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This was nearly a one that got away as it has been floating around the man cave for a few months since its release at the end of March this year. I keep taking it off the shelf and giving it a spin in the house or the car. There was a bit of fuss when it first came out but it has been under the radar ever since and deserves an end of year nod.
Part of the original fuss
was the back story that led to the album’s creation. In an unusual reversal of
the prevalent flow of ideas and personnel, Bruce Lampcov, of Concord Jazz had,
on a visit to London from the American Colonies, seen young people dancing to
jazz being played by young people and came up with the idea for this album. The
original idea had been for a Bitches Brew
tribute concert but the COVID pandemic chucked a whole toolbox into the
works of that idea and London Brew evolved
from the chaos.
This double album is not
a remake but is still a tribute to, and is heavily inspired by, Bitches Brew, one of those albums where all
the rules on everything that had gone before in jazz went out the window and a whole new way of creating and recording
jazz was born. As with the original, the producer involved was a crucial
partner in the music’s creation. Martin Terefe and Dave Okumu shared
pre-production work with Benji B then fed their ideas back to the ensemble as
they arrived in the studio for 3 days of recording. Afterwards Terefe took the
12 hours of recordings and edited them down to 90 minutes. All of the musicians
plus Terefe are credited as the writers of all tracks.
The music itself reaches
back along the arc to Bitches Brew but
learns from and adapts to modern sounds and technology, (decks and sonic recycling,
anyone?).
Strangely, one of the
most striking aspects of the album is an absence. If you’ve listened to the
original as often as I have you expect that somewhere on this new project there
will be someone spitting those distinctive, fiery trumpet notes into the dark
void but there isn’t. There is no trumpeter to take on the Miles Davis role.
First impressions are of
great, forbidding slabs of music whereon the music isn’t so much arranged as
marshalled for a military campaign but there are subtleties within and many
opportunities for the performers to make their marks. Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya
Garcia (saxes) and Dave Okumu on guitar shine the brightest out of the strong playing
from all. It’s also a great melding of musical styles into a coherent single.
The Parliament/Funkadelic grooves that inspired Davis in the 60s are in there
along with hip hop and trip hop and other music from across the African
diaspora, (there’s even some swinging Caledonian folk).
It seems reasonable to
award points as well for the cover art which is credited as ‘Samplism Artwork’
by Toby Laurent Belson.
Three years after the
planned original performance at the Barbican in London, the concert finally went
ahead on November 18 as part of the London Jazz Festival. Dave Sayer
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