Results for "Sons of Kemet"

Sons of Kemet

Over the last half decade, Shabaka Hutchings has established himself as a central figure in the London jazz scene, which is enjoying its greatest creative renaissance since the breakthroughs of Joe Harriott and Evan Parker in the 1960s. Hutchings has a restlessly creative and refreshingly open-minded spirit, playing in a variety of groups—most notably, Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming, and Shabaka & the Ancestors—and embracing influences from the sounds of London’s diverse club culture, including house, grime, jungle, and dub. “The common theme in my career as a jazz musician has been wondering if what I’m doing is the thing that I should be doing,” says Hutchings, who studied classical clarinet at college at London’s prestigious Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Building Back Jazz Brick by Brick in East London

by Peter Jones
May 2, 2024

Brick Lane Jazz Festival London April 26-28, 2024 The most innovative and thrilling jazz currently emerging from the UK is centred on a few grimy, narrow streets on the east side of London. The pioneering work that goes on in this elaborately-graffitied neighbourhood has, in recent years, contributed much to the ...

Shabaka Hutchings: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace

by Chris May
April 24, 2024

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes ... Since signing with with Impulse! in 2018, Shabaka Hutchings has become best known for his incendiary work on tenor saxophone with Sons Of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & The Ancestors. Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace marks the start of a gentler, more instrospective phase in his music ...

Shabaka: This Is The Moment To Make Patient Music

by Leo Sidran
April 19, 2024

Shabaka Hutchings grew up between the UK and Barbados. He started playing clarinet as a young boy in Barbados and eventually moved back to England to go to music school in the early 2000s.After college he began a period of working furiously on a kaleidoscopic range of projects and became an icon of the ...

Balimaya Project at Barbican Centre

by Chris May
October 20, 2023

Balimaya Project Barbican Centre, Main Hall When The Dust Settles London October 17, 2023 Founded in 2019 by London-based djembe player Yahael Camara Onono, the eighteen-piece Balimaya Project is an all-male ensemble dedicated to celebrating its members' African musical heritages, which it approaches as evolving, future-facing entities. The band blends ...

Balimaya Project: When The Dust Settles

by Chris May
August 12, 2023

Formed in 2019 by London-based drummer and percussionist Yahael Camara Onono, the sixteen-piece Balimaya Project blends traditional West African Mandé music with modal jazz and other sounds out of modern Black London. The ensemble's closest comparator, albeit at some remove, is the veteran Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab who, in the 1980s, were hugely popular at home ...

Festival International de Jazz de Montréal 2023

by Mark Sullivan
July 19, 2023

Festival International de Jazz de Montreal Montreal, Quebec June 29-July 3, 2023 The 2023 festival continued the broad offering of free shows that was so prominent last year. They were frequently strong enough to vie with the ticketed concerts (which were also quite diverse and featured marquee artists from jazz and adjacent ...

Makaya McCraven: In The Moment to In These Times

by Rob Garratt
June 13, 2023

Makaya McCraven needs a coffee--fast. It's 4pm and he's crashing. It will be his third of the day. His first caffeine hit, consumed on stage six hours earlier, was a chemical necessity; McCraven was drinking at a nearby Irish pub until the early hours and nearly missed his early morning panel talk appearance alongside fellow percussion ...

Ezra Collective's Femi Koleoso: On Tony Allen and UK jazz today

by Rob Garratt
March 13, 2023

Of all the artists to emerge from the overbaked “UK jazz explosion" of recent years, Ezra Collective are arguably the greatest crossover success--based on Spotify stats and tour bookings, anyway. And while the juggernaut of early hype may have worn itself out, things are only looking rosier in 2023: The barrier-busting London quintet is currently gearing ...

Nubya Garcia & Shabaka Hutchings Meditate Together On Bitches Brew

by Chris May
March 13, 2023

New releases from London doff the hat to two 20th century American masterpieces. Both of the new albums feature tenor saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings, playing alongside each other and kicking up a storm alongside other luminaries of the London scene. The double album London Brew (Concord) is to be released on ...