Friday, October 6th pt. 2

Yes, I know it’s Thursday the 12th…

FOUR DESERT ISLAND DISCS
In a nicely left-field Desert Island Discs bookended by Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin, cancer specialist Siddhartha Mukherjee played “Round Midnight” and talked about the links that Indian music has to jazz (and in later selections, flamenco and Philip Glass): “I was very late to the jazz party, which was unusual, because of course, the connections between jazz and Indian classical music are so apparent now – both improvise, both are rhythmically complex, both melodically similar… Once I discovered all these parallels I became addicted, and I discovered Monk when I was in Oxford.” I’d never heard the Vijay Iyer Trio playing “Galang”, but the programme sent me shooting off to find it. A headlong syncopated rocker, it was the song that started M.I.A.’s career, co-written with Elastica. Iyer’s take is a fair way from M.I.A.’s but it’s absolutely terrific.

FIVE (A) VELS TRIO
It seems to be the week of the piano-led trio. Support act for the Souljazz Orchestra at Rich Mix was Vels Trio – electric keys, drums and bass. We arrived at the end of their set but caught two songs. According to their agent’s website, they are “the result of three experimental jazz musicians born out of collective obsession, emotion and improvisation to sculpt contagiously frenetic compositions.” Sounds about right. I couldn’t take my eyes off the drummer, Dougal Taylor, as he propelled those frenetic compositions, beautifully shading the peaks and troughs. I was also struck by the fact that he was using his wallet to dampen his snare…

FIVE (B) SOULJAZZ ORCHESTRA
The Souljazz Orchestra challenge the packed, polyglot London audience at Rich Mix to resist their groove, and from the first note the crowd are under their spell. There are Caribbean shuffles, funky sissy struts, swishing NYC disco hi-hats and earthquake house explosions – all underpinned by an Afrobeat sway. At one point, Pierre Chrétien, the keyboardist (vintage Hohner Clavinet D6 and some mighty bass keyboard below it), introduces a song as Somalian Disco and that’s pretty accurate too. Daughter points out that the three sax players take the knee (I thought they were doing a James Brown thing) during “Mr President”, written during Bush, updated to Trump and the song that got them noticed by Gilles Peterson (who receives a shout-out tonight) 11 years ago. Impressively, you can get their latest release on cassette – which I do. Highly recommended.

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