired, jazz emerged from within the orchestra, sometimes pulsing with contemporary beats, at others brittle and free. Segues were seamless, contrasts clear and dead stops were delivered precisely on cue.

But the focus was Kinch, standing on a plinth near conductor Lee Reynolds, alternating sharp-toothed and rhythmically nuanced rap with pensive tenor and alto sax. His solos ranged from oblique modernism and rough-and-tumble lines to wistful free jazz. They were, however, mixed too deeply into the sonics of the orchestra to take full effect. A minor detail in an engaging, well-argued event that left you thinking, “Whatever next?” 

★★★★☆

On Saturday, two American bands delivered a contrast of styles. Vibraphonist/pianist Joel Ross delivered two sets of hip-hop inflections and modernist lines at Ronnie Scott’s, while Pizza Express Jazz Club presented a brace of sets for the established Trio M’s left-field blend of expressionism and the blues.

Ross’s seasoned Good Vibes band switch tempo and mood at will. Solos are long, investigative and full of bite, and Ross’s metallic vibraphone resonance has found a perfect foil in the sonics of Immanuel Wilkins’s alto sax. Here, bassist Kenoa Mendenhall anchored moves on double bass, and drummer Jeremy Dutton complemented the soloists’ rococo lines with compressed rolls and cannily spaced rimshots; his two drum solos were masterpieces of melodic flow and close control.

Ross started his first-set performance at the piano by delivering sombre chords in a minor key. John Coltrane’s “Equinox” was the theme, played by Wilkins with a dry, focused tone and a hint of breath. The tempo was achingly slow, but as it changed and doubled, soloists probed the outer edge of harmony.

As the groove subsided, Dutton segued into hip-hop and Ross switched to vibes for “More?” from last year’s album Who Are You?; the up-tempo “Marsheland”, from the same release, ended the set with a thrilling chase between sax and vibes. In between, the band reconstructed Monk’s “Evidence” and concentrated on newer work in a performance that rarely paused. Ballads floated, gained speed and swung, and hip-hop grooves melted into urgent modal swing.

The densely detailed performance ended with a sudden dead stop, but there was no time for more. A second set was already in line.

★★★★☆

Trio M, together for 15 years, also draw on jazz tradition and change tempo at will. But pianist Myra Melford twins tradition with abstraction and double bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson’s aesthetics are equally wide.

Here, the trio probed time and space and pushed orthodox technique to the edge. Melford, fully in command of spidery modernism, was equally convincing exploding into discordance or getting to the essence of a barnstorming blues. Dresser combined two-handed strums with slurs and slaps and strode reliably in a steady walk. Drummer Wilson swung, shuffled and let beats resonate in acres of space.

Their second set started with a dramatic crash of cymbals, a bounced bowed-bass motif and Melford authentically preaching the blues in “Naive Art”. Its centrepiece was a drum solo that made each forceful whack count and took minimalism to extremes.

The evening continued as a kaleidoscope of moods and references. Melford’s “Be Melting Snow” toyed with space and delivered clusters of sound, “Dried Print on Cardboard” combined rhythmic angles with melodic leaps and “FUNterfaht” galloped along with a Latin twist. Wilson’s “Getting Friendly” was the ballad, playfully romantic and delivered mid-set, and the township tinge of “Ekonomi” brought an uplifting evening to a high.

★★★★☆

efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk