Spirit Fingers play a complex original kind of music in the jazz fusion spectrum that was originally conceived as an antidote to the musical banality of Spero touring with pop singer Halsey. Each composition is seeded from a different polyrhythm. Despite complexity, this music manages to be lyrical, emotional and engaging. Spero is a talented composer with the knack of writing evocative compositions that provide an inspirational springboard for improvisers. 

Their eponymous 2018 album was a masterpiece whose significance is becoming apparent through the filter of time. A jazz artist’s influence can partly be validated by the number and intensity of the next generation musicians who learn to play their music. Spero says he regularly finds that there are young musicians who play his music in any city with a jazz school. 

Jazz Re:freshed arranged this pop-up gig having spotted Spero’s announcement on social media that he was coming to London. The show was announced about a week before the performance. Over 200 people showed up. 

Spero connected with a group of young London musicians already plugged-in to his music. 20 year old Ebow “Lox” Mensah  (drums), who has won a scholarship to study at Berklee was the ringleader of the London team. In his crew were Matt May, an electric bass player with a terrific reputation in Guildhall circles, where he graduated last November, and described by Spero as a prodigy. On guitar, Ben Glasser, a 25 year old who went pro straight after A-levels a few years ago. 

This dynamic was reminiscent of London visits by Steve Coleman three decades ago, where he was received by Quite Sane and future F-IRE Collective devotees who moulded their own musical identities in Coleman’s wake. Each generation of young musicians identify their tribal leader.

This was a remarkable performance, playing Spirit Fingers pieces entitled “Inside”, “Release”, “Maps”, “Find” and “You”. Each piece showcased Spero’s sophisticated writing, and the virtuosity of the whole band. The group exhibited tremendous control over musical intensity, adeptly building tension over extended passages and resolving to satisfying resolutions. The compositions were full of simple hummable refrains that moved into sections of virtuosic unison runs, and exciting improvised solos, all underpinned with insistent trance inducing drumming from Lox. The band captivated the rapturous audience throughout the hour long set, with yelps of appreciation peppered throughout critical moments in the set. 

It’s great to hear such talented young players coming up in London playing at such a high level. It is remarkable that a performance at this level was organised in such an impromptu manner. It makes you wonder what they could achieve with more time. We can look forward Spero’s next UK visit.

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The trio is highly compelling and distinguished by Gonzalo’s blistering, sinewy improvised right hand runs punctuated by arresting, syncopated left hand stabs that have an extraordinary level of rhythmic precision. His “time feel” is unique and exceptional. His piano technique is simply astonishing in its fluency, speed and control. The ensemble playing is outrageously tight, especially in the intricate composed sections. 

This group follows many of the conventions of the classic jazz piano trio form: head, improvised solos, and trading. But this is not a straight-ahead band. Gonzalo’s melodic language is a long way from straight bebop and swing is used sparingly. This is his original musical vocabulary, honed over decades. 

His first three pieces are new to me. It’s challenging to comprehend many of his improvised lines, to hear connections between his phrases. Where’s the clear motivic development that we’ve come to expect in the jazz tradition? The improvisation sounds so slick and fluid but it is not easy to digest straight away. His approach feels unashamedly intellectual, uncompromising.

By the fourth tune I recognise fragments of melody. Later in the set, he announces this piece as Bill Evans’ “Gloria’s Step”.

His fifth piece quickly reveals itself as “Caravan” and the familiarity is a welcome relief from the intensity of the earlier pieces. This famous tune, steeped in decades of latin jazz infusions, provides an ideal vehicle to showcase his Cuban jazz heritage. Ernesto Simpson’s drum solo brilliantly draws on the sparky language of salsa percussionist timbale masters. This is an exhilarating performance that provides a real climax to the set.

For several decades, jazz piano has been dominated by the trinity of Herbie, Chick, and Keith. And there is a slow motion change of guard occurring right in front of our eyes. I can’t help wondering who will be recognised as the world’s best jazz pianists of the 21st century. Gonzalo Rubalcaba is a serious contender for inclusion into the pantheon. A one-time prodigy, his talent was endorsed at the start of his career by a previous generation of jazz masters including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Haden, and Paul Motian. He won a 2022 Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental album, for Skyline, and the solo album Borrowed Roses, released six months ago, is superb too (Review by Liam Noble).   

His talents are immense, his musical gifts quite astonishing, but in this Ladbroke Hall performance – and, who knows, maybe there were particular circumstances involved – I missed the ability to connect to us with simple, singable, memorable melodies that we fall in love with, what one might call the popular touch. I would love to see him connect with audiences more deeply and witness his ascent into more widespread recognition as one of the very best pianists alive today.

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Bringing his quartet (with Ben Solomon – tenor sax, Kanoa Mendenhall – bass, and RJ Miller – drums) to Ronnie Scott’s for the London Jazz Festival 2023, the band opened with one of his compositions “Park Lope”, which had a bluesy bebop New York swing sound that brought to mind early Coltrane. However, most of his other compositions in the set leaned away from bebop and swing towards influences such as Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett and the ECM Records universe. So this band offers an interesting glimpse of a particular direction in jazz that retains the traditional line-up but points away from the mainstream.

Most jazz musicians borrow vocabulary and other stylistic traits heavily from their heroes. This was far less obvious in Parks’s playing, which displayed a more individual approach.

The fact that the band held the audience’s attention well and has a strong following on Spotify are testament to the success of Aaron Parks’s musical direction.

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Benny Green’s prodigious talent brought him regular work at a young age with some of the greatest jazz masters including Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Betty Carter, and Freddie Hubbard. Decades of first-hand experience with some of the biggest names in the music, have made him into one of the most accomplished pianists of his generation.

During the COVID lockdown, Benny spent his retreat time developing solo piano repertoire, and writing essays about his experiences with the jazz masters. He shared his progress on Facebook regularly. This process culminated in a solo piano album, “Solo” (link below) released earlier this year . So it was a real pleasure to hear him performing this repertoire live in London.

Over two sets he played twenty pieces, nearly all composed by his jazz piano heroes and mentors including Horace Silver, Duke Pearson, Duke Ellington, Dr Billy Taylor, Hank Jones, Bobby Timmons, Tommy Flanagan, Randy Weston, James Williams and Kenny Barron. His love of and devotion to the repertoire of the hard bop movement of the 50s and 60s is a welcome contribution that helps keep this music vibrant today.

His mastery of the tradition and the instrument are astonishing. His playing is characterised by a virtuosic but understated command of a wide variety of textures and techniques that allude to larger group performance styles. Whether playing quiet ballads with the lightest pianissimo, or shouting big band-like choruses in block chords with both hands, executing blistering up-tempo runs, sometimes in parallel with both hands, his improvisations are always immaculately phrased and underpinned by his impeccable swing feel and bluesy bebop vocabulary. This music is a precision art form where microsecond differences distinguish the best from the mediocre. Benny always manages to execute these subtleties perfectly and with impeccable taste.

Jazz is, at its heart, a collaborative music which frequently employs at least four musical brains to create the melody, the chords, the bass line, and the rhythm. So, the solo jazz pianist has an extreme challenge, as they need to do the work of four brains and would ideally have at least three hands. Benny Green handles this challenge as brilliantly as anyone alive today.

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Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is a Los Angeles based composer and multi-instrumentalist string player who has contributed to over 600 recordings to date. Miguel was recently seen conducting Floating Points at the Hollywood Bowl. He has also led a high quality live re-imagining of Charlie Parker with Strings for Summerstage in Central Park, New York City. These orchestral jazz projects provide a glimpse of his dedication and emerging pre-eminence as mastermind of a new-found harmony between the worlds of jazz and the symphony orchestra. This breakthrough marks a promising point of departure from the blighted history of crossover projects that failed because the artists had too shallow an understanding of both traditions. “Les Jardins Mystiques Vol.1” continues to explore this confluence.

About half of the tracks on this album are quite short. Many are under two minutes. But some contain tremendous depth. Here are some noteworthy highlights of the longer tracks.

The opening track “Kiseki” immediately presents a stunning soundscape of rare beauty that reminds me of the peaceful chorus of a new dawn.

I enjoyed the introspective and rhapsodic improvised piano and viola duet, with Austin Peralta, a piano prodigy who died prematurely, aged 22. Listening to this track, entitled “Eudaimonia”, I appreciated Peralta’s imagination, taste and sensitivity. He serves up lush, constantly changing jazz harmonies and textures that intertwine with Miguel’s more classically influenced viola melodies. Peralta’s improvised piano solo lines are lyrical and elegant. This duo is a satisfying pairing of complementary voices and acts as a welcome homage to Peralta’s rare gift.

Los Angeles’ The Blue Whale club plays host to “Ano Yo”, a filmed Live performance, which is closer to an archetypal jam session with head and improvised solos, from a two-sax jazz quintet expanded with two harps, electric violin and percussion. I felt the strings added a refreshingly beautiful, rich and varied timbral palette which was immediately pleasant to the ear. Improvised solos by Devin Daniels (alto sax) and Greg Spero (piano) are joyous, exciting, melodic and controlled. Gene Coye’s sensitive drum kit wizardry underpins the whole performance superbly. The skill and originality are reminiscent of the best of Snarky Puppy’s early work.   

Bringing more orchestral sounds to the palette, “Kairos (Amor Fati)” is a highly arranged piece with a flute-led melody that brings to my mind a slow-motion Hermeto Pascoal. It has a pleasant and gentle, relaxed groove with a satisfying chord progression and is decorated throughout with numerous orchestral colours such as harp glissandi, pizzicato strings, brassy riffs, piano runs and sweeping string sections. There is a stunning lyrical piano solo which is not obviously credited. 

In-vogue Gen-Z duo DOMi & JD Beck are featured on the lead single “Kairos (Kefi)”. It is intricately composed and features catchy melodic ideas. Stylistically, it spans jazz fusion, electronica, and the orchestra. The composition revolves around a repeated eight bar harmonic progression of major 9th chords which somehow manage to create in me the feeling of infinity, like Coltrane’s Giant Steps sequence or a Möbius-loop. Rhythmically, it is propelled by JD Beck’s modern, busy, computer-precise drumming and DOMi delivers a virtuosic solo on keys. 

This album gives us a tremendous insight into the extraordinary range of Atwood-Ferguson’s colossal talent. Everything on the album is remarkably high quality; the writing, the musicianship, the sound quality, and the collaborators. Styles and genres are  blended to the point where old distinctions evaporate. The dedication and effort in creating this vast body of work is clearly immense. I was left wondering what the backstory of each track might be. This is a record whose depth demands extended repeat listening, perhaps over years. 

However, I find the length and volume of this album to actually be a distraction from the high quality of the best tracks. To nitpick further, I question why there is so much computer programming on the album. A shorter album of live or studio recorded music with less obvious computer production might be more satisfying.

“Les Jardins Mystiques Vol.1” is a real achievement and powerful statement of Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s wide ranging talent. Certainly a musician to watch out for.

“Les Jardins Mystiques Vol.1” is released on 10 November 2023.

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The Khans are one of India’s most highly regarded musical families who have nurtured and contributed to the classical sitar tradition over seven generations of professional musicians. Nishat, who now sits at the helm of this distinguished clan, learnt the music mainly from his father Imrat Khan from the age of three and was performing in public aged seven. His international debut aged seventeen at the Queen Elizabeth Hall is now well over forty years ago. 

Indian Classical Music is a powerful tradition that has influenced many other forms of music and has much in common with jazz. Both art forms are highly sophisticated aural traditions based on improvisation. Some say that Indian Classical Music was a significant influence on the conception of the modal jazz movement. The jazz world still has plenty to learn from Indian Classical Music’s raga approach to melody, and tala approach to rhythm. There are hundreds of ragas, each of which define notes, motifs and melodic rules to create specific feelings or moods. Talas are rhythmic patterns, outlined by the tabla drums, some of which are asymmetrical rhythms, upon which tremendous passages of terrific musical tension and satisfying release are constructed. The richness of the ragas and talas enable masters to explore them in performances that can last hours. The art form has fascinated numerous jazz musicians. It was so important to John Coltrane that he named his son Ravi after his sitar playing friend. 

Some other jazz musicians of note in this particular cross-cultural arena include Colin Walcott, an American sitar player, who recorded on ECM records, and John McLaughlin, who led several bands inspired by Indian Classical Music including the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti. 

Nishat Khan has also performed with John McLaughlin and can be heard on his album The Promise. His jazz connections go deeper, having also played with Django Bates and Steve Coleman.

Nishat’s concert on 11 November is a chance to hear this sitar master performing his unique take on ancient ragas. 

Ian Latham studied sitar with Wajahat Khan and ethnomusicology at UCLA. He is currently studying jazz piano with Greg Spero.

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