One that got away: EFG London Jazz Festival 2023
Tyshawn Sorey, Pat Thomas, Irreversible Entanglements, Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, James Brandon Lewis...
My review of last November’s EFG London Jazz Festival slipped through the cracks, so I’m belatedly publishing it here. Several acts have already been announced for this year’s festival, including Marc Ribot, Dave Holland and Billy Cobham, so keep your eyes peeled for more.
Tyshawn Sorey’s visits to London are few and far between. In presenting three different sets from the visionary composer, improviser and multi-instrumentalist, EFG London Jazz Festival has pulled off a real coup. At King’s Place there’s a real buzz of anticipation as the audience gathers to hear his trio with pianist Aaron Diehl and double bassist Matt Brewer. Hands down the best straight-ahead jazz group going, they perform jazz standards and deeper cuts with remarkable sensitivity and curiosity. As Sorey explained to me in The Wire 465, there’s no attempt to radically alter the material through reharmonization or clever time signature changes: his aim is to honour the original forms while bringing “a new type of sensibility to it, that has to do with where we’re living now.”
Having completed a residency at the Village Vanguard a few days prior, the trio is operating at a higher level than ever. They go into the material rather than out. Instead of the predictable round of choruses, each soloist takes as long as they need to meditate on the different aspects of a tune. There’s a fluidity and freeness to the music that is just magical, yet it never feels aimless or drifting. Using a combination of brushes, mallets and sticks, Sorey draws a spectrum of tone colour from a pared-back drumkit: pellucid cymbal textures, muted rumbles, balletic side-steps. His style is steeped in jazz tradition, yet utterly fresh. He swings too, laying down a head-nodding groove behind Diehl’s soul jazz vamps on the encore of Harold Mabern’s “In What Direction Are You Heading?”
Sorey’s performances the following day are radically different. For the matinee at Café Oto he plays solo piano to a pitch black room. The setting creates a deep focus, with time melting away. Sorey begins by working at a series of angular, bluesy figures. Over time, he eliminates the spaces between notes, putting all his force onto the keys and pedals to create a sound of overwhelming density and power. He maintains that intense pitch for several minutes, the dark waves overlapping until they finally recede. It’s devastating.
For the evening set, Sorey is back behind the drum kit for a duo with Pat Thomas, who he rightly considers one of the greatest pianists in the world. Their set is relatively short but electrifying, with Sorey playing in a more assertive style than with his trio, his snare and cymbal rushes matching the energy of Thomas’s dancing clusters and right-hand leaps. Both artists share an expansive vision, refusing easy categorisation. Future collaboration is a must.
Irreversible Entanglements make a triumphant return to London, playing the cavernous EartH Hackney. The sound in the space can be a little muddy, with Camae Ayewa’s vocals lacking clarity at times, but nothing can suppress the energy, righteous and celebratory, that the band generate on stage. There’s a sense of ritual reminiscent of Art Ensemble of Chicago shows, with the band walking on stage wielding hand percussion, taking time to build a groove before moving to their primary instruments. Once they take off, they’re unstoppable. “Protect Your Light” and “Free Love” are joyful and uplifting, with Ayewa inviting the audience to dance and chant along. Yet they’ve lost none of their political charge. Against the backdrop of the unfolding genocide in Gaza, “Our Land Back” hits particularly hard.
The night before Bill Orcutt’s Guitar Quartet bring their ecstatic minimalism to King’s Place, its members perform individual sets at Café Oto. There’s a strong sense of camaraderie and banter, with Ava Mendoza introducing Orcutt as the benign patriarch of their backwoods guitar family. Shane Parrish is up first, weaving together threads of math-rock, Americana and English folk. Wendy Eisenberg performs a song-based set, their delicate jazz-inflected melodies underpinned by intricate voicings. Introduced as “the shredder in a band of shredders,” Mendoza has the biggest sound of them all, channelling Hendrix and Sharrock in an arresting set of avant-blues songs. Grappling with his four-string Telecaster, Orcutt closes with tender and ferocious readings of tunes from 2023’s Jump On It. A great night of guitar soli.
Café Oto’s festival closer is James Brandon Lewis with his Molecular Quartet of pianist Aruan Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Chad Taylor. Together, they articulate the saxophonist’s Molecular Systematic Music, a cellular approach to composition. For all the sophistication of Lewis’s musical language, its blues and gospel roots come through strongly. It’s no surprise that Sonny Rollins is a fan: Lewis combines power and precision with lyricism and swing. Ortiz is a marvel, his fleet runs and bold right-hand patterns informed by Afro-Cuban traditions. Taylor is astonishing as ever, synthesising diverse drumming traditions into a ceaselessly inventive, indelibly funky style. Supple and melodic, Jones is the perfect glue. A beautiful band.