Kamasi Washington @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead - April 5

Kamasi Washington (tenor sax, keyboards); Rickey Washington (soprano sax, flute); Patrice Quinn (vocals); Tony Austin (drums); Brandon Coleman (keyboards); DJ Battlecat (turntables, percussion, keyboards); Ryan Porter (trombone); Joshua Crumbley (bass).

First, some demographics in the light of last week’s APPG Jazz Review: there’s a lot of people here, even up into the gods on Level 3, and a lot of them seem to be towards the upper end of the age scale. Even the mosh pit had a higher than expected level of crinklies in it, your greying correspondent included.

On stage subtlety is only an occasional visitor to the proceedings. Washington deals in ambition, big emotions, volume and energy. A rolling thunder opening on the drums leads into an ‘overture’ of short sections which serve to show off the band members’ chops before Kamasi starts to climb, knitting a solo together from short phrases to a full flowing edifice of blaring shapes and torrents of notes while the rhythm section digs in behind him. The piece, Lusana, continues with some spare keyboard phrasing over bomb-dropping funk from the back line which develops into a solid, boots-on-the-ground driving riff.

Asha The First follows. Based on a simple riff Kamasi’s daughter had created on ‘her’ piano at home, it’s developed into a space age excursion with Rickey’s soprano starting mellow and growing to reach the heights, full of trills and swoops. Kamasi’s solo starts as subtle understatement over stepped down backing with darting piano but grows through warmly conversational up to furious blasts. Battlecat works in some scratching, mixing in samples as keys and bass join in on the way to a full wall of sound with the full band.

Patrice Quinn takes the lead for Lines in the Sand, an optimistic soulful balled the highlight of which is Crumbley’s elegant mellow late night singing bass solo. Kamasi and Porter punch out a forceful riff in between the verses.

The next piece opens with some synthesised squelches that evolve into some mellow funk of the finest kind while Coleman plays a delicate, refined, gentle solo over soft drums and mallets on the cymbals. It grows into some bluesier places pushed along by more persistent drumming from Austin as Coleman hammers out heavy chords on the piano and it all climbs to a dramatic peak before Austin’s loud, splashy, but not overlong, drum solo.

Battlecat plays the album recording of Get Lit, which featured Parlia-funkadelic’s George Clinton before the band reconvene for Computer Love, a lush romantic ballad during which Quinn promises to count the stars for me; Porter provides some warm, glowing trombone and Kamasi an easy grooving, late night solo which grows in intensity before Porter’s trombone comes back in to give it extra heft, by which time we are storming and Kamasi is blowing free. The romance follows into Together a mid-paced soul ballad with all the front line of voice, flute tenor and trombone all singing together; Porter’s solo is full of blues slides and romantic yearnings. Crumbley’s bass lifts it into a jog and it’s all now about escape and freedom.

The closer, Astor Piazzola’s Prologue opens with a torrent of keys before the drums crash and soon becomes another full, in-your-face, wall of sound. A slower section of swirling keys and tenor sax is anchored by the bass; the promise of more explosions hovers at the edges before moving centre stage for another rolling, solid rampage.

Kamasi Washington is a supreme showman and the octet produces a huge sound (some extra choral vocals are on tape). The music is layered but usually builds to something colossal. He just seems to have more ambition and more vision than most others in jazz these days and this band has what it takes to get him wherever he wants to go. Top gig.

Emma-Jean Thackray (guitar, vocals, keyboard, trumpet) was the support act. She was crammed into a couple of square metres at one edge of the stage on her own and used a lot of pre-recorded rhythms in support of (mainly) her guitar and voice. I’ve heard her first album and felt it was good in parts but lacked a singular focus. For this evening she seemed to have left most of her jazz leanings behind and served up, instead a mix of rock, pop, soul, funk, dance and even grunge with a nod towards West Africa. The trumpet made only fleeting appearances. However, her new sound wasn’t half bad and I went from unimpressed to ‘when’s the album out?’ I suspect that she would really impress with a full band and she did go down well with the audience on Saturday night. Dave Sayer