When he started playing Jimmy Van Heusen’s ‘It Could Happen To You’, I was reminded of the wonderful recording by Keith Jarrett, which I embedded into a video “Drifting” that I put together some years ago, based on a poem about nature. It was a priceless experience to sit up there at the top of the Southbank Centre, and to gaze westwards over the morning sun beaming over Waterloo and Westminster. Tom Cawley has a delicate, light touch, sensitively working his ideas into his playing, without disrupting the rhythmic flow. His subtlety of harmonisation, and his depth of voicing, add class and style to his fluent improvisation. He references the melodic line of the standard, without being bound by it, amidst his own fluctuations and embellishments.

I felt that the open-ended format of the workshop was effective. Tom Cawley really worked with his students to get the best out of them, and he spoke some wise words of wisdom, which were both encouraging and inspiring. By the end of the workshop, I felt that each student had a real sense of where they were now, what they were aiming towards and their strengths and weaknesses. Altogether, a productive, fulfilling morning!

London Jazz Orchestra, set up twenty years ago, initially as a rehearsal band, has developed to become one of London’s foremost creative jazz orchestras. Tonight, expounding the music of Gil Evans and Kenny Wheeler, alongside original compositions by John Warren, the band stirs up a thought-provoking pastiche of eloquent music.

Lines of bebop converge with the colours of classical music in ‘Isthmus’. Here, there is no strikingly apparent tonal focus; instead, rays of dissonant harmony spread outwards in an artfully cosmopolitan, forward-thinking arrangement, occasionally bound with sweeter, inward looking cornices. The soprano saxophone solo meshes through a buffet of differentiating rhythmic forms and feels, tightly coordinated and rehearsed. Pedal notes (anchored bass notes under modulating harmony) maintain the anticipation and drive, building up into smoothly bolstered cacophonies, harmonically rich and inspiring the listener with some highly developed, advanced improvisation.

‘My New Ship’, a Gil Evans-style ballad, written with Kurt Weill (‘My Ship’) in mind, counterpoises a tenor saxophone and trombone, with intertwining stems that reveal and more sentimental side to this band, flourishing in evanescent colours. The whispering, paper tone of the saxophone, and the shaped vibrato of the saxophone section, defines some meaningful, prospective insights. The ballad develops into a creeping swing, incorporating converging contours and some lovely examples of section writing - presenting different backing textures, in turn, over descending harmonic turnabouts. Romantic, without being overtly sappy, here is a contemporary big band showcasing a selection of truly gifted performers and writers.

This big band, emerging as the high flyers in young British jazz talent, could easily be mistaken for professionals. In reflection of this, Queen Elizabeth Hall Front Room is the most packed I’ve seen all week. The band showcases some mature and meaningful improvisation and an ability to tackle complex arrangements, from players so young. Continuing the Kenny Wheeler theme of London Jazz Festival’s culminating evening, his Lost Scores are so compellingly engaging that it is hard to tear yourself away.

Director Nick Smart explains that Kenny Wheeler’s big band compositions prescribe different roles, and that it is nice for the young players to fit into these roles. So much of Kenny Wheeler’s music is determined by these roles and relationships between the musicians - socially and professionally.

Vocalist Emma Smith, seen previously performing with NYJO (National Youth Jazz Orchestra) last weekend, returns, with her smoky, developed voice, which lingers and curls through the sinuses of space, light and free floating, and wrapping itself around your soul. To this, she adds effortless suspended tensions, with a sensitive and refined touch.

In comparison to some of the other big bands that I have witnessed this week, this one has an air of sophistication about it - an essence of ‘cool’. These are the high flyers, the top of the top, the cream of the crop and the most fertile seeds for emerging jazz talent in the UK.

Moroccan singer-songwriter Noraay is living proof that if we are to change the outside world, then we must change that which is within. Combining neo-soul, R&B, hip hop, North African and Middle Eastern influences, her music explores the miracles of creation, of nature revealing the deeper complexities of order and the impact of man on the environment, through lyrics that emanate ‘peace love and positive thoughts’.

Casting her illustrious and minimalist charm over acoustic, soulful blends of soft piano and bluesy guitar, Noraay croons a song-like and soothing jazz reminiscent of Norah Jones, with a speculative character - forever searching for something. Her songs are very spiritually rooted - like a prayer or an elegy - telling tales of ‘walking through the valley of darkness and depth, looking within the self and evaluating the future’, strengthened by hope and optimism.

‘Light at the End of the Tunnel’ emits a powerful, ballad poetry. Her pure, wavering voice flirts delicately with the giddy, playful rhythms of the kora. The overall combination infuses Noraay’s own style with a myriad of different essences, such that the essences themselves become transparent, and the music’s message is transmitted on its own terms.

‘Flower of Life’ is a composition describing the effect that when cells divide, they create this shape. Pulsating with soft tabla tones, Noraay paints an oriental music village, casting a metropolitan mural of moving shapes, patterns and colours; spellbinding Arabic scales, shimmering through a forward-thinking groove; and flourishing with Middle Eastern mystique.

Legend of British jazz and big band writing, and trumpeter, Kenny Wheeler, appears with this all-star line-up at the culminating point, marking the closing night of London Jazz Festival. And what a perfect way to do it, through a world premier of their latest CD - and the first recording in twenty years - ‘The Long Waiting’. Originally written to commemorate Kenny Wheeler’s eightieth birthday, this music has never before been performed in the UK.

Walking into the auditorium, I simply cannot believe the group of people sitting onstage, which includes not only Kenny Wheeler (trumpet, flugelhorn) but also Norma Winstone (vocals), Gwylm Simcock (piano), John Parricelli (guitar) Chris Laurence (bass), Martin France (drums), a saxophone section consisting of Evan Parker (baritone), Stan Sulzmann (tenor), Ray Warleigh (alto), Duncan Lamont (alto) and Julian Arguelles (tenor), not to mention Nick Smart (trumpet) and others too numerous to mention - all monumental figures of British Jazz who I have seen at various points throughout the week - directed under the hand of Pete Churchill.

Kenny Wheeler’s music symbolises the cutting edge in British big band composition and orchestration, and it is wonderful to here these creations unfolding, live to my ears. There are passages that create the sense of falling down an infinite chasm, surrounded by floating cities of brass and shafts of airy vocals. Amidst the thick butter of interlacing horns, dancing and wavering in a rhythmically polygonal patchwork of textures, the female vocals (Norma Winstone) radiate through, giving the music a hauntingly human quality, whilst still adhering to the abstract and the extremes of substance and development.

‘Counter Number Three’ is a modal waltz of sweet saxophones and vocals, while ‘Counter Number One’ hovers a dodecagonal metre, elegantly underpinned by the apocalyptic undertow of rising brass textures, mingling with the rush-of-consciousness effect of the vocals. This subsides into a militant swing, and the fiery lead trumpets take the forefront. The dialectic call-and-response structure takes control of this composition, which switches between two opposing sides, gradually building up, before finally collapsing back into the spindly clockwork of Afro twelve-eight rhythms.

The smooth transition into ‘Old Ballad’ fans out in a pristine, vibrato pool of languishing saxophone chorale. The trumpets swoon overhead, piercingly, in their altitudes, before succumbing to the gelatinous touch of Ray Warleigh (alto saxophone).

Indeed, it is all too easy to say that the big band writing has a distinctively British quality to it; one could liken it to overcast rainclouds of vocals and horns, occasionally subsiding for some radiant solo improvisations. Here, Stan Sulzmann (tenor saxophone) leaps and swings over straight quavers, his melodic outpourings swept up by the harmonic flow in some spectacular, kinetic formations and emotions, channelled with lighting-speed touch and response. Smooth mirrors of muted brass open disrupt the current, and the audience react at every twist and turn of the music, which, like film music, is cinematic and progressive.

These ‘weather’ analogies are meshed out through ‘Old Ballad’, which has some brand new lyrics added to it by Norma Winstone. The lyrics are startlingly beautiful: ‘haunting sounds that filled my life, and made their mark on me / can I rewind to what’s behind / to land in a world / where all the dreams are dust / some things remain, untouched by the rain’ drawing the music into a shimmering, mirage. 

The closing number ‘Upwards’ once again introduces a swathing ballad of wordless vocals to a clammy guitar, which leads into a syncopated waltz, finished with a squirreling trumpet solo by none other than Kenny Wheeler. His all-star band, featuring the cream of British Jazz, propels you in a tour-de-force through clouds of buffeting brass and wind, exquisite vocals and a steaming rhythm section. A thrilling journey to the heart, and back again.

It is very rare to chance upon a band of musicians that are both phenomenally talented, yet extremely heart-warming and play music of such beauty that it melts your heart and leaves you soaking in the sun of their radiance. Appearing with top musicians from Greece, Sokratis Sinopoulos (lyra), Vangelis Karipis (percussion) and Yannis Kirimkiridis (piano and keyboards), Armenian-American oud player Ara Dinkjian organically fuses together intricate melodies, whirring rhythms and lush string harmonies.

Their opening number combines a sumptuously sampled bass purling under some lovely four-square grooves, that sit back on the groove, and coast out some undulating pastures of rhythmic resilience. The oud and lyra draw so much feeling and flavour out of one chord, and it is amazing to be so close to the musicians and watch the expressions on their faces. Soon, the audience is clapping along in time, entranced by these exotic beats.

Following this is a seductively stately, ceremonial waltz, transporting you back to sunnier climes, with its wistful, romantic and nostalgic tones, evoking long journeys and loved ones back home. With its stoic, almost stiff character, the music plays out a unique insight into the flavour, soul and temperament of these musicians - passionate yet with an indescribable dignity and honour. The sheathing syncopations of the keyboard, caught by the delicate, offbeat kick of the high accent, creates a flirtatious sonority. The hollowness of the oud notes, falling slightly outside the ‘Western’ tonal system, resonate with old world, almost alien, charm.

Supplanting this is a frolicking folk tune, again setting the audience off to clap on every first beat. Here, I notice that the players are smiling at one another as they execute the native licks and loops at second nature - and I realise that they truly have these ancient melodies well and truly under their fingers. Like neo-classical choro or ragtime, the yarn modulates through minor and major keys, skipping with joy and youthfulness. The highlight of this piece is the improvised solo on the darbuka.

Never have I had the privilege to sit so close to a darbuka (goblet or chalice shaped drum, used in North Africa, Mediterranean and the Middle East) played so well. Never have I heard such rhythmic vibrations like this. Vangelis’ fingers are so strong, yet so relaxed and roll out these deliciously whirring tap rhythms, morphing through many different clusters and formations; ablaze with the fire of his own ferocity. I must admit that, sitting there, I could no longer write, but gaze helplessly, jaw wide open, lest anyone else guess how intimately I was experiencing this moving spectacle. The rest of the audience must have felt this too, for after a moment of suspended calm and disbelief, applause broke out - as it does - in the middle of his solo, and culminated with the rest of the band joining in perfectly.

Some pieces reveal a more sentimental side to the band. The crisp, feathery tone of the bowed lyra floats, like a vessel, over the tranquil waters of piano harmony, an ecstatic bliss suspended in gardens to your ears. This is complemented by the mellowness of the oud, twanging, thoughtfully, over this ‘Milky Way’ of  piano and lush string samples - a music that glistens so pure and golden. During these meditative passages, Vangelis adds some tastefully percussive enhancements, sheathes of shaker, wriggling bells and twinkling chimes.

Some songs combine simple, electronic rock / pop ballads on synth, enriched by the Arabic stylings of the melodic instruments, adding a contemporary touch to a traditionally ancient folk repertoire. Languishing pools of beautiful sadness permeate these moments, tuned into the heartstrings of longing and despair welling up through the sensitive plucking of the oud, in a music that is at once passionate yet solemn - as if these musicians are mourning a timeless loss. This mood presides over the gentle, resonant clanging of the tambour. I love how, when the main theme returns, the keyboard harmonies thicken and intensify, altogether leaving you in a dream state, overwhelmed and overcome with their profound power.

The idea is taken further, as the same theme is replicated into a sensual, gyrating folk song, and the audience are again clapping along in time. Here, the lyra and the oud take turns at soloing, in a delightfully fluorescent, improvisational exchange - making it impossible not to nod your head, or sway your hips, along to the infectiously slinky leaning. Each time it comes around, the refrain returns, accompanied by the roll and slap of the darbuka, inciting more spontaneous clapping on the first beat.

During the encore, Ara Dinkjian explains how he is graced with the honour of having his wife and daughters over from America, and two very good friends from New Jersey: it is easy to understand how some people - relatives or not - travel the world to hear his music. We are fortunate enough that, through London Jazz Festival, these rare pleasures are sitting, waiting for us, on our doorstep. And we do not need to travel; simply discovering this music is enough to turn us into armchair travellers. The only person who is not present (studying hard) is the son of Ara Dinkjian, who decides to evoke his spirit in a composition dedicated to his son, ‘In Wolf’s Clothing’; a sweet, pop ballad, whisking you on a night flight of heady oud, like a lullaby, floating across a vista of sparkling piano, and leaving you at piece with the world, and at one with your soul.

The rest of the band return to the stage for one more round; a buzzing, flittering hive of complex Karsilama (9 / 8) rhythms, rattling and colliding with a satisfying slap on the first and final beats. The perfect culmination to a whirlwind musical odyssey.

Adriano Adewale has a very naturalist approach towards sound and music. For him, “Sound is always in the air… We pass by it, we see it and sometimes we play with it. This is the world of sound, it is all part of that great music, the song within us, which makes us move and feel.”

Consequently, his music brings us right back to the inner resonances of our being, and the counterpoints of sound existing in our environment. His band is a gently bubbling, simmering pan of mellow, minimalist flute, finely tuned percussion, strummed and plucked, hypnotic, modal harmony and tribal dancing and song, which engages the audience in a heady call and response, and lifts the mind into the treetops of traditional African and Amazonian soundscapes.

Percussively, the soundtrack is permeated with ambient sounds at all levels - glass, metal, leather and wood - overlaid and interlaced, in a rich fabric that suggests the proximities of other sentient beings, musical lines crossing, lives intersecting and eventualities intertwining - every click, hit, pop and tap so intricately interwoven into the texture, and transmitted over a ‘forest’ of onlookers in the Clore Ballroom.

Towards the end of the set, his skidding, sliding and giddy grooves morph restlessly through a deeply spiritual song cycle of pulse and buzzing voices. A rich cocktail of cultural immersion and a sobering nod towards the fundamental roots of jazz.

This project features a stellar Kit Downes (organ), Ruth Goller (bass), Tim Giles (drums), James Allsop (tenor saxophone) and Alex Bonny (trumpet, electronics). The focus is free, conceptual improvisation that intermerges humane and robotic influxes, the gentle pushing and pulling of opposing tensions and the creation of highly immersive sound ‘environments’ that bathe your ears in a pseudo-mechanical world of electrifying, ambient counterpoint.

Brazilian vocalist Jandira Silva released her debut solo album ‘Festa De Um Sonho Bom’ in April, this year, and she is due to be performing with Samara, led by Steve Rubie, at the606, as part of London Jazz Festival.

I caught up with her for a coffee in Ealing Broadway on the morning of the show, to ask her about her background, influences and experiences being a jazz musician working in London. Read her full story here: www.jandirasilva.com

Tonight’s LJF with Samara starts 9:30pm @ 606, 90 Lots Road London SW10 0QD. Check back tomorrow, to read the 2nd part of this feature.

Read the 2nd part of this feature HERE.

For those not familiar with your music, how would you describe your music to a complete stranger?

Based on my CD, it would be a mixture of influences. On my CD, I’m playing the Brazilian music that I have been playing since the beginning, when I first started talking to my family and friends about how much I wanted to be a singer. Radio was a great influence, and also the songs from my youth.

The songs on my album are a mixture of influences, because it was the music on the radio that I decided to follow. Brazil is full of rhythms, full of music. I will be glad, one day, when I am able to say to you that my style is this or that. Being an interpreter, as well as a writer, opens you up to different styles. At the same time, when I came to Europe, and I started getting into jazz, this made a big difference for me. So it is a mixture of influences. I don’t have the perfect word to describe my music. Even for me, sometimes, I find it difficult to get a song sounding in a certain style. I sing Bossa Nova, Samba, Baião. It’s a mix of things.

If the average person in the UK didn’t know what Bossa Nova, Samba or Baião were, would you just say that you play Brazilian music? Do you find it difficult to transmit or summarise this kind of understanding, without explaining?

For me, people here are really open-minded. On my gigs, I can see that most of the people in front of me don’t understand a word of Portuguese, but they like the flavour, they like the rhythms and they feel the vibrations of the songs. That’s the kind of thing that is a real chemistry between the crowd and myself. For example, the people always ask if I can sing that song by Tom Jobim or Elis Regina, because they have the melody on their minds. Brazilian music is really rich. When you mix the power of the melodies and harmonies that we have there, with the rhythm, then that makes a really powerful combination.

Even if they don’t understand a word that I’m singing, the rhythm brings the people to me. It’s nice to see this kind of interaction, because it’s not just music to dance to, it’s music to listen to as well.

Brazilian music is often very harmonically rich, as well as being rhythmic. Your biography talks about your earliest memories as a child. If you had to choose one, what would be your earliest, most vivid memory of singing? Can you remember the first time that you ever sang?

I don’t remember it that well, but… You’re going to laugh. This has no connection at all with what I do! When I was a little girl, there was a really famous singer, at the time, called Domenica “Nikka” Costa, who was the daughter of a notable music producer, Don Costa. I saw her singing on TV, and I thought, ‘I’m a little girl too, I can sing as well.’

Here, she pauses to sing a couple of lines from ‘(Out Here) On My Own’ – “When I’m down, and feeling blue, I close my eyes, so that I can be with you… Out here on my own.”

There were things like this. It was stupid, but I would try it anyway. There was another thing on the radio. I don’t suppose that you’ve heard about a genre called Sertanejo? Not the Sertanejo that they are playing now, but specifically the Sertanejo that they played, at one time. My father was from the countryside, so, at home, my mum and dad used to listen a lot to the very roots of Sertanejo, countryside music. That is rich as well, especially when they sing with two or more voices together.

Music was a kind of imitation. The radio was the thing at home. When my father was at home, he was always listening to Sertanejo and those kinds of music, and he played a bit of pandeiro as well. Lots of my family were musicians, particularly on my father’s side; his brothers and sisters were always singing and playing guitar.  My uncle recorded a vinyl.  Music was really present in my family.  It wasn’t like I just came into the world and decided to be a singer. My father loved music, and he was always singing boleros as well, he liked that kind of music. So we listened to everything, but mainly that roots music from the countryside – Sertanejo. That was my father’s favourite.

Your parents switched off the radio when you came home from school. Why?

Because I was singing and trying to do my homework at the same time. My parents would ask me ‘are you doing your homework or are you singing?’ And then they would switch off the music, because I was never that good at concentrating as a child. And they knew it – they could tell that I was always thinking about other things instead of doing my homework. I would just sit there with the radio on.

Your parents were quite musical, but at the same time, they wanted you to study?

My family wasn’t that supportive of me being a musician, especially, because of the way that my uncle was living his life, surviving on music. They didn’t like the idea of me being a musician. I was always singing, I was always saying that I’d be doing that for a living.

If your father loved music, how could he discourage you?

My father wasn’t a musician. For him, music was purely for enjoyment. He would be singing, or playing the pandeiro, because that was just something that he did with his work colleagues. He listened to lots of music at home, and in the car as well. But he wasn’t a musician by trade. I think that from the difficulties that my parents saw in my uncle, surviving on music alone, they didn’t want that for me. At the same time, there is a marginalisation of musicians in Brazil. That it’s not easy. They talk about alcohol, and drugs, and all of that stuff. The stereotypes are that musicians are drunks or addicts.

That is very different to how it is in the UK. We have the same stereotypes, but it’s a bit more light-hearted and humorous. Was that not the case in Brazil? Did they really assume that you did those things if you were a musician?

Yes. Even if we did have respectable forms of music, for example, the school bands, I wasn’t living so close to the school, so my father didn’t want to see what was going on there. I tried to ask him to get me into the school band. In Brazil, every school had a band that was going to do the parade once or twice a year. So you have to rehearse, and learn how to play an instrument, and you would need someone to organise that. They would audition people who played instruments – not singers, but I asked my father if I could join the band. First of all, there was not enough money to allow me to go to the school twice a day. If I had to do that, then I would have to stay in the city, because the distance between home and school was forty minutes by bus. We couldn’t afford two tickets. That was the first reason. The second reason was that being a musician was not what my father wanted for me. So I didn’t have the support.

Do you remember how you felt, when you finally made it to the stage, to your first performance? How did you feel – a sense of accomplishment?

I really wanted to sing, and I was going everywhere where I knew that there would be musicians. At this time, I begged people to allow me to hold the microphone. I was pleading with musicians “Let me sing, Let me sing…” I was thinking a lot about whether my parents would allow me, or whether the people would give me the chance to sing one song. If they liked me when I’m singing, then my father would let me join the band. So there were two very different conflicts there.

I was connected with my local church, on the Sundays, at the ‘Corto Do Domingo’ (‘Sunday services’). I was always there with the guys, singing and dancing. When I was young, my aunt, my father’s sister, was always singing the songs from the church with me, when we were doing the cleaning and the gardening. I also had a cousin who was the same age as me. We used to get the book from the church, which contained around a hundred or so songs. We would one by one, testing each other to see whether we knew it or not. That was how I developed an early repertoire.

I had two friends, who wanted to start a project – one was a guitarist, and the other one was a drummer, and they needed a singer. Another friend of mine suggested to them ‘why don’t you call Jandira?’ The drummer was someone who had studied with me in my previous school. And he said, ‘Yes, I know her…’ etc. We started doing small rehearsals, and that was just singing at the school parties for the students, for thirty or forty minutes. These were my first experiences on stage.

Do you remember how you felt when you first walked on stage?

I felt really good. Of course, there were conditions. My father said that they would have to bring me home, so that I wouldn’t end up on the streets late at night.

From the sounds of it, you can’t remember much, which suggests that you took to it ‘like a fish to water’?

No, it wasn’t like that. Not straight in, natural. It would have been nice, but it took time to work up that sort of confidence, because I hadn’t worked much as a musician because my parents wanted me to finish school. As soon as I finished school, I found a job in a private school as a secretary. So I was working there all day. But as soon as I had time to go out at the weekends, with my friends, as soon as I knew that there was a restaurant or a bar with some live music, I always wanted to be there, and ask ‘Let me sing that song’.

Music is a socially driven, time bound, art form.

I would be sitting there in that restaurant or bar, and my friends would have already left, but I would be waiting because the guy said that I would be singing a song with him. Everybody would be saying that we had to go, yet I would stay behind, waiting for him to let me sing this song. Sometimes, I came home crying, because they didn’t let me sing, and I was very sad. The bar was empty, my friends had left me, and the band had switched off all the equipment. Yet they didn’t let me sing a song. Later on, these were the same guys that would phone me and invite me to sing with them. Gradually, they warmed to me.

During this time, you were working in an office, and doing chores at home. How on earth did you have the energy to go out and do all of this?

When you are young, you do it. It’s as simple as that. Some days, my mum would say to me “I need you tomorrow to help me clean the kitchen”. I was there all day at school. This friend of mine who I’d started singing with would say “There’s this bar, they want live music, the money is not that much, but if you were off…” So I would wake up at 6:00am, pack my bag and take my bike. At 6:30am, I would go to school to work until 5:30pm or 6:00pm. Then I was leaving school, going to the city forty minutes away by bus, to sing with my friends until late night. Then we would arrange for someone to bring me home or I would sleep at someone’s house… And then the next day, I would have to wake up really early to go to school again. And then when I finish, I would have to go to my home where my mum was waiting for me to do the chores.

Were your parents comfortable with you doing that?

Not that much. They were worried, because they knew the guy with whom I was working. They knew that that I was working in the daytime, and that I wasn’t getting enough sleep. About him, they would say, “he works as well, he’s not just a musician.” That was the idea that they had – that you are a musician but you work as well, like they are two separate things… Sometimes we would arrive home at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning after a gig, and then I’d have to get up at 6:00 to go to school. So I’d have two hours sleep maximum, and this was when I was around eighteen or nineteen.

What gave you the drive?

I was passionate about singing. Doing this was a way to prove to my father and my family that I really wanted to sing.

Your family was a wall against which you could push?

Yes. I would always be thinking, “Tomorrow, you have to get up early to get to work.” I would have this on my mind. If I were late for work, I would be in trouble with my parents. My father taught me about discipline from a young age – to be on time, to respect people, to not leave people waiting for you. When you make an appointment with someone, you have to be there. He instilled in me a strong sense of discipline. And I think that this is what really helped me with my music.

Once, when I was nineteen or twenty, I became really ill, but I tried to go to work. I was thinking, “I can’t miss work.” I had so many days when I would feel down, and then I would have to do the gig. How could I cancel things? It still happens, sometimes. How can I cancel a show, for example, 606? That would be impossible for me. That’s the place where people come to see my project, my band. There is no way that I would cancel that.

Would you say that these years during which you were going to these clubs and singing were your formative years where you were learning much repertoire and gaining all this performance experience? Was that a major part of your development?

All of these years were part of my development - the experiences that I had in Brazil, then when I came to Portugal and the UK.

You lived in different parts of Brazil, and then you moved to Portugal. Why, apart from the language, did you decide to go to Portugal? Did you see yourself as a Brazilian having an affinity with the Portuguese as your ‘cousins’ or did you see it important as a Lusophone to learn about Portuguese music and culture as part of your own development?

I was at this stage in my life where I just wanted to run away – you know, when you look around, and you feel like things have to change, otherwise you’ll go crazy? I was twenty-two, I had no money and I wasn’t doing the things that I would like to do such as playing good music. I was working hard with my mum to sell food at the market. But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted something more than that.

When I was young, watching movies, or programmes on television – you look at those things, and you think, “I want to be this or that some day.” You would look at your life like a storybook, and you would then decide, “I want to do that”. Suddenly, you look around, and you think, “Oh my God, I’m in Lisbon, I’m in London.” Life is like that.

I’d finished school by that point. I didn’t go to university. I tried, but the importance of working was more important than studying, especially as I was not only earning money, but I was helping my family as well… I was working in a private school. I was working there for six years. After that, I left, and I came to Portugal.

Why Portugal?

My father knew someone there, someone with whom he was confident to look after me. I said that I needed this. Brazil was not the place for me to be anymore. I wanted to go. I was heartbroken. I think that my father felt that I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t easy, honestly – to leave your house, to go to a completely strange place, and then to go to different houses, different venues – being on your own. You learn things such as paying rent, buying food, all of those things. Not that I wasn’t doing that before; since I had my first salary, I was always helping my family – but this was completely different – in Brazil, I would look around and I would see my mother and my father there, but in Portugal, I was on my own. When they are not there, you have to learn to stand on your own two feet, to do things for yourself. I was still sending money back home. That is the kind of immigrant lifestyle that I lived.

How did this affect your music? Did you start playing as soon as you arrived in Portugal, or did you take it slowly?

The first thing was that I had to find a job. It didn’t matter which kind of job. I was cleaning in a hotel near to where I lived. My friend, with whom I was staying in Portugal, said to me, “there is a bar in Lisbon, where they have live music, and they are doing auditions for singers.” In less than a month, I was already in Lisbon, singing.

Were you singing Fado as well?

No, that is completely different, completely separate. That is a Portuguese thing. Not for me, as a Brazilian.

I heard a Portuguese band, called Jazzinho, with Guida Do Palma – she is Portuguese, but she sings Bossa Nova, which is Brazilian. As a Brazilian, did you feel that you couldn’t sing the Portuguese style as well, or was it a personal choice?

Even if they say that we are ‘cousins’, there is still a bit of segregation – “You stick with your Portuguese. I’ll stick with my Brazilian.” They are two completely different ideologies. The Portuguese love Brazilian music, but Brazilians know nothing about the Portuguese, unless they have the chance to travel and learn about other cultures.

Did you not see it as part of your ancestry and heritage as a Brazilian?

That was a long time ago. Nowadays, there are lots of Portuguese going to Brazil. When I first came to Portugal, there were lots of Brazilians going back to Portugal. Two years ago, lots of Portuguese started going to Brazil, because the economy in Brazil is better, and this has increased in the last two years – what is happening now is similar to what happened back in the seventies, during the time of Salazar – from Portugal to Brazil. These migrants work in the business of cafés and shops. So, now again, they are going to Brazil. Some years ago, the Portuguese were going back to Brazil because there was a crisis. After that, the Brazilians came to Portugal. And now, the Brazilians are going back to Brazil.

When you were in Portugal, you also started singing on cruises?

When I was there, I met lots of musicians. I was invited to sing on the cruise, for one week, going to Ibiza. During this week, I had the chance to meet Portuguese musicians. So we left on Monday, and on Saturday, we came back to Lisbon. On the Monday after that, I was already rehearsing with the pianist.

From my understanding, just from knowing other musicians who have done cruises; playing or singing on cruises can be quite a fixed, commercial labour, artistically. You have to play or sing certain songs with which people are familiar, and it is of a ‘function band’ nature. Was the cruise like this, or did they give you some artistic liberties?

They were exactly like that. You had to do the Brazilian music. You had to sing Mais Que Nada and Garota De Ipanema, because that was the thing. Luckily, because I have more repertoire than the standards, I could adapt to some extent. So I could compromise a bit; give them a bit of what they wanted me to do, and, at the same time, do a bit of what I wanted to do.

On the cruise, there were two or three different bands with which I would play. There was one guy doing Bossa Nova with me. There was another guy doing just piano, nothing more than jazz standards. Then there was another guy doing the carnival show with dancers and everything. At that time, I didn’t have any original songs; I would always be interpreting.

But did you have some freedom to explore repertoire that you wanted to sing?

I was allowed to assimilate repertoire. But it was also good to be exposed to music that I didn’t have knowledge of before. To learn about jazz standards was so nice. The jazz I knew at the time was when someone put on a really beautiful song… I remember really well… A long time ago there was this recording by Nat King Cole and his daughter, singing ‘Unforgettable’.

Here, she starts singing “Unforgettable… Unforgettable… That’s what you are.”

That was such a beautiful song. But that was the only one I knew, before studying jazz. I didn’t know how many beautiful songs Nat King Cole had written… That was the difference. When I went to Portugal, I had access to this information. It made me think as well. In 2000, the Internet was developed in Brazil, but it was expensive. I didn’t have access to computers where I was working. The Internet was not easily accessible to me. I didn’t have all the tools including emails and downloads. Maybe, for you, you already had this. But my area of Brazil was very remote. Perhaps if I were living in Rio at that time, I would have had this. This was when we lived on the coast, after having left Rio (I left Rio when I was four or five). I was living nowhere near a central city. The Internet is there now, of course. But in 2000, it wasn’t like it is today. You didn’t have Internet access like you have today. Today, you can type ‘Nat King Cole’ into a search engine, and you see a whole list of YouTube videos, media and everything. But at that time, this wasn’t the case. You would discover music by listening to the Radio, or, if you had the money, buying CDs – but not someone like me, who, for months, lived out in the countryside, with a poor salary – only if you had the chance to go away, to travel around Brazil, or if you had the money to see cities like Rio or São Paolo. There, they had these courses where you would study music from all around the world. But where I lived, this was not the case. The only way to access this was by watching television or by watching movies, listening to the music of the soundtrack. Moving to Portugal was how I was got to know the music of Nat King Cole. Where I lived, you didn’t have access to that type of information. Maybe if I were living in Rio, then things would be different. Maybe I would never have gone to Portugal.

So you were living in this ‘bubble’, and when you came out of this ‘bubble’, it was like an awakening?

Yes. It was like opening a window and discovering so many things, even about Brazilian music. In the UK, you have access to those things that we don’t have. For example, Romero Lubambo is the guitarist who plays with Dianne Reeves. Romero Lubambo has been out of Brazil for more than three years now. He plays with all the big names around the USA, around the world, and even comes back and performs in Brazil. Why didn’t I know about Romero Lubambo when I was living in Brazil?

So there was quite a cultural disparity, locally and globally, between Brazil and the rest of the world?

Yes. I don’t know if you’ve heard of a singer called Rosa Passos? Rosa Passos is someone to whom more people are giving attention. Some time ago, I couldn’t find any of her music in Brazil… You see lots of really good music coming out of Brazil. It goes back in, yes, but really slowly. To be honest, the music business in Brazil is really bad, dominated by this commercial thing. When you think that this was the place where Tom Jobim came from, it’s sad – it is this kind of music that is happening now in Brazil. In my time, Sertanejo was a real ‘roots’ music – something from far away places. Now, Sertanejo is simply putting two guys together and seeing what they can do. They’re not talking about how hard life was back in the country. They just talk about love, love and love.

One day, I can show you some of the things that my father used to listen to… I can show you, straight away, the differences between Sertanejo, from how it was then, to how it is now. In my time, the guys from school used to listen to Milton Nascimiento, not the Sertanejo of today.

So here you were in this bubble. You went to Portugal, and you discovered jazz standards. A lot of people this side of the Atlantic study music the opposite way round; they learn jazz first, and then they discover Latin music. In your opinion, do you think of jazz and Latin music as two separate schools/disciplines, or are they two branches of the same tree?

Maybe I’m not the best person to answer that. But you can see very clear points where the two meet each other. And sometimes, they’re apart…

Jazz standards are very well known here. And then you take a song from Tom Jobim, for example, and it is really complicated… If you put a good player in charge of a ‘jazz standard’, they are ‘all over it’ – easy. But then, when you put a song in front of them, by Tom Jobim, the form is different, the wary to play it is different.

For example, I do some gigs with some guys. They are amazing players, amazing musicians, and they improvise a lot. Their material was really nice. But my material needs to be clean, structured and rehearsed. The feeling with Bossa Nova needs to be different.

I have heard Bossa Nova played over here, by British musicians. But it’s nothing like the Bossa Nova played in Rio. That is just something else – it has so much feeling, it breathes so effortlessly.

Bossa Nova has to be played in a certain way, and with a certain feel. You can’t just think about Bossa Nova in the same way as you think about Jazz – it’s 2/4, not 4/4, for example. At face value, the rhythm is the same. But the feel and the interpretation are different.

Sometimes, when you go to jazz gigs, the vocalist will bring the charts for all of the musicians – the form is done; the main thing is the improvisation, going around the band, with a solo for him, a solo for her… This is the thing with jazz. But I find it really difficult when I have to do a gig with someone who is not really into Brazilian music, to understand that language. There are lots of meeting points between Brazilian music and jazz as well, but there are differences; it is not easy for me to find a gig, or to do a gig, with the whole band, without rehearsal. But the jazz musicians, they just bring the charts, and it is done.

I understand that your music is more structured, more elaborate, with different sections – like you don’t just have one head, but you’ve got an introduction, a theme, maybe a bridge, going into another section or a refrain?

Yes. If you listen to Rosa Passos, you will understand what I’m saying. I’m not saying that Jazz is not good. I’m saying that there are places where Bossa Nova and Jazz meet each other, but they are different.

Would you say that Jazz has informed a lot of what you are doing now as a musician? You mentioned that Jazz was a different experience, and that it opened up your ears to a new sound.

Yes. When I went to Portugal, I had the chance to discover this different world. That really made me grow as a musician. From that, I started to listen to music more and more, different genres and repertoire. That opened my mind quite a lot. It brought lots of inspiration to me as well.

I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘jazz vocalist’, but if you listen to track four from my album (‘Sem Antes Nem Adeus’), you’ll notice touches of jazz, touches of a jazz ballad such as ‘Lets Talk About Love’ – these completely took my heart… Of course, Brazilian music inspires jazz music as well. When I listen to Dianne Reeves, I cry, because she sings so beautifully, and she’s amazing, and she’s powerful. And then when I hear her interpreting Brazilian songs, if makes you feel, “Oh my God, music from my country is being interpreted by a Jazz singer.”

It must be interesting for you to hear a North American singing Brazilian songs. Brazilian music is reflecting back towards you, as if you were looking in a mirror.

I think that it’s amazing that my culture is being interpreted by other people.

Which lessons, skills and techniques can you pinpoint in your music that specifically came from Jazz? Through Jazz, did you find that some things became easier, or more challenging?

No. I think that there are still some things that I don’t understand. The things that I don’t understand, I don’t mess with. I’m not the one to be standing there improvising. Even if there are some songs that I know really well, I play around with them, but I’m not improvising, because I don’t feel confident enough to do that – that really proper jazz.

Did you find that Brazilian music disciplined you, whereas Jazz forced you to ‘loosen up’?

Sometimes we Brazilians are a bit too disciplined, and maybe that is what we are missing, unless we ‘go crazy’ sometimes.

Last time that I saw you perform at London Jazz Festival, you played Milton Nascimento, ‘Cravo E Canela’, and also Tania Maria ‘Come With Me’. It was very free and open, and it seemed to me that the band didn’t quite know or had planned where it was going. Did you feel a bit on edge, thinking, “Where is this going?” Or, did you find that the jazz element within you made you feel more at ease with it?

I think that there are songs with which you identify yourself, whereas there are songs with which you don’t have any connection. For example, someone can say to me, “I love that song,” etc. And then I listen to it and I don’t feel anything. I was feeling free to open up with those songs that you heard.

As a singer, you feel this, especially, when you can get the people to interact with you. That makes a better performance, because it’s not just you trying to do something, to impress people, like singing or scatting. Maybe because I don’t know or don’t feel confident enough to do certain things, like improvisation, I go out of my way to get the people to sing with me… When I’m doing gigs in a bar or a restaurant, I feel that the people are really into the music: when you look at them, when you talk, or tell some jokes to get the people involved, it is not ‘you as a punter there, and me as a singer here’. You have to build those bridges, blurring the boundaries between audience and performer. This is how I feel. That helps me to grow in confidence, because I’m getting something back from the audience.

Had you not had those experiences on the cruise, where you were discovering Jazz, do you thinkthat you would have been able to do that – without having studied Jazz?

No. For me, the most important thing, after living in Brazil, was that the world of music was now open to me. For many things, I’m really grateful for that day when I took the flight to Portugal. It wasn’t that easy, but I had lots of friends who helped me, lots of people who went out of their way to help me as a musician or singer. Even if I didn’t go to university or anything; everything that I learned was from the night, those practical skills that I learned from going out and singing. I am really grateful for the way that things have happened, because if it wasn’t for my dad, then maybe I’ll have never left Brazil. If I were living in Rio, I would probably have had access to those things as well, but this wasn’t the case. I was in a place where you didn’t have access to this kind of information. When I went to Portugal, and met all of those pianists, and they were playing all of that great music that I had never heard before; it was nice to be in contact with that, because it opened up opportunities for other gigs as well.

That’s how you find different styles, songs and artists – just by meeting people and them introducing you. There’s only so much that you can learn as a musician on your own – Music is a social, as well as aesthetic, art form.

I would spend an afternoon with a pianist, and he would play me a CD. And he would be saying, “listen to this, listen to that. That is a nice song, you have the kind of voice that could sing that song really well, I’m sure.” I studied a bit of English in Brazil, at school, and also through some private courses. When I came to Portugal, I studied a bit there and I did a bit here as well. I’m still not the best at speaking English, and I know that I make lots of mistakes, but I try my best! And I think that makes me grow a lot. When you really get into music, and you hear the stories, and the recordings, like Betty Carter singing the songs of Ella Fitzgerald – it was amazing. She just told stories; song after song, she would say something. If you are interested in the stories, for example, when she wrote that song, or when she interpreted that song; it’s a nice thing. It’s the same when I’m trying to find my repertoire in Brazilian music. But Jazz was another world. That is the point. Maybe I consider myself someone who is trying to do a mix of things. Maybe for my second CD, who knows? Maybe I’ll be doing Jazz standards, played in a Brazilian feel? You never know.

You always have to remain open to learning new things. It’s never that you reach a certain point; you’re always developing. If you stop developing, then it’s not a good thing. What made you decide to move to London?

Because I got engaged with someone, and then he moved here to work. After that, for one year, I was coming here to spend three days, and going there to spend three days. At some point, we got a bit tired, and we’d miss each other. At that point, I was doing a TV show and doing live shows in Portugal. At that point, I thought that it would be nice to change, to experience another challenge and to see what would happen.

You seem to be really driven and motivated to pursue challenges. I think that is a really strong quality.

Routine can be a bad thing – especially when it comes to music. I hate routine.

You said before that there was a big musical hub in London, and that you could discover different styles of music, for example, Esperanza Spalding, and all sorts of music. Was that not also a main part of the decision to move to London?

No, I think that the main part of the decision was because of my husband, but also to try different things. I didn’t know that London was so connected to the Jazz world, as well as Portugal – even when you watch TV, and the pop songs that go higher and higher in the charts. I was really glad to have the chance to meet the people that I met here, and to do the gigs with the musicians here. That was very different from the way that I was living in Portugal. I was able to do different things, to learn different things. Sometimes, I even played with a Jewish band, doing Jewish songs, when they allowed women to sing.

London is such a multicultural city, and it enables you to discover not only Jazz and other, perhaps, Anglo-American forms of music, but also Jewish music, Italian music and so on. I’ve heard of Soul Fiesta. Could you tell me a little bit more about that project?

Soul Fiesta is a function band. I have to be versatile to maintain my bills, in addition to doing the small gigs. It’s not easy. I do lots of functions here, weddings and parties. I would like to say to you that I’m just playing very nice jazz clubs in London, but that’s not the case. I would like to, one day, maybe. But I really like the guys in Soul Fiesta. We play together pretty much every week.

Did you establish Soul Fiesta yourself, or was it a group effort? Or, was it already established when you arrived in London?

No, it was a question of time – meeting people in the Brazilian community. For example, half of the band members are Brazilian; the other half are from London. We play a lot of Brazilian music, but we also play a lot of non-Brazilian music with that line-up. We mix things, because when you say ‘Soul Fiesta’; ‘Fiesta’ is a very Latin name, but then we play Motown, and we play Soul. We play a bit of everything.

It’s parallel to your experiences on the cruises; you were playing more commercial material to ‘pay the bills’, but you were also playing more interesting material as well.

The cruise was almost the beginning of my days in Portugal. I was there on the cruise, just playing with the Brazilian section. I met these Brazilian guys there in Portugal, and they needed a Brazilian female vocalist for only one week on the cruise, so I didn’t do too much cruising, to be honest. I did this one, and then I did another one, four years later, once again, just to play with the Brazilian section. And then we had Portuguese guys doing the Fado, and then we had another girl doing the Soul. It’s really interesting.

Would you say that it is a similar situation in London?

No. Here, like the cruise, I was at the beginning just playing Brazilian music, but when they found out that I do other styles as well, I started interacting with other people. If you present yourself as playing more types of music, then you get more gigs than you would as if you were just playing Bossa Nova.

So was it that you had two or three different projects, involving the same circuit of musicians? And did you find that you were playing among the same musicians, but playing different styles? Or, were there different musicians for different projects/styles?

Both. I think that for me, it was the two things. For example, do you know Da Lata? I sang with them in July, then in August, and then we’ll be doing a gig on the 1st December. It will be a massive event, really big. I will be on the CD as well. I have recorded two songs.

Could you tell me a bit more about Da Lata; what is it, and what is their sound/ethos?

I can’t describe that really well, because I’ve only worked with the guys for three or four months. Da Lata is a band that plays Brazilian music inspired by the sixties and seventies – by the way that Brazilian music was done before. But to this it adds a very nice groove, and some new electronics from nowadays. They are a big act, and now they are coming back. The singer that used to work with them before is no longer there. Guido Do Palma from Jazzinho was in Da Lata as well. I’m the one who’s here now.

It’s interesting how you can find these established progression routes that work through the same genres, communities and networks. You completed your debut album Festa De Um Sonho Bom in April; what were your first, initial thoughts when it was completed, and you were listening to it back for the first time – what was going through your mind?

People look at you, as an artist, in a different way, when you say that you have a CD. That is really nice. But on the other hand, you need more and more gigs with that band to sell the CDs, otherwise it’s not perfect. You’ve got to keep both things – the recording and the gigs – going at once. I feel really good to know that I have done that.



I think that every singer, when they start, wants to have a really nice career, but sometimes there are many things that get in the way – you lose yourself, or you don’t focus. At some point, I was a bit lost, because I was doing so many different things with so many different musicians. At some point, I thought to myself, “What am I going to do with my career? What am I doing for my solo project?

When you look at my time in Portugal, I was singing with everyone there. I was singing on TV shows. I was working on lots of different projects. And there are people who don’t notice me, but then there are also people who look at me, like, “oh, you’re the singer who was at the TV show, or, oh, you were the girl who used to sing with that band.” They never knew my name. They didn’t remember me. Here, it’s a bit different, because at some point in the beginning, I was trying to get in contact with the people, get gigs and show the musicians what I could do. And then I realised, myself, that I’m going the same way, one more time, as I did in Portugal. Where was my project? Where was my name? Where was my band?

In the UK, I have my own projects. I go to some places, for example, Speak Easy Jazz Club, playing as ‘Jandira Silva Band’, ‘Jandira Silva Quarteto/Quinteto’. I did that in Portugal as well, only, then, I didn’t have a CD, and I didn’t have originals. Here, I started doing Brazilian music, but just with ‘Jandira Silva Band’. This was the beginning of my solo career, at the 606, National Theatre and Guanabara; my name, but at the same time. There was one time at Guanabara, where I was doing Tuesday with my band, Wednesday with the samba band and Friday with Soul Fiesta. So, in the same week, I was there three times, doing different things! That is the main issue. You get lost, because you’re doing so many different projects, and where are you? How many people can understand you and what you are doing? You are working for other people a lot, which is great, because you get different experiences, but it’s not the best thing that you can do for yourself.

Apart from your album and some of the projects that you have already mentioned, what are your main focuses at the moment?

I would like to get my band involved in many more big things. I felt really glad when I had the chance to play in a really nice jazz club like 606. As you said before, the ambience is amazing, and the crowd there – everything. But I would also like to be more practical, and do more jazz festivals, or go to Europe – to play internationally. That was always my dream. I would like to know how to get in contact with these things. Right now, I do not find it easy to get a PR or a manager, if you don’t have this kind of name or reputation.

Have you ever thought about managing yourself?

Yes, but that is the point where I got lost, because it’s not easy to manage yourself – find the gigs, do the gigs, organise the repertoire – at some point, there will be one thing that is not completely possible. There you are, behind a phone, trying to find the gigs, trying to get the musicians to organise the rehearsals and get the repertoire done. Then there are the payments, the invoices, and doing the PR, like I’m doing talking to you now. There is so much administration, a lot of work. I was trying to get a PR, but I couldn’t get one.

Sometimes, you’re lost – you just feel like some things are missing. For example, when I was organising my CD launch, I didn’t know a lot of things. Honestly, 606 was packed full of people. Most of them were people who know me personally, of course, friends and such. I sold lots of CDs, and it was amazing, and ambient too. But there are so many things still to be done… Maybe you need someone to work with you in organising these things, and then you can just focus on the music. You can be doing a gig as Esperanza Spalding was doing yesterday. I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t thinking that tomorrow she had to pay the bass player. It’s nice to be able to take that weight off your mind, and focus on the creative aspects.

Tell me a bit about Samara, and what to expect from tonight.

Samara is a band that has been here quite a long time. Steve Rubie puts a lot of love into it, because he loves Latin music. It’s nice to see those guys playing together for so long. It’s a kind of inspiration; you like that kind of music, you put together a project, and then you try to keep going - even if everything else is falling around you. I think that this is an example of dedication and friendship… Steve and his percussionist have played together since the band started. It’s a very nice thing to be done. It’s not easy. Sometimes, we start a project, and then, soon afterwards, realise that it’s not working.

What’s the focus of the project?

Latin music in a Jazz setting. Steve likes Latin music a lot, and he always learns new material, and puts some guys together to learn that music… Samara is the house band at 606. Every last Friday of the month, we do a gig. Tonight will not be the last Friday of the month, because if it is October or November, it is London Jazz Festival, and they change the date to be Samara on the last Friday of the London Jazz Festival.

I have just three more questions. My first question is, have you been to see any other gigs at the London Jazz Festival, and what were your highlights?

Last year, I went to see Hermeto Pascoal. This year, I watched Esperanza Spalding as I told you. I think that it’s wonderful to have the chance to see musicians like that, and to have a group that is really interested in putting all of these big names together for one or two weeks, which makes it possible for people like me to get the chance to hear music like that. I think that it’s a really good thing. One day, there will be my band as well!

That leads me quite nicely onto the second question. Where do you see yourself in five years from now?

It’s a long time. You don’t even know what’s going to happen to you when you cross the road. How can I predict what’s going to happen to me in five years’ time?

Do you find that this ‘living in the moment’ philosophy, taking each day as it comes, is very important to you, as a musician?

It’s very important, and, actually, I’m learning that; to not create too much expectation, to live each day to the fullest – I’m learning that. You can say that I’m learning that now!

Here, she leans into the microphone and settles her point!

My third final question is: you are stranded on a desert island, and you are only allowed three albums, one book and one luxury item. What would they be?

Dianne Reeves, Rosa Passos and Joyce. For Rosa Passos, the album would be Pano Pra Manga. It’s difficult for me, for the other two, because I listen to them quite a lot. Maybe their compilations.

One book?

‘O Caçador De Pipas’ (‘The Kite Runner’) by Khaled Hosseini. I love that book.

One luxury item?

A CD player. How can I have three albums and nothing to play them on? You didn’t say that there would be some things there to be playing my music!

Presumably, then, you’d need an electricity supply, and a pair of headphones? This could go on forever.

A battery. A solar-panelled generator to get the battery to work!

This could potentially lead on to an endless list. So, your album, Festa De Um Sonho Bom, is out now. Where can people buy it?

They can buy it off my website, www.jandirasilva.com. Then I’m on Spotify, to be downloaded. Then I’m on iTunes as well, and BandCamp.

It’s very generous of you to share your recordings online.

Yes, this is what the new artists are doing now, isn’t it? Even the big ones are doing things like that. Why should I be like, “You need to buy my CD if you want to listen to it”?

You’re performing with your own band on the 3rd December. Where is it?

It’ll be at the 606, just my band, if you can come?

I’ve got it in my diary. I’ll definitely be coming! Thank you for giving us the time, for sharing your music. 
​

​Samara @ 606

Read the first part of this focus HERE

Last year, I witnessed this beautiful Brazilian band, and I wrote that it “combined heavy, rock solid percussion with clinging, clamouring piano solos and an explosive melt of saxophone, flute and vocals.” Well, I’m happy to say that this year, the band has gone from strength to strength. The band, led by Steve Rubie (alto saxophone, flute), fronted by Jandira Silva (vocals), and starring Ivo Neame (piano), Dill Katz (bass), Nic France (drums), Dawson Miller (percussion) and featuring Michael Roydon (soprano saxophone), samples some of the finest talent from in and around West London.

Steve Rubie, musical director and owner of the 606, is an immensely talented performer and director, exemplifying real skill and sophistication on flute and saxophone. Just listening to him play lifts your spirits. He also displays a deep understanding of Latin music about which he is so passionate, with his arrangements and percussion. His repertoire is a little bit different, a little more rich and refined, than the usual Brazilian gig. Tonight, he put together a tasteful selection of tunes from Tom Jobim, Elis Regina, Alcione and Roberto Fonseca to Joe Henderson, among others.

Ivo Neame (piano) was only called in at 5pm, yet he responded to the complexities and demands of the gig as though he had been playing the selection of charts all his life. A versatile and energetic musician, jazz being his specialism, yet having a tight knowledge of Clave and Latin rhythms, impresses all with his meaningful, compositional intention, and astounding speed and skill - it is easy to understand why he is so sought after as a pianist in London. His free, improvised introduction to Elis Regina’s ‘Cai Dentro’ took everyone’s breath away with its serendipity and magic, propelling the band into a wonderfully pumping samba, to which it is impossible not to dance or move your hips and feet.

Michael Roydon (soprano saxophone) happened to be visiting the 606, and was invited to feature as an impromptu guest. With a steadfast, all-out style comparable to Hermeto Pascoal, he flies through the modulations and changes, their means and directions nailed securely under his fingers, underpinned by Nic France (drums) who seemingly has an entire batucada section emanating from his kit, complete with buoyant surdo and caixa rolls. Michael Roydon was particularly ‘all over it’ in the band’s slinky cha-cha-chá version of Joe Henderson’s ‘Recordame’.

Jandira Silva once again excelled herself as a vocalist and performer, her vocals all at once sensuous and extravagant. She looks so comfortable onstage, interacting with the audience, and endearing everyone to her glowing warmth. Being able to spend time in her company, discussing her music, background, influences and ideologies, was a humbling, thought-provoking experience. Every now and then you meet a performer who is so accomplished, and yet so open, kind and selfless with their music, and generous with their knowledge - someone who is a true, creative spirit, always striving to learn, develop and reach new levels.

Samara play a cracking mix of Brazilian music and jazz, with a great rhythmic style, every last Friday of the month at 606.

​MONDAY

Jean Toussaint + Ivo Neame

Jean Toussaint (tenor saxophone) and Ivo Neame (piano) gave an intimate performance at Ray’s Jazz Stage. Toussaint’s saxophone has a wonderfully rich, organic and oak-smoked tone with a soft, breathy underbelly and kinetic elasticity. Playing timeless classics by Thelonious Monk, Victor Young and Tadd Dameron, he hushed the audience 

Ivo Neame (piano), in his controlled style, paints a nice array of dynamics and colours. With a strong sense of rhythm, Ivo Neame - instead of relying purely on the outer pulse - builds his metre from the inside, with confidence and assertion. Filling in the harmonic framework with voicings that drip exquistiveness and charm, the saxophone outlines their points, joining the dots, and exploring some interesting, interlocking constellations of melody.

Toussaint’s saxophone improvisation is progressive, yet fleshed out through repeated cells varied through transposition and fragmentation. ‘Ladybird’ includes a nicely written piano introduction, after which the saxophone flirts decadently with the head, weaving in and out of its contours, without straying too far from the original notion.

TUESDAY

Aquarium

Aquarium quartet, led by Sam Leak (piano), exemplifies a melodic, poetic and measured style. The original compositions display some imaginative, original writing and ideas. During improvisational solos, the musicians are listening intensely, creating plenty of space and reflecting off one another in sensitive, mutual interaction.

‘Chasing Away’ demonstrates some haunting, ambient piano, over a soft, rolling tom-tom groove and pedaled bass, with contemporary harmonies that relay a smooth, cosmopolitan sensibility. Calum Gourlay (bass) draws together some thoughtfully structured lines in his soloing, complemented by the silky, sweet tone of James Allsop (tenor saxophone) and undulating rhythms of Joshua Blackmore (drums).

Harmonically, the quartet tinkers with the boundaries of tonality, yet lingers within its nether reaches, without being contained by them - especially during the solos given by Sam Leak (piano), who plays up and around the ascending bass lines, earmarked as a definer. His flowing ideas roll and cascade with ease, revealing an incredibly sensitive and soulful touch. His alluring enclosures and interwoven passages are not limited by the confines of line and meter; instead, they work their way inwards, to the centres. The ideas come and go at different points of the cycle, so that when they do ‘lock in’ together, this occurs with breathtaking impact. When the melodies move into bridges and counter-subjects, these take the ear away from the comfort and security of the original themes, and gently lift you into another moment, or plane of existence.

I caught up with Sam briefly after the performance, and I asked him about the inspiration behind the project. Citing Keith Jarrett, Paul Blade and Anne Rampling as his major influences, he writes with specific intentions in mind, and not merely for the sake of writing. Personal experiences inspire his work, for example, ‘February’ is a wistful, melancholy composition about a month during which he had an unfortunate experience on the street amidst romantic problems. Their London Jazz Festival show previews their new album, due for launch at King’s Place in January - definitely one to check out.

WEDNESDAY

Open Souls

Open Souls is a new collaboration between Indian vocalist Ranjana Ghatak, beat boxer and electronics artist Jason Singh and Seb Rochford (F-IRE Collective / Polar Bear) on drums. Their music blends the traditions of South Indian Karnataka music with contemporary, free improvisation.

Jason Singh explains that the music explores spiritual cycles. The compositions are inspired by the music that he grew up with, and given the wide range of artists with whom he has collaborated, which includes Nitin Sawhney, Matthew Halsall and Stuart McCallum (Cinematic Orchestra), his music does not really fit into any particular ‘box’. Instead, it brings all of these influences together, and also incorporates interdisciplinary arts across audio, visual and linguistic mediums. His beat boxing is clean and rhythmic, with an impressive range of vocalised percussion techniques and effects - sucking, breathing, clicking and popping - spun together in a web of interconnecting texture.

Ranjana Ghatak overdubs her softly layered ambient vocals, which revolve and float via loop pedal, and blend with sitar drone and synthesised beats. Over these, she adds some stylised melismas and vibratos, which lock in perfectly over the backings. Renowned for her work with Nitin Sawhney, Ranjana released her debut album ‘Awakening’ in 2011, which has since received much critical acclaim. Here, she flourishes and transforms Open Souls into a trancelike, soulful incantation of meditative magic.

THURSDAY

Hyperpotamus

Hyperpotamus makes music with no instruments. Like a conductor with an orchestra of instruments and a choir voices at his fingertips, he packs an arsenal of a million different sounds in his vocal chords, layering and baking them with the aid of microphone and loop pedal, in a way that is spontaneous and informed by his surroundings.

Although the music draws together cycles that layer on top of one another, he builds in definition and shape, creating complex structures - complete with verses, bridges, choruses and refrains - with fluency, on the spur of the moment. He delivers these in a way that is completely in touch with reality and at one with his environment. There are no barriers between his internal creativity and what is happening on the outside; his resounding columns of sound are so natural, that they breaths and pulsate by their own accord.

Equally comfortable improvising words in English as well as his native Spanish, he exudes the phonetic potential out of every letter in the Latin alphabet. Even when he has a technical problem, he incorporates this humorously into his routine, singing ‘Got a technical problem, Gotta find a solution’, complete with perfectly rhyming couplets. His strong, projected tenor voice is operatic and controlled, comfortable in all ranges, from high falsetto (head voice) to dulcet bass tones, and equipped with a vast array of timbres.

FRIDAY

Jay Phelps Quartet

When I heard the audience openly applauding before the end of each piece, I knew that we were onto some ‘hot stuff’! This quartet, led by up-and-coming giant of the trumpet, Jay Phelps, complete with his band, Reuben James (piano), Tim Thornton (bass) and Moses Boyd (drums) showcased new material from their latest album ‘J Walking’ at Ray’s Jazz Stage, Foyles, Soho.

‘J Walking’ blends a Dizzy Gillespie-style mambo riff with some steaming bebop, where fleeting moments and passages flicker by, revealing infinite shafts of depth and richness beneath the music, combining an intuitive feel with some smooth, confident playing. As a trumpet player, Jay Phelps has a vast range, and the fluency of his improvisation is second-to-none, working his lightning-fast, cataclysmic melodies and turnarounds into the breach of the rhythm section, and exploiting some expertly timed, intelligent ideas. His melodic phrases bolt through angular leaps, dips and thrifts. His advanced, virtuosic improvisation of this quartet reveals some scarily skillful chops and thoughtfully engaging material. Every idea is nailed to the fullest, put across clearly, and to the point, and anything that he so desires musically or wishes to develop in a certain way is executed with precision and style.

Reuben James (piano), barely nineteen years old, plays with a maturity so outstanding for such a young age. His improvisation percolates honky-tonk, bebop, soul, New Orleans and Latin influences drawn together in a web of breathtaking montage of rhythmic fragmentation and lightning pace, with ideas developed and fleshed out with incredible speed and dynamic. Tim Thornton (bass) has a wonderfully elastic, rubbery feel to his sonorous improvisation, creating shimmering mirages and elaborate rhythmic constructions - going rhythmically ‘out’ whilst not losing the pulse - without need for support from the rest of the band. Moses Boyd (drums) flexes some highly complex polyrhythms, under piano and trumpet backing figures. The snare rolls are perfectly coordinated, and his explorations of groove flit between signatures with ease and clarity, with sobering use of the standard patterns, which form a mystical backdrop to the style of this quartet.

By the second tune, Jay Phelps declares ‘These guys are cookin’!’ - an apt way to describe the energy and momentum of this skin tight unit. This composition is inspired by the music of West Africa, and in particular, Mali, in a ‘Mali to Mississippi’ blues progression. Jay explains that he tried to work out what that meant to him, and so devised a tune ’ ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ which fluctuates between swing and African six-eight. The composition pushes to extremes of shape and colour, wholly sealing the timeless connection between Africa and the Americas, and bringing this theme to the forefront with class and pristine finish, delivering a melting pot of old and new, in a collaborative conjunction that stimulates the mind, ear and senses.

Utilising traditional mediums and techniques in an unconventional, yet informed, modern way, Jay Phelps is the iconic example of a modern, experimental quartet, whose exciting blend of modern bebop, rooted swing and mediated, experimentalist conceptions will enthuse, delight and transfix audiences and listeners for years to come.

​At face value, Esperanza Spalding may strike you as something of a crossover between Kenny Wheeler and Beyoncé, but there is much more to this, for her sound soaks up the richness of R&B, soul and contemporary jazz, all complemented by her unique character. With the big band, she is never outdone or out-phased by its wall of sound; and her message never has to strain to be heard. Even in those moments where her voice is subservient to the rest of the band, it speaks through with a crystal clarity and immediacy.

‘Hold On Me’ displays the strength of her vocal technique. More impressive still, is the way in which she assimilates this with her bass playing, as one unit, a single musical voice and line of creative thought, like an internal dialogue, the one informing the other. Whether she is playing, singing or speaking, it does not matter; it is the substance of what she is conveying that is important.

Her music is permeated with dialectic interaction at all levels. Much of the drama unfolds in the dialogue between Esperanza the individual soloists, such as the alto saxophone in the third composition ‘City of Roses’, in which conceptual talk meets with abstract saxophonic expressions in a seamless integration of verbal and non-verbal discourse. The saxophone solo cascades upwards to stellar rhapsodies and cosmological heights, and is composed with soft inward centres and soulful interiors.

‘Hold On Me’ and ‘City of Roses’ are thematically opposed; ‘Hold On Me’ representing ‘what happens when things go wrong’ and ‘City of Roses’ representing ‘that silver lining’. 

As well as having a discernible musical gift, Esperanza has a real talent with words and conceptual ideas. Improvised poetry and spoken word were as much a part of her upbringing as her musical discipline, and Esperanza exudes emotion and personality from every single note and phrase - stating ‘I believe in poetic justice’. Throughout the course of her live performance, Esperanza freely intersperses running commentary and compere with melodic passages and lyrics, creating a fluid continuum of the cognitive and the abstract. At times, she steps out of the musical flow to verbally observe and comment on what is going on. She does this with a sharpness, wit and clarity so accessible to the listener, at one point, summarising the moment in the phrase ‘music speaks louder than words’.

Esperanza transforms like a chameleon or a phoenix, adopting different characters and sentiments between songs. ’Crowned & Kissed’ talks about the ‘little things that you forget to notice, which are sometimes there right in front of you…’ Coincidentally, this composition emphasises the finer, positive aspects of life within a world that over-stresses the negative, and it fills you with a wonder and optimism that makes you think and re-evaluate your life. Her music is, again, all-inclusive and interactive - it is as much about YOU as it is about them. Esperanza and her band work with the energy of the audience, its spontaneous whooping and cheering becoming an integral part of the performance. It is as if the entire performance were written and expressly performed just for YOU, on this very night, and it makes you wonder how much of it was composed and how much of it was improvised. 

‘Black Gold’ features a male vocalist, Algebra Blessett, adding an alternative personality to the mix, with his lamenting, melismatic excursions interposed with supporting comments from the former female presence, adding ‘a little medicine for your soul’. This composition reminds me that her music has roots and foundations as well as staggering heights, with its soulful R&B and danceable grooves, executed with an immersive jazz sensibility. The male and female vocals combined added a shimmering richness, and the brilliance is enhanced by the classic key change, which takes the momentum up another notch and empowers it onto another plane.

‘Vague Suspicions’ blends gliding cross-rhythms with kaleidoscopic rays of harmony, coloured with silky, cocoaesque vocals, soprano saxophone and flute; with swishing piano and gentle cymbals crashing under swathing sheets of texture. The music never lingers too long on a particular vibe; like Esperanza herself, it is forever shifting and evolving through seemingly endless subjects, from within itself, growing and transforming. And just when you think that it cannot get any higher or go any further, it surprises you again and throws something new onto the table.

‘Cinnamon Tree’ transmits powerful imagery, which make out Esperanza as much a romantic as she is a voyeuristic, her sentimental poetry pleasing those young couples who are only too happy to waltz with one another in contemplative bliss. Esperanza refers to each composition as a ‘scene’ - almost like the concert is a moving film or motion picture that submerges your ears into a fabulously warm ocean of sounds and sensations. The distinctions between compositions are subtly blurred, as the pacing is very fluid, yet each composition still maintains its own cognitive boundaries.

‘Endangered Species’ is a Wayne Shorter composition that was ‘perfect just how it was’, but is now enriched with lyrics, again, presenting us with something new and unexpected, and revealing another side to her personality. Here, Esperanza exploits the power of the voice as an instrument as much as for its lyrical potential. Sometimes, especially when it is subservient or equal to the rest of the band, it resonates with the subconscious rather than the conscious, and you do not always notice it, but if you tune your ears and mind, then you realise that it is omnipresent. The overall forms and instrumental combinations are like auditory illusions; you can listen to the music in a multitude of different ways, and it would probably still make sense if it were played backwards, because the unity and structure is so immanent. Listening through its multitude of layers, you can hear internal structures interacting with one another at different levels - not limited to the surface.

‘I Just Can’t Help It’, featuring saxophonist Joe Lovano, has to be my favourite track on the album. The slinky, sensual cross rhythms, purring saxophonic trails and kaleidoscopic vocals throw your mind and senses into a disorientating star field of speculation and wonder.

Her live shows seem to have no beginning or end. The compositions tap into streams of consciousness that are already there, like telescopes uncovering entities that were always lingering beneath. This is a testament to the strength of her music, and to the compositions, in themselves, which transcend technical boundaries and become a platform for social engagement and improvisational mastery.

DPZ Quintet, fronted by saxophonist / MC Thomas de Pourquery and featuring trombonist Daniel Zimmermann hail from Paris, France, the land of ‘camembert, Moulin Rouge, Eiffel Tower and Champs Elysses’, he quips. His music moves from surrealistic, bittersweet fairy tales and coppices, into traumatic, terrifying ‘nightmares before Christmas’. The guitar-driven quintet plunders through deep, dark depths, rising up in mammoth walls of sound and plummeting through extraneous chordal caverns. Every now and then, they are accompanied with spoken French, narrating as if in a dream sequence the source of these morbid visions.

Pools of reverberant guitar and synthesised fields of ambient noise drown the crying, wailing saxophone, as the sedated drumbeat continues, underneath. Clouded archons of lead guitar permeate the sound world, amidst sombre muted trombone and falsetto vocal howls. At every twist and turn, the music senses impending threat and danger, with slowly carousing, building steady cacophonies, sailing soprano saxophone - sickeningly thrilling - smoking and smouldering amidst doom-ridden angst, and a divine turbulence that swallows your ears and devours your mind, body and senses.

Renu

Renu are a seven-piece band combining classical vocals, jazz vocals / harp / violin, violin, guitar, guitar / percussion, piano and bass. Their diverse influences everything from MF Doom and Django Bates to grand opera, flamenco and snatches of Kanye West. Their members are all multi-instrumentalists, and combine an interesting range of textures and timbres woven together with bold, outspoken ideas.

Quirky and eccentric, these London Revellers cross over performance practices from jazz, classical and music theatre respectively, freely mixing the abstract with the poetic and programmatic. Musically, they are creating something quite unique and a little bit ‘out there’ - without relying on extraneous free improvisation. Instead, the music is developed through highly poetic and structured occurrences, complete with liberal sprinkles of humour and slapstick surrealism. The beginning of their set is quite rock / pop-influenced, while the latter half experiments with Spanish / Iberian stylisations, flamboyant guitar, hand clapping and themes reminiscent of Maurice Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole. An intriguing discovery reconciling the worlds of commercial indie and rock, with forbidden fantasy, and nauseatingly rich imagery.

Oded Kafri + Drumachine

Percussionist Oded Kafri, otherwise known to over a million YouTube viewers as ‘The Drumachine’ has a well-travelled background. Originating from Israel, growing up in France, and having lived in both North Africa and the UK, Oded Kafri learned his trade as a street performer, bringing together many different influences and working with many different types of people. Oded possesses an encyclopaedia of musical vocabulary. A natural multitasker, Oded makes imaginative use of different surfaces, not only the water dispenser bolted onto his drum kit, but sticks, monitors and even wine bottles, progressing outwards into the audience. But these percussive applications are not executed in a contrived or random manner; Oded verily prepares his ideas, and works them into his arrangements. For him, the rhythmic-spatial world is simply an extension of his personality, where his mind and sticks work as one.

Additionally, Oded mixes his skill and virtuosity with digital samples and loops, fusing World musics from Eastern Europe, Africa and the West Indies, cementing choral singing with raving ‘drum ‘n’ bass’ beats, substantiated tempos and Groove Armada-style horns. Over these he plays and improvises, yet they do not seem to control him; rather he appears to be controlling the samples - at least, it is a mutual flux of control that is happening here - exploring the boundaries between human and inhuman, man verses robot. The samples function as a departure point for his personified elaboration and discourse.

Visually, Oded Kafri is a showman, welding robotic movements, gestures, dances and circus gymnastics into his crazed, insane routines. Whether these were planned or incorporated by sheer luck and intuition is open to discussion, but it is soon easy enough to understand how he attained over a million hits on YouTube. As he explains, ‘Music is not a profession, it is just something that everyone does’. In this sense, he is testifying to the immanently social origins of music, as integrated into everyday life. The brain is a remarkably complex organ. Oded Kafri, in his music, pushes the capabilities of the human mind, combined with the products of human invention.

​Highly renowned as a gifted jazz musician and teacher, and considered by many to be the founding father of jazz education in Britain (The Guardian), Eddie Harvey (trombonist) died one month ago at the age of eighty-six. Tonight, his life is celebrated with a special concert featuring many of the local talents from the Way Out West All Stars, paying him a fitting tribute with a night of jazz and swing.

Way Out West Collective features twenty musicians, all ages, based in and around South West London. Walking into the venue, I was immediately warmed and touched by the friendly, welcoming committee and community spirit. Chatting to one lady gave me an insight into his impact on their collective.

“He was a local legend, the most remarkable man. He had a wide circle of friends, and he never lost a friend. He was like a youth at heart, very jovial, and he lived life to the fullest - always ‘there’ until he died. Knowledgeable, well read and learned, he was genuinely interested in people. He was someone with whom you could talk if you had a problem. He was good at making constructive criticism, although he was also very honest. Everyone here knew him, and can recount stories about his life. There were three hundred people at his funeral, and the coffin was brought in to the tune of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’, which was the most amazing thing - Can you imagine how anyone could have sung that at a funeral?”

She then pointed out several relatives and friends around the club, including his wife and daughter, who were also present. The music was easy swinging, enjoyable and accessible, bringing together musicians both young and old, and showcasing a thing or two of the local jazz scene. Highlights were the arrangements by Eddie Harvey, combining saxophone and clarinet quartets with rhythm section, with open, inclusive improvisation. The complex constructions blend sweet, harmonised woodwinds and tightly coordinated rhythmic breaks, angular melodies brought to like by dovetailing or angular horn passages, and perfectly synchronised vibratos. A glowing introduction to the life and work of this great jazz artist and nurturer.

Psylus is a project consisting of five progressive, improvising musicians, who blend jazz, hip-hop and electronic music with modular and free improvisation, and an array of different textures and styles. Featuring Chibike Odukwe (drums), David Turay (alto and soprano saxophones), D’vo Tile Gichigi-Lipere (electronics), James Benzies (bass) and Zuri Jarrett-Boswell (piano and synthesisers). Tonight, young curators Young & Serious put the band on in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Front Room, as part of London Jazz Festival 2012.

One feature prevalent in their music is cyclic repetition. The forms, taken from the above styles, serve as platforms for abstraction and musical evolution - free improvisation that bursts at the seams, and pushes the boundaries to the next level. Every now and then, linear ideas are projected for a while, before abruptly locking into an obsessive rut, creating a potentially explosive tension and restlessness. 

David Turey (saxophones) possesses a humbling talent at the young age of seventeen. His saxophones implore different moods and sensibilities, from fluttering and free flowing to sinister; dashing and peppery to exploding in squawks and violent ululations; from short, choppy calls and responses to languid squeals; from hungry, caged wilder beast to roaming, optimistic mammal, taunting and provoking games.

The rhythm section often revolves around complex metres, out of which the improviser extrudes new, rhythmic constructions that subjugate or tighten the frameworks around them. At times, there is a nauseating sense of stress and anguish, the feeling of force pushing against hardened edges. Yet this is tinged with optimism and progressive momentum. Bare fifths and apocalyptic drones underpin blistering, labour intensive presses, and the music constantly challenges the ears and stimulates the mind. Quite simply, edge-of-the-seat.

Enchanted and moved are two words that sum up my feeling after tonight’s performance - such a remarkable, magical thing. Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek collaborating with Indian Trilok Gurtu, with Rainer Brüninghaus on piano and Yuri Daniel on bass guitar. For the first time ever, this festival, I felt the need not to write during the performance, but instead to simply let myself drift off and be whisked away on a musical voyage through heart and homelands. So forgive me if this review comes across as a little ‘flaky’, for I felt that the music resonated so much in my being that I can still hear its lingering strains, reverberating in my mind.

Tonight, I have been taken to many places… Not only Norway, other parts of Scandinavia and the Indian subcontinent, but also to Scotland, Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Himalayas, North and South America, Iceland and the Middle East, all in one heady two hours’ flight. I have experienced many different emotions - some painful and disturbing, yet others intimately moving, surreal and unpredictable.

The performance began with one of my favourite, long term Jan Garbarek melodies ‘The Creek’, its lingering, echoing spirit bringing me back to childhood memories travelling through the mountains in the back of a car, raising goosebumps all over, after having this melody implanted in my record collection for so long. His saxophone has a strangely organic quality to it, as if it is not being played, but that it is playing itself. Its tone has the thin, reediness and shrill brightness of the bagpipes, yet with the softness of ‘warm breath, floating in frosty air’ - perfectly described by the preview in the Southbank Centre.

I would like to mention a few things that I really liked about this concert. Firstly, and this might sound odd, but I liked the way that the stage was set out - with its chameleon-like, colour-changing backdrop. I sometimes hear colours when I listen to music, and, for me, this really formed a major part of my overall experience, because my mind had something visual-spatial to interact with the, in the soundscape surrounding me. Secondly, I liked the symmetry between the pianos on one side and the percussion on the other; it almost looked like two camps set up in the middle of a field, under a starry expanse. 

Thirdly, and most importantly, I liked the way that the concert was structured. It was a full two hours’ length, without a break, so that time became almost meaningless in itself. The musicians had such a depth and breadth of ground to explore, that there was a clear, aesthetic contour, flowing through the programme. There were three sections, each possibly around twenty minutes, where the piano, bass and percussion broke free from the rest of the ensemble and embarked on their own adventure.

Rainer Brüninghaus (piano) took us through a kaleidoscopic world of shimmering, swirling drips of music, which came and passed over like a rainstorm out at sea. With his Michel Camilo-style Caribbean polyrhythms and syncopations, he displays an incredible, breathtaking virtuosity, and I could feel little explosions in my ears as the drops and clusters of notes thrashed relentlessly against my being, running out into streams, rivers and pools of harmonic languish. Elemental themes run through my mind, as the forms were so abstract and fundamental to the continuing of life - life and creation unfolding within the passages themselves - and the piano is water.

Speaking of water, Trilok Gurtu (percussion) took us to an entirely different territory. I cannot recount much of what happened because it is too spellbinding to recall. But I do remember at one point the tiredness and aches leaving me, and suddenly feeling an indescribable sense of nothing else but pure Awakening. Suddenly, I was immanently conscious of everything that was happening; the subtle snaps, crackles and pops of the tabla, tickling my sinuses, the stillness of two thousand people around me, the blueness and darkness of the expanse, the shadows, the breath coming from within me… I felt an unexplainable freedom and urge to look around, and to observe my surroundings from different perspectives, not looking upon the stage. It was like everything had simply drifted away, leaving empty shells, and I had woken up from a dream, intensely aware of and alert to movement. What I do then remember is Trilok Gurtu improvising with metal bells and echoes in the water. He then added vocalisations, like he was summoning a spirit into the space, and Jan Garbarek re-entered on a horizontal, wooden flute. The two then engaged in an astounding, non-verbal dialogue - yet its cognitive outpouring spoke directly with meaning!

The band segued through many rhythms and feels, too many to summarise here in this report; from strident, free-flowing ice sheet themes over wastelands of dusty rhythms, to green and fertile moments, reflective surfaces and soaring, avian proclamations. The concert was a true mystery, and, by the end of it, the discourse and logic reached a summit whereby everyone in the hall had reached the same goal - resolution and order triumphing over exploration, development and apparent meaningless. After a standing ovation, the ballad at the end, in its simplicity and sincerity, made me cringe with sadness at its beauty. At this point, nothing much more was to be said. It was the perfect ending to ease oneself back into the linear present.

There are no words to describe Snarky Puppy - they are, simply, indescribable. When I first witnessed their open clinic in April 2012, it opened my mind to a whole new set of possibilities concerning live musical invention. Seeing their live show was something else entirely. Snarky Puppy is a jazz-rock-fusion project hailing from Brooklyn, New York. Currently on tour throughout the UK (London, Leeds, Manchester) and Europe, Snarky Puppy stopped off at XOYO in Shoreditch tonight, to unleash their magic at the London Jazz Festival.

The band is unique for two reasons. Firstly, it is completely undeputisable. This means that every member is as important as the next, and each individual contributes in equal measure to the whole. When one member is absent, the band cannot perform. It is this level of commitment and dedication, not only to the project, but to its binding musical and social relationships, that set this band apart from the rest. Secondly, none of the music is written. Themes can be played in a multitude of different ‘modes’ and still be the same, and the music is in constant flux from tour to tour. This means that the same composition can bring about new circumstances and challenges that make it sound completely different. Ontologically, however, it is the same composition. The compositions are formulated on musical ‘germs’ that grow and develop outwards from within themselves - it is these processes in which lies the magic.

‘Flood’ opens the set with a geodesic, rhythmic entity slowly turning around on itself, like meat on a skewer, fleshed out with a fragmentary vein of brass melody, always coming back to land on the familiar hooks and presses. The composition flits between two modes of reality - on the one hand, strident and organised; on the other hand, voyeuristic and pensive - like two distorted sides of the same face. This dialectic tendency is a distinguishing feature of many Snarky Puppy compositions. The zappy, synthesiser solo twists psychedelically through this sonic transept, expelling outwards in shards of timbral colour, and occasionally stepping outside of the harmony to reveal a box within a box. Upon its culmination, the band arrives at possibly one of the most extraordinary harmonic sequences known to date. This was deconstructed in the clinic that I attended in April. Basically, the sequence comprises six bars of modulation, played out in a swirling guitar texture, which gradually revolves and reverberates upwards like a gigantic machinism taking to the stars. Upon this is superimposed a zigzagging brass melody, which propels the improvising lead guitar into the stratosphere. It is amazing how such a non-verbal medium can promote such an elated response from the audience; it is the paradigm of a new dawn in improvised music - a new philosophy, an all-encompassing, therapeutic way of composing without words - based on the principle of developing a single idea within a complex, sonic situation. After reaching the point at which the musical machinism is fully suspended in the stars, the music violently transforms into a disturbed carnival of ‘We Will Rock You’-style, thumping rock, bringing the machinism crashing down to earth and labouring it into the ground.

‘Ready Wednesday’ follows this, written by the only English member of the band, Bill Laurance (piano). His first cluster of five notes provokes screams of recognition from the audience, and launches into a racy and syncopated piano invention, over pumping disco beats and spiky horn stabs. One feature that is prevalent throughout many of Snarky Puppy’s compositions is the use of busy, florid rhythms surging underneath a cyclic, yet static and sustained, melodic line. This creates the illusion of flying very fast over a wide, open space. The prophetic, thematic undertow is always on the move, progressing ever closer to a goal that it may or may never reach, until some kind of release from the cycle propels it into another dimension. I would go so far as to say that the music is like a film score (sci-fi comes to mind, such as Star Wars or Deep Space Nine), except that it does not require a visualisation to bring it into relief; its thematic development is metaphysical in itself. Here, any spatial-conceptual references are purely analogical. At this point, the music descends underwater, until rays of piano permeate it once again and throw it out of the water and back into the funk.

Harmonically, the music is rich enough, that even without having known it prior to hearing it, it reaches inside of you and wells up not only emotions that are both powerful and complex, but also abstract ideas that are so deep that you can relate to them even if you have never heard the music before - bringing you back to moments of childhood, disembodied thoughts and memories. The compositions manifest the unfolding of history - the sediment of time itself. Like Adorno on the music of Schoenberg, for the most part, music has never really broken away from the technical restraints to become a ‘thing’ or an ‘experience’ in its own right. Listening to this music, you momentarily forget who is playing what instrument and how, as you become solely focussed on The Forms.

‘Slow Demon’ is up next, rolling out a boxy, polygasmic groove, surrounded by elaborate horn structures oozing parasitically out of the sides, grinding cogs, rattling cages and whizzing mechanics. Again, we experience the seamless alternation between two different modes of being, sudden leaps from the extrovert to the introvert. The saxophone solo, encased in a vocoder shell, reminds one of the mechanical age, the onset of technology and the transgression from organic evolution to digital revolution - the sediment of the times. The saxophone solo flits in and out of existence among towering colossi of synth pad and brass mesh. Every time it comes around, the soloist and band collide together on the dramatic seventh beat. Upon its culmination, the great, multi-faceted contraption screeches to a halt, opening out into a vista of Hammond organ spiralling upwards. Again, we are returned to the transcendental ideas of the first song, ‘Flood’, and it seems that some themes are universal and branch across more than one composition. For me, this composition reveals the advanced development of the complex human being. Like societies, the Hammond organ and lead guitar theme builds, while the percussion stirs up a resistance; a ferocious rebellion which rises to the same strength such that it almost drowns out the main theme - here, the excitement lies in a dynamic battle between rhythm and harmony - leaving the audience to question, which side is going to win? The band segues into a distorted six-eight metre, lazily pulled under a carpet of harmonic disorientation, such that it almost morphs into a slow reggae. What is to happen next?

‘Young Stuff’ is so immersive that it is almost like its forms are unfolding in three dimensions, right inside your very ‘brain and booty’! With its dynamic tensions, its schizophrenic alternations between two opposing sides, and its funky, well-coordinated snaps and breaks, the music empowers and transports you through its mind-bending soundscapes. Claire commented ‘I think the piano player [Bill Laurance] is enjoying himself far too much - look at his face!’ I asked Claire how she found out about the band. She is studying the guitar, and her guitar teacher advised her to check them out. After all, the name of the album is ‘Tell Your Friends’ - much of what Snarky Puppy represents is the fact that words cannot describe the music, words simply cannot unlock those innermost structures that make the music so compelling. The name ‘Snarky Puppy’ does not really give much away, concerning what the music is about. I’ve come to realise that the music is not actually about anything, apart from itself; it creates its own dramas, unleashing a barrage of abstract happenings, situations and eventualities. And perhaps the name ‘Snarky Puppy’ is the key to this door because it the name does not really mean anything, objectively - it can be interpreted, subjectively. Like fractals blowing in the wind, you cannot actually see the wind, only the objects that the wind touches. Likewise, you cannot see what the music is cognitively imparting - only the reactions from the audience are telling. 

In terms of vivacity, the band has the ability to seamlessly interchange between two opposite ends of the dynamic spectrum - as if they were slipping through a curtain into an adjacent musical ‘environment’, or simply tapping into a continuum that was happening all along (rather than starting or stopping sections). The music not only creates its own Time, but it presents us with an alternative concept of Time, one that is cyclic as opposed to the linear sense that we are so accustomed to in the ‘Western’ world - all at once, plunging from the noise and bright lights into the quiet depths of deep space.

I remember from the clinic that each of the players listens to all kinds of music, and they all exchange music amongst one another. This enables the group to truly establish a common musical forum, in terms of their influences and compositional ideas. While a central musical theme is unfolding, the players are, consistently, hearing other tunes buzzing around in their heads. Occasionally, I hear snatches of melodies from other lifetimes and experiences that burst out of their shells and bleed into the present continuum, as if the central theme were surrounded by a milky way of alternate, parallel realities, all contributing to the same composition. These idea ‘bubbles’ are neither good nor bad, happy or sad, they simply exist within the collective subconscious.

Tonight, Snarky Puppy feature a guest musician with whom they have had a most fulfilling musical relationship - a ‘freak of nature’ - about whom they can recount many stories: percussion, Jason Marsalis. ‘Alma’ (‘Soul’) introduces Latin rhythms; a three-two Partido Alto feel, bolstered by layers of wood, metal and electricity, supplanted with a suave reggaeton, and staggered with heavy metal. The trumpet solo throws up snapshots of different moments out of time, before Jason Marsalis skids into a giddy, conga-injected Cuban rumba, complete with bell, conga, bongó and timbales. His improvisation builds, punctuated at every other turn by a sparse stab on the ‘and of one’, like a gigantic press. Eventually, this crunches back to the original, half tempo.

‘Thing of God’ is the only composition written in the UK (in Bill Laurance [pianist’s] living room as he was making pesto). It opens with a tantalizingly shrill ‘clown-walk’, which is both quirky and odd. However, it is not long before this descends into open, angelic pastures - evocative to the opening of a Disney movie. Instantly, I recognise this theme as the track featured on one of their most notable live, studio videos; bringing in spiritual soul and gospel influences. At once, I know that I’m in for a ride, because this one modulates into ever higher and ecstatic planes. Again, I’m reminded that there are two sorts of people - those who have heard Snarky Puppy, and those who have not. Likewise, this song separates two states of being - the light, silkiness of the main theme, and the chugging underbelly of its counter-theme. Subsequently, the main theme returns, subverted in the minor, before giving way to a gloriously modulating stairway, ever progressing upwards, and the sky’s the limit!

The last number transforms from a brass band-style march, to a cosmetic, free improvised New Orleans-style ‘Trad’-jazz momentum, before delving into a funky hotbed of James Brown-ness. I am particularly impressed by the way in which the band members are announced, celebrating each name with a party piece of brass and percussion, integrated into the flow. By the end of it, the audience is ecstatic, and bring the band back to stage by thumping the ground with their feet, and chanting ‘Snarky’ all over again.

‘White Cap’ - the encore - pulls together some thrashing disco beats with the characteristic slow, brass melodies laid down on top, like the light squares on a dance floor amidst spinning, metallic loops and sequences. The most astonishing feature of this composition is the dynamic interplay between harmony and melody. While the melody is very simple and consists of static, walking intervals, the points at which it lands throw up complex harmonic implications - like hot surfaces touching. This technique is most effective when, after having projected this cycle many times, the backing drops out, leaving the horns alone. The theme is so strong, so profound, that it can be justified by the horns alone - simply because when the harmony ceases, it carries on in the mind of the listener.

These characteristics reveal the profound universality of the music; that the compositions are merely the adjustments of perspective that interrogate and interfere with forces that are already present.


Michael League - bass
Mike Maher - trumpet/flugelhorn
Chris Bullock - tenor saxophone
Justin Stanton - trumpet/keyboards
Robert Lanzetti - guitar
Mark Letteiri - guitar
Nate Werth - percussion
Dave Laurance - keyboards
+ special guest Jason Marsalis - percussion

The club was packed full and everyone was in high spirits. Walking in there, it really felt like jazz festival fever was beginning to settle in, as the light fades earlier, and the hard core gig goers come out of their shelters. Township Comets really got the audience going. Featuring the South African vocalist Pinise Saul, who has played with the likes of Hugh Masekela and most notable for directing The South African Gospel Singers, the band delivered a vibrant, colourful afternoon set.

One of the earlier numbers, a brisk, twelve-eight shuffle shows off the vibrancy of the three-piece brass section, consisting of saxophone, trombone and trumpet, which lays down some thick, modal horn arranging, finished with jazzy inflections, while the lead vocalist throws in some of her own embellishments. During the solos, she adds spontaneous shouts, yodelling and vocalisations to encourage them on, as the other horns pitch in with some sweet harmonic backings.

Vocalist Pinise Saul is completely at home on stage, radiating a warmth, wit and lustre to melt the most hostile of audiences. With her conversationalist style of delivery, she does not take herself too seriously, and in some of her songs, it is almost like she is telling a story of her own life, through the third person. The slow funk number shows off the warmth and depth of her emotion and personality, within a soulful offloading of revolving shapes, anchored by horn hooks and refrains that turn and coalesce around themselves. The electric piano adds a softer, silkier touch, so that the band are simmering a steaming incantation that seethes at the climaxes of each solo, and boils right down again as a new solo begins.

One of the later numbers adopted a Sonny Rollins-style, up-tempo afro-jazz-highlife, and featured Rob Townsend on alto / soprano saxophones, who delivered a blistering solo, steadily building, and cooked up with layers of backing and vocal shouts, integrated in a call-and-response, and creating a continuum between vocal shouts and brass stabs. The music was spiritual and accessible, and even incited the bartenders to dance!

The best thing about this performance is that it speaks to the whole room. Even if you were stood right at the back, or serving at the bar, Pinise Saul and her band transmit an energy that is all-inclusive. This was not limited to the stage either; she came out and engaged with the audience, so that everyone was invited to participate, and there was no longer an audience - just a massive, feel-good party, whipped up in the frenzy of danceable, addictive music.

Combining interlocking clarinet and trumpet threads, solid, chugging guitar and bass, and rocking rhythm sticks, this traditional band puts the tickles into the Dixie. Featuring their own takes on traditional songs such as Jelly Roll Morton’s ‘Oh Didn’t He Ramble’, Woody Allen’s ‘Swing A Lullaby’ and the Allman Brothers’ ‘Don’t Want You No More’ as well as original tunes such as ‘Monkey Puzzle’, the band brought a fresh face to traditional jazz.

Dom James’ clarinet has a superbly clear, liquorice tone, and employs an effective use of slide and glissando techniques - critical to get right for this style of music. Moreover, he has a strong sense of rhythm, and he can hold down a rag without support from the rest of the band. One thing that I particularly liked about their sound is the way in which the pieces begin with barely nothing - solo clarinet or percussion - and then gradually build up as other instrumental layers enter. The intertwining melodies - sometimes fixed, memorised material; other times improvised - have a neo-classical, almost symphonic (major to minor) feel to them, given the European elements derived from Beethoven and subsequent composers, which permeated the early African styles via colonialism. The musicians interpret these treasures without a single sheet of music in sight - impressive for a music so intricate and complex. During the clarinet and trumpet solos, the supporting instrument also adds in gestures, which they pick up together, and lace into the structure. The band itself used little or no amplification, thereby preserving the authenticity, and their sound projected perfectly within the reverberant concavities of the dingy railway bridge nightclub. 

The slow, trudging twelve-bar blues ‘Don’t Want You Know More’ featured some chunky drum and tambourine rolls, and a trumpet solo from William Roxton, who brought a contemporary edge to the traditional blues by ‘going out’ of the harmony and adding in some nice upper structures, diminished substitutions and rhythmic diminutions - inciting the drummer to kick into double-tempo in some bars. His ideas, while captivating, were finished off with those New Orleans stylizations that preserved the continuity of the band’s oeuvre.

My favourite piece was the sleek, feline tango, with its haunting, Hispanic inflexions, cooking up a broth of dissonance, surrealism and bohemian, Gershwin-style licks. Dynamically, it would drop down to a purring brew before thrashing back with stonking, kicking quavers.

Sudanese singer charmed the Vortex with her beautiful fusion of African music with jazz, soul and influences from Latin America and the Middle East.

Her free, floating voice is like a swallow, sailing over a sea of warm, strummed guitar, taking you on a musical odyssey. The mood is unequivocally humane - whether introspective and nostalgic, or quivering with ecstatic passion - and is characterised by its mix of indigenous African and Arabic inflections. Special guest Morizo Soher ‘spices things up a bit’ in ‘Chauff D’Amour’ (‘Seeing The Light’), an original composition inspired by Sudanese Sufi chanting and the trance-like states that these incite. Here, she urges you to close your eyes, and to use your imagination, as the sedated, sun-soaked triangular polyrhythm of the guitar swathe your eyes, shadowed by the ghostly flute and breathy backing vocals, delicately spinning a yarn and leaving you light and content. 

‘Yamara’ (‘Oh Woman’) is dedicated to women, because she loves women (so do the men!). The gliding, cyclic six-eight metre projects a sonic tunnel through which the lead vocalist imparts her heartfelt tribute to ‘her sisters’. As the flute improvises, the guitar textures bristle into flame accompanied by the gentle rattle of the chekere and almost flipped into a binary metre by the percussion hits. ‘The Shattering of the Mirror’, which Amira personalises as ‘The Shattering of the Illusion’, encapsulates that moment when things do not seem to go as planned. This song brings in some clave ideas from Latin America, and incites the audience to clap along. Finally, Amira dedicates the last piece to her father, who taught her to question and challenge everything, which is the reason that she is in the Vortex. As well as there being many people present from the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), many people have travelled from all over the world, some as far as Syria and Sudan, to witness her performance, to savour those rolling cross-rhythms, and to relish in this exquisite world music melange.

Bambus City Strut are a London-based, ten-piece line-up, bringing a fresh, youthful swagger to the British funk / soul scene. Sasha Patterson is a fabulous front-lady, with a natural confidence and ability to break the ice, talk to the audience, and make everyone feel included. Add to this a strong vocal quality oozing radiance and persona, and you’ve just bought yourself the ultimate party starter.

James Goodman (keyboards) fills out the texture with some lush, succulent jazz harmony - using Hammond organ and synthesiser pads to great effect. The horn section, made up of Simon Platts (saxophone) and Phil Chadney (trumpet) are completely ‘on the ball’, with the lines and settlements under their fingers. One thing that I particularly enjoyed about this band is the dynamic call-and-response interplay between the vocals and horns, written into the arrangements: upward-snaking torrents of brass met with elastic vocal harmonisations.

The set consisted mainly of their own songs, such as the lively, cruising ‘Nobody Else’ and the strident, batucada-infused ‘Let The Light Shine’ - yet this did not stop them slipping in the odd cheeky cover, including Breakestra’s ‘Cramp Your Style’ and Booty Collins’ ‘I’d Rather Be With You’. I would go so far as to liken their sound to more established acts such as Incognito or PB Underground, despite the band having only been together since 2009.

In terms of presentation, the band looked the part. The swaying front-line soon got everyone dancing, and the upright, swerving delivery of the rhythm section settled the score. The overall feel was sharp, snappy, heated and ‘down to business’. The group released their first EP in 2011, and are due to release their next offering early next year. I believe that they have a lot of potential, and exciting things to offer on the horizon.

​Milano alto saxophonist Tommaso Starace, together with his band, Frank Harrison (piano), Will Collier (bass) and Chris Higginbottom (drums), presented a concert celebrating the life and work of the late French pianist Michel Petrucciani. Being an avid lover of Petrucciani’s work, this concert leapt out of the pages for me. Sure enough, as I entered the room, the band were in full swing with none other than my favourite Petrucciani composition ‘Looking Up’ - and I knew that I was in for a good night. The subsequent set did not disappoint, and included many of his classic compositions such as ‘September Song’ and ‘Brazilian Suite’.

Unlike many of the performances that are fiery, intense and passionate; this group have a cool, introspective nature about them. Tammaso Starace (alto saxophone) has an intricate, nimble-fingered touch. His fluttering improvisations shimmer with the quicksilver speed at which he flies through montages of notes. His ability to construct elaborate fragmentations - that is, repetitive, interlocking cell-cycles that work across the beat - create swirling, rippling sonic forms that melt delightfully into the slipstream of his dispatch. On ‘Looking Up’ and on some of the slower tunes such as ‘Hidden Joy’, Tammasco exudes a sweet, silky saxophone tone with well-controlled use of sliding glissandos, wavering vibratos and Paquito D’Rivera-style altissimo embellishments.

Frank Harrison (piano) has a breezy, refined style. His improvisations are relaxed, liberally sprinkled about with dancing clusters and melodic crystallisations that tinker in the stratosphere. His thematic development is nicely paced, restrained, and he gives the music plenty of space within which to breath. Delicately applying sophisticated jazz voicing’s that reflect a sensitive ear; his contemplative nature is evocative of Keith Jarrett, with its haunting, vivid clarity.

Chris Higginbottom (drums) maintained an easy, swinging jazz-samba / bossa nova mettle throughout the set. His solos accent certain sections of the bar to bring out alternate rhythmic orientations, without losing the pulse - occasionally unravelling into six-eight and three-four metres to mesh out his ideas - constantly developing the feel into new and ever-fluctuating planes, yet managing to pull it back with style. Will Collier (bass) tempered some melodious improvisation, bleeding in and around the harmony, with its subtle, chanson-like style.

There was a full house in tonight. However, Posk Jazz Cafe is a wide enough space allowing for people to stretch out and feel at ease, without losing its sense of community. The ambience was cosy, relaxed and open. The audience was attentive, but not deadly silent, and the hubbub of quiet discourse melded in to become a part of the musical dynamic. There was a unified sense of togetherness, intimacy and oneness, solidified towards the end whereby Tammaso Starace enticed everyone to start clapping on beats two and four, and walked out into the audience, playing to the front rows closely. His overall delivery was charming, personable and sweet. His group has a refined sparkle, a genuine love and a subtle immediacy with listeners and enthusiasts alike.

​Swiss singer-songwriter, Sophie Hunger, dubbed by The Guardian as a cross-between Beth Orton and Björk, wowed audiences at Jazz Café, showcasing, with her band, songs from her new album. The lineup featured Alberto Malo (percussion, vocals), Simon Gerber (bass, guitar, clarinet, vocals), Sara Oswald (‘cello, glockenspiel, vocals) and Alexi Ameris (piano, rhodes, hammmond, trumpet, flugal horn, vocals). And if that list of instruments doesn’t tantalise your taste buds (or should I say, earlobes), then wait until you hear how the instruments are used! The orchestrations display an impressive array of textures and timbres, inventively played out, whilst drawing on influences from progressive rock, folk and electronic music.

In my opinion, her music is less about subtle nuances; instead, the excitement and tension is generated more through the overall shapes and ideas that are employed, the timbres that are combined and the shifting displacements that are created. Her melodies are smooth and flowing, whilst riveted in movement, attitude and unpredictability. There is so much personality and temperament in her orchestration, with far-flung motifs and grooves being twisted and strung around wildly, in a whirlwind of spontaneous unpredictability and slick, cut-off culminations.

Sophie herself has a gorgeous, breathy tone of voice, delivered with a captivating stage presence, with soulful eyes that gaze up to the heavens, and draw you into her dark, primal world. At times, I can certainly hear the fragile, wavering Björkness in her voice, whereas at other times, I hear the ‘folktronic’ lilt of Beth Orton - slowed-down rock ‘n’ roll, syncopated by polyrhythmic jives. The musical emotion is teased out in her strong, projected vocals; drawn out through smouldering poutations, ecstatic moaning, sighing and playful exclamations. Her personality owns the stage, and her no-nonsense, to-the-point attitude is perfectly encapsulated in the vowels and consonants that are completed with definition and finesse - so much so, that you can almost taste her words. Sophie is as much a linguist as she is a poet, effortlessly interchanging between English, French and German; translating her thoughts through windows of time and space, and providing rare glimpses into her infinite spheres of destiny - orchestrated through languishing ‘cello passages and minimalist voids.

Structurally, her songs are surprisingly short and sweet, in contrast to so many other forms of jazz, where compositions and arrangements are developed and played out through extended improvisation. Here, the story is different. In a sense, her compositions do not need to be developed. Many of them finish on a shrill ‘cliff hanger’, leaving the listener suspended in a void and forever asking questions. These abrupt endings leave the listener to continue the song in their mind, inviting them to formulate their own endings. Their message is delivered succinctly, and, in some cases, there is nothing more that needs to be said. Her poetic shells are complete, compelling and not overdone.

The smooth delicacy of her voice is often juxtaposed against smashing, symphonic hits, while the rhythmic constructions, stops and supplantations are used to dramatic effect. The band respond intuitively to the subject matter of the lyrics, throwing in a complete stop as the vocalist sings ‘float like a feather’, or drowning the vocalist in a satisfying well of heartbreak and trauma. I was particularly impressed with the jazzy, edgy piano improvisation, which nailed rhythmic displacements into kaleidoscopic walls of shimmers, rattles and runs, converging with the percussion, in a limitless determination. The interweaving of trumpet and clarinet at the end of one of her compositions, over bare, bass-line ‘heartbeat’ served to drive the poignancy home.

Examples of Twelves

This project, featuring a close gang of London’s young, up-and-coming creative knit, bring together dramatic, punchy and dissonant horns, with driving drum riffs. Threading squealing harmonics, violently twisting melodies and flagrant tones in explorations of free improvisation - seamlessly interchanging between ambience and angularity.

Bento Box

Bento Box is a thrilling new collaboration between F-IRE collective members Pete Wareham (saxophone), Seb Rochford (drums) and Ben Hazleton (bass), pushing the boundaries of improvisation over timeless jazz classics. Pete Wareham (saxophone) whips you into a frenzied stream-of-consciousness; his flickering ribbons of melody often wrinkling upwards into altissimo flourishes, before plunging into headfirst dives of wild, thrashing improvisation. He is not half-hearted with his playing; he drives brain and soul into every single note, tempering with the pulse, and alternating fiercely between intensity and disparity. 

Ben Hazleton (bass) begins his improvisations by first establishing the lines or parameters upon which to map out and extend his repertory. His unloading is varied and dynamic, experimenting with different techniques such as strumming, chordal playing and pizzicato. He moves his fingers so meticulously across the board, underpinned with strength, and exploiting the instrument to its full merit, through a fine-tuned, strong-willed hand and personality. This structural ‘mapping out’ is extended through his interplay with Seb Rochford (drums), who brings the rhythmic segregation of the bass into relief. He possesses a super-speedy response, fluctuating his metre and groove-changes effortlessly, and with such ease, and yet laughing and joking all the way. Occasionally, he deliberately plays against the beat, conflicting with the saxophone and the bass, to heighten the tension. When the kit becomes the main feature, he is expertly good at unwielding a barrage of smattering improvisation, whilst overtly keeping a cool head.

Overall, the trio brought an engaging dynamic to the Green Note, inciting a terrific response from the audience, who whooped and cheered at every turn of phrase. The development of their individual musical ideas really pushes the boundaries of improvisation and drives you on a tour-de-force, right to the very core of these standard compositions, and transforming them at the heart.

​This musical collaboration combines smooth, sultry vocals, with luscious harmonies and a hardened, funky rhythm section - what more do you need? The sweetened interplay between lead / backing vocals and piano are fleshed out in soulful, warm and catchy choruses and uplifting lyrics that speak of love, hope, freedom, revolution and triumph rising up over adversity.

There was a fluid continuum between audience and performers, inciting audience participation, empowering the beholder, encouraging the belief that everyone can reach a global, musical forum, where ideas can be exchanged freely, and dispersed factions are collected, reconciled and unified, and engendering coalescence and bonding between everyone in the club. 

The rearrangement of ‘Valerie’ (The Zutons / Amy Winehouse) got everyone up dancing. The tempo was taken down a notch, allowing the fullness and finesse of electronic synthesizer combined with sophisticated, jazzy re-harmonisations and a new, alternative, bass backbeat. The vocalists’ crafty inflections coupled with their re-modelled lyrics, witty wordplay and verbose spontaneity, sealed a standing ovation, and an audience screaming and chanting for more. A satisfyingly enriching end to the evening!