Chicago has long been a home for the experimental fringes of improvised music. Ever since free jazz pianist Muhal Richard Abrams co-founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1965 – to counter the dwindling popularity of jazz at the time – the Windy City has produced a largely self-sustaining ecosystem of modern instrumentalists pushing the boundaries of their artform.
While earlier examples include the likes of saxophonist Anthony Braxton and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the last decade has seen a revival of Chicago’s jazz lineage on the international stage via the critically acclaimed releases of drummer and producer Makaya McCraven and composer Angel Bat Dawid.
Musician Damon Locks moved to Chicago in the late 1980s and has been a pillar of the city’s artistic community ever since. His most recent work takes the form of his collective of singers, dancers and musicians, the Black Monument Ensemble. Performing as part of the 2021 EFG London jazz festival, Locks now brings this free-form celebration of Chicago’s Black musical legacy to the art deco space of Hackney’s EartH.
Largely silent through the 90-minute performance, Locks instead conducts his eight-person group through whirling dances across the stage – his black cape flying in syncopation with the percussionist’s slaps on the congas; his leaps into the air signifying the thump of the kick drum.
When he isn’t dancing, Locks is stationed behind a desk of hardware, shuffling papers and triggering vocal samples on the themes of affirmation and self-determination. The band follow his intuitive lead with three vocalists providing tessellated harmonies alongside trumpeter Ben LaMar Gay’s reverb-laden solos and Dawid’s frenetic runs on the clarinet.
The result is an at times almost overwhelming tumult of sound, held at bay only by a consistent sense of groove. This tension between stability and chaos is where Locks operates best, laying down tracks such as the synth-looping Now (Forever Momentary Space) and explosive Power. It is a congregational cry that stills us listeners with its immediacy; a free jazz eruption that Locks channels from Chicago to bring to us here in the fleeting moment of its making.
