To Kings Place, the apostrophe-light home of the left-leaning Guardian, the liberal-minded London Sinfonietta, and for tonight, a new free-thinking jazz ensemble. This was to be the first public sighting of a constellation of 12 stars drawn from across the UK jazz galaxy under the curatorship of Orphy Robinson. Expectations of musical supernovae were high by virtue of their none-more-luminous name: The Spontaneous Cosmic RawXtra.
Vibraphonist Robinson and vocalist Cleveland Watkiss are probably the best known names in this group, but there are some other huge talents in there – from saxophonists Ntshuks Bonga and Shabaka Hutchings (who was playing clarinet tonight) to Spring Heel Jack collaborator Pat Thomas and fiery drummer Steve Noble. Clearly they are being set up as some sort of contemporary Arkestra, but where that band merrily mines the Ellington/Henderson songbooks for its inspiration, TSCR have their roots grounded in UK club culture. Hence Watkiss can spit drum and bass rhythms into the mic while Andrew Ward (aka HKB Finn) adds spoken word tales about late night London and chasing dreams across dancefloors. These roots stretched downwards, back in time, picking up traces of In A Silent Way era-Miles and motifs from A Love Supreme, even referencing Steve Reich via some phased clapping music of their own.
The first half of the performance – which Robinson conducted – suffered a little from a lack of spontaneity, and from perhaps not being raw enough. And, truth be told, it wasn’t *that* cosmic. But when Robinson switched to vibes, it seemed to free the ensemble up for some exciting extended passages of free playing. One of these ended with Bonga, Hutchings and Brian Edwards locking together in raucous reed riffage, with Watkiss almost bent double on the stage, howling his contribution. If ever it looked like getting a little straight, Noble and Thomas were quick to hammer it back out of shape – the excellent Thomas (who I’d previously only seen on electronics) pounding out misshapen chords while Noble assaulted an array of metal objects, gamelan, pan lids, whatever. It ended – as I’m starting to think all gigs do – with a gleeful performance of Sun Ra’s “Space Is The Place”, with a seemingly-reluctant horn section being pressed into vocal duties before Watkiss and Ward carried it to its home among the stars. They don’t always do it, but when the Spontaneous Cosmic RawXtra live up to the promise of their name, they can be quite stellar.
1 comment
October 30, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Simon Henry
I really enjoyed this gig! I thought it was fresh and exciting with the multimedia spot on as well! I disagree with The reviewer who seems to have no real Knowledge of Sunra originals, so totally missed all the Sunra numbers that the ensemble quite cleverly quoted in to the first half! I heard lines from “Love in outer Space”and Outer Spaceways Incorporated to name a couple plus some fantastic moments were flute & Clarinet combined to quote some Art Ensemble of Chicago/Braxton heads in there as well!
As for the lack of spontaneity bit That’s a very odd statement in the context of what Robinson was doing throughout! He was using Conduction techniques to move in and out of very free improv and all manner of textures and soundscapes were happening simultaneously!In fact having approached the stage in the interval I did notice the music sheets on the stands had next to nothing written on them,I quickly realised that the majority of what we were hearing was improvised!
This for me would denote quite a large dose of Spontaneity!
Correct me if I am wrong but the instruments that Robinson played had wooden notes this is actually called a Marimba, He played some good pocket Trumpet as well NOT VIBES (whereas Corey Mwamba played some lovely Vibes throughout an instrument with Metal notes or bars)!
A strange review this one!Anyway I am going to watch the progress of this ensemble as I think they are a welcome and very interesting addition the Free scene!