The players on this heartfelt and accomplished brew of African, Caribbean and urban dance grooves, R&B and 60s Blue Note-ish ensemble harmonies are mostly young Londoners. But they often sound like old souls, and with roots in varied places, like so many of the culturally sharp-eared newcomers currently revitalising UK jazz. Driftglass composer Cassie Kinoshi also plays alto sax in the prizewinning jazz septet Nérija and Afrobeat band Kokoroko, and composes in many guises, but her 10-piece SEED Ensemble feels like her truest home.
This album’s title comes from writer Samuel R Delany’s image of glass fragments washed by tides – which Kinoshi adopts as a metaphor for how the tides of improvisation and performance make compositions: “Evolve, grow, ebb and flow over time.” She regularly exposes her imaginative originals to that kind of process, and it shows.
The rhythmic drive of classic South African jazz and a 60s soul-jazzy brass/reeds sound blend in The Darkies, along with shapely trumpet breaks from Sheila Maurice-Gray and Miguel Gorodi, and windy, slewing roars from tubist Theon Cross. The stately motif and racing hip-hop pulse of Afronaut showcases poet/composer Xana’s mean-streets-to-infinity rap. Guitarist Shirley Tetteh and pianists Sarah Tandy and Joe Armon-Jones bring canny grooves and subtle textures to the brief Stargaze interludes, and Langston Hughes’s poem Wake becomes a work-song chant, before Cherise Adams-Burnett’s neo-soulful, staccato-scatting vocal on a Grenfell Tower dedication. A whippy three-note horn figure makes Mirrors (and tenor saxist Chelsea Carmichael’s contribution) a highlight, and Interplanetary Migration sounds like a jazz-funk/hi-life fusion, with south London rapper Mr Ekow barrelling through it. Driftglass’s improv isn’t always as strong as Kinoshi’s writing, but these players don’t sound as if they’ll take long to narrow that gap.
Also out this month
German piano legend Joachim Kühn has unveiled a unique set of lyrical, spiritual, and gently playful Ornette Coleman compositions (Melodic Ornette Coleman), written for their 1990s live shows together, but never previously released. Former Esbjorn Svensson partners Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström join jazz/electronic pioneer Bugge Wesseltoft in prog-jazz supertrio Rymden, joining an EST and 1970s-Miles feel to rich synth-scenery on Reflections & Odysseys. And tuba phenomenon Theon Cross and friends belt through Sons of Kemet-like jive, slinky backbeat-slappy sax hooks, talkative tuba wah-wah improv and more on Fyah.
