Shabaka

It has been six months since I saw Shabaka at Amsterdam’s Bimhuis. That was just a month after the release of his first solo album Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, which turned out to be completely different from anything he had done before. Sax was essentially off limits, displaced by a large collection of flutes. And the music was subdued, in contrast to the full throttle approach of bands like Sons of Kemet and The Comet is Coming.

He also has some exceptionally good musicians, notably Elliot Galvin on grand piano. It proved a great successso the opportunity to see the band again was welcome.

He does have a fascinating set-up: the others at the Royal Festival Hall are two harps (Alina Bzhezhinska and Miriam Adefris) electronics / synths (Hinako Omori) plus guest vocals at the end from Eska.

The venue this time is the impressively full Royal Festival Hall. With a simple ‘Hi, good evening, we’re gonna play some music for you’, Shabaka starts solo with a piece which shows how far his flute playing has come – one can hear that immediately, it’s so good.

The music on the album was built around flutes that create different atmospheres with their special origin (whether from Japan or Mexico) and timbre. Live, the harps and electronics give the band an entirely different sound. Galvin plays around this masterfully with his crisp piano and sometimes also brings in some electronics.

Shabaka has completely mastered the flute, especially in his use of breath. And his compositions sound even more lovely live. It makes for a varied and beautiful concert, and a standing ovation after an hour and a half of music.

A first solo encore with a tape of looped music works a little less well (why would you even want to loop when you have such good musicians with you….) but the second, using a double-barrelled flute from ancient Teotihuacan, is just glorious.

(This is UKJN’s English version of Dick Hovenga’s review, originally written in Dutch for Written in Music. )