Promising up and coming acts Joel Culpepper, Rough Copy and Chasing Grace took to the stage of London's highly respected Jazz Café in January to perform for popular '90s Hip Hop and R&B night, Supa Dupa Fly.
On an unseasonably scorching summers day in London, KRS One aka The Blastmaster aka The Teacha, lecturer, author and Hip-Hop legend bounds onto the Jazz Café stage for the first of a two night stand [July 23-24], with all the enthusiasm of a kid running out of the school gates on a Friday afternoon. For the next hour and a half he proceeds to give a master class in how to rock a crowd, command the stage and deliver an authentic, all the way live show - fluffed freestyles and all.
On my way into the Jazz Café on July 22, a sign in the window possesses some unwelcome news; “Due to medicals reasons, Pete Rock will not be able to perform tonight.” After the initial disappointment wears off, the fact is if it were Ayers who had pulled out the gig would probably have been cancelled, so the audience are even more grateful than usual to see Ayers amble onstage and pick up his trusty mallets tonight.
Backed by a drummer, a keyboardist/saxophonist, backing singer and bassist – the ageless Ayers (70?! Really?!) makes it look oh so easy as he leads the band and audience on a trip through his many classics early in his set. The one two punch of the lush “Searching” and the timeless beauty of “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” has everyone in the venue singing and swaying together and all of a sudden the Jazz Café resembles the atmosphere of an old football stadium terrace.
In a double bill of live Atlanta Soul, Avery Sunshine made her UK debut alongside Anthony David onstage at London's Jazz Cafe earlier this month. With no prior knowledge of Avery Sunshine’s music and fond familiarity of Anthony David’s, it was to be a night of discovery and familiarity in equal parts for me...
Avery Sunshine was first up...
With a successful and thriving career already under her belt - that has seen Avery Sunshine perform with the likes of Michael Buble, Rachelle Ferrell and Karen Clark-Sheard - this multi-faceted songstress now unveils her debut album as a solo artist. A highly skilled keys player and vocalist, she has also lent her voice to the movie soundtrack for The Fighting Temptations, and was the choral director for the Tony Award winning production of Dreamgirls.
This self-titled album demonstrates Avery’s blend of jazz, soul, gospel and R&B, which
Nathan Watson took to the Jazz Cafe stage last Wednesday stage with boyish style, rocking a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt combined with the iconic '60s Hendrix jacket, an afro reminiscent of Maxwell's Now phase and a band composed with similar Motown funk/rock soul retro appeal.
I was confused for a second and didn't know what to expect from such a visual rainbow of black music triggers (Nathan and guitarist have enough hair to weave both Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan's heads). However, as soon as the soul man opened his mouth, he captured our attention with a swooping high falsetto asking us repeatedly: "Are you ready? Jazz Café, are you ready?"
Melanie Fiona brought The Bridge to life on Tuesday night in a high-energy, dynamic and electrifying performance at London’s Jazz Cafe.
The night started with a stellar warm-up set by new artist Daley, whose soulful simpers sailed effortlessly over Maxwell’s “Pretty Wings” amongst his own tracks to a moderately full crowd.
When Melanie Fiona graced the stage around 30 minutes later, however, the space was packed to almost-sweatbox conditions and the crowd welcomed her with rapturous applause. The intimate surroundings served Melanie well as she explained that, while she enjoyed touring in huge arenas with Alicia Keys, “I love being able to see your faces!”
Despite how effortless and intrepid a musician at their best might be on a stage, don’t you sometimes just get the impression that they’re not quite being themselves? The short answer is yes, obviously - that is [for most] what makes a live performance worth watching.
A parallel opposite, when it comes to Meshell Ndegeocello and her expansive show last Monday night at London’s Jazz Café not only did the pianist, bass player and singer seem almost too herself, it was as if the veil which usually exists between artist and general human being had been burnt like an effigy at a fundamentalist demonstration and tossed in the corner.
Whether or not New Orleans born rapper Jay Electronica will eventually be known as Hip Hop’s last great hope or merely Hip Hop’s latest great hype is a question which has agitated and befuddled the underground Rap community since at least his 2007 release Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge), in which Jay rhymes over snippets of Jon Brion's immaculate score for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The answer to the question is, of course, what hundreds of Hip Hop fans left their homes for and why they turned up in droves last Thursday night at Camden’s Jazz Café - where Jay was to stage his debut headline performances.
After filling the crowd with more anticipation than the air in 600 balloons by emerging on stage over an hour later then expected, Jay goes straight into a short tribute to the late J Dilla and then asks the crowd to raise their fingers up in a moment of commemoration. The surprising thing here is how quickly the audience obeys and how strangely at ease this man is on stage. Jay is so at ease, in fact, that he starts drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels, invites a fan up to have his picture taken and eventually starts discussing his favorite football team.
After several more of these comfortable interludes it occurs to me that these people aren’t here to find out if Jay is pure hype or true hope. These people already believe that Jay Electronica is the greatest rapper alive and are here just to tell him. And Jay is, of course, here to milk the admiration. Which he does with style, charisma and finesse.
There are lovers of music and there are lovers of music. There are those who harbour a healthy interest and others who embody music as an entity, oozing its essence from every pore. I suspect Michael Olatuja belongs to the latter group. One only has to observe the way he is completely at one with his bass guitar and the rapturous expression on his face as he plays. This was my conclusion after attending Michael’s album launch gig at the Jazz Café last night. Supported by Brendan Guyatt, Anna Omak and Alicia his wife on vocals, as well as young veteran Troy Miller on drums, David and Oliver Rockberger on guitar and piano respectively, Olatuja came prepared to bring the goods.