Here’s a paradox. Strangely, it seems easier to tell the story of Shabaka Hutchings’s music, and of the recent radical departure in it, by explaining what it isn’t rather than what it is.
First, cast an eye over last night’s stage lay-out (below). From left to right: two harps, Shabaka himself on various wooden flutes and clarinet, a keyboard/synth player, and a piano/electronics player. Guests on vocals and guitar (the full list of this very classy band is below).
OK, but what does all that actually mean? It means no drums, nothing of any kind is being hit. At all.
And what does that mean? No dancing. This is carefully wrought music for seated audiences. And yes, you can forget that cliché about the “new London jazz scene” making jazz accessible by bringing it to the dance floor.. it starts to look, er, questionable… and that’s being kind.
And Shabaka’s instruments, and in particular the shakuhachi, an instrument of contemplation played by wandering musicians, those seventeenth-century straw-mat “monks of emptiness” known as komosō who wanted to express their detachment… and his rejection of the saxophone (an instrument of war developed for the French army under King Louis Philippe…) What does that mean?
Again it is a negation, a retreat into a kind of creative activity, of study, which Shabaka is utterly determined to explore on his own terms. As he says, gently, thoughtfully: “I have the privilege to be a beginner. ”
That is not a familiar world to anyone. All I can see is that Shabaka has a very clear concept of how this particular, unusual and gentle sound-world can function. And it is fascinating place to be. My good friend Dick Hovenga went to the very well-received opening gig of the current tour at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, and described it as “a drone-like atmosphere, slightly disturbing, always intriguing.”
The full-house Barbican audience which rose to its feet to show its admiration and appreciation at the end of last night’s show thought was thinking that too. And I have the strangest of hunches that the Grammy jury is finally going to take notice of him as well…
BAND:
Shabaka Hutchings – Winds
Miriam Adefris – Harp
Alina Bzhezhinska – Harp
Hinako Omori – Keys and Synths
Elliot Galvin – Piano/ electronics
Guests: Dave Okumu – Guitar
Eska Mtungwazi – Vocals
SET LIST
As the planets
Insecurities
The forest in the dream
The wounded
I’ll do whatever you want
Living
End of innocence
Black meditation
Song of the motherland
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