Brazilian Funk legends Banda Black Rio return to London for a one off gig at Camden’s Jazz Café on Thursday 4th of August. Originally formed in Rio de Janeiro in 1976 they went on to become one of the most important bands in Brazilian music history, with legendary albums Maria...
Tag Archives: jazz
Paying tribute to one of the all time kings of music is no easy feat, however there are few as up the job as afro jazz pioneer Bukky Leo & Black Egypt, and few venues as apt as The Jazz Cafe. Approaching Fela’s eclectic back catalogue with their unique acid...
South African performance art ensemble, The Brother Moves On, bring their progressive afro-rock show to London Jazz Café. If Sun Ra was an indie kid born in a post-apartheid Johannesburg suburb, he would be in The Brother Moves On. These guys are conceptual artists whose line up and shows are...
One of the most exciting names on the UK music scene is also one of its most indefinable and difficult to pigeonhole. That’s because the musical ‘dirty’ dozen Nubiyan Twist (in honour of its front woman) dislikes definitions, labels or borders. The band, originally from Leeds, London, Oxford and Dublin...
It really is something special to see a live performance by ‘O Bruxo’ (the sorcerer). The eminent Brazilian musician, producer, arranger and composer Hermeto Pascoal was once described by Miles Davis, no less, as ‘the most impressive musician in the world.’ His show at London’s Barbican Centre was hugely anticipated...
“If you had to send a musical representative to another planet, Hermeto Pascoal would be the ideal person”, said one of his band members in a documentary of the legendary Brazilian musician. Hermeto, a brilliant composer, instrumentalist and bandleader will conjure up an eccentric and unique musical experience in which...
Listening to The Ground in its entirety sounds like a child of American hard bop. The songs speak a South African native’s hard bop: a mix of indigenous gospel, blues, piano and rhythm. Nduduzo Makhatini grew up in a small town in South Africa, uMgungungdlovo, once the capital of a...
Welcomed by a packed and doting Electric Brixton, The Hot 8 Brass Band met expectations: larger than life, feel-good and undoubtedly, infectiously groovy. Before the brassy boy entered, the muso Brixton crowd were well warmed with the reggae delights of the Ragga Twins. From their straight-up Jamaican vibes, to their...
Indulgent, complex, studied and immediate. Sons of Kemet’s criminally conceptual rhythms belie the overriding catchiness of a sound that dishes out hooks a plenty. Ominous lighting introduced the band who kicked things of with Tom Skinner and, newly cropped, Seb Rochford battering syncopated West African rhythms. This was tribal jazz...
Blending hip-hop, jazz and funk styles with the iconic sounds of New Orleans brass, bring your big brash boogie boots to Rich Mix next week, the Hot 8 Brass Band are in town. Formed by Bennie Pete, Jerome Jones, and Harry Cook in 1995, The Hot 8 not only merged two earlier bands – the Looney Tunes...