Three different notions of jazz – cool, song-rooted swing; hip-hop and rap-fuelled street sounds; a lyrical remix with contemporary-classical and world music – made up the three-night eXplorations festival at Kings Place. Trumpeter Jay Phelps steered the first, Birmingham saxist and rapper Soweto Kinch the second and the world-jazz pianist Alex Wilson the third, but all guested on each other's shows. It was smart programming, offering audiences alternative ways into jazz each night.
Soweto Kinch's gig was a scalding display of post-Coleman alto-sax improvising, a virtuosic and intelligent exposition of political rap, and a visually riveting event into the bargain. Accompanied only by his keyboard-mimicking laptop, bassist Karl Rasheed-Abel and drummer Graham Godfrey for much of the gig, Kinch instantly revealed the barking emphasis and melodic resourcefulness that has made him a world-league saxophonist. Phelps joined for some pieces, the group then becoming an unruly, imploring brass/reeds mix reminiscent of the gospel-like free jazz of the late Ayler brothers. Kinch turned an orthodox ballad into a venomous wordplay on bank names in The Love of Money, and the set wound up on an exuberant Latin-tinged tune with the arrival of Wilson on piano.
The second half was the real tour de force, however, unveiling Kinch's work in progress – The Trials of Mike Smith, a contemporary take on The Seven Deadly Sins. A stinging sax line over a choppy, free-funk pulse, a rhythmically treacherous ballad and the deliciously dolorous sax/trumpet theme of Vacuum preceded a long sequence featuring the remarkable dancer Tyrone Isaac-Stuart. A bewildered and then angry rap on materialism ("When will I get mine?"), a breathtaking blur of dance movement in response to Kinch's doubling of the rap tempo and a freestyle passage with audience participation wound up the bold reinvention of music, drama and dance for which Kinch is rightly becoming famous.
