Guitarist Ant Law and singer and lyricist Brigitte Beraha. Ant plays The Parakeet and The Pheasantry
Ant Law is one of the UK’s finest jazz guitarists. His last album, Same Moon in the Same World (Outside in Music), a collaboration with saxman Alex Hitchcock, demonstrated how to put together a cohesive, exciting and involving album laden with starry special guests (eg, bassist Linda May Han Oh, vibes star Joel Ross and drummer Jeff Ballard) without the loss of focus big names sometimes bring.
It was difficult to grasp that this was a product of lockdown, with much of it recorded remotely, thanks to Covid.
His new album (due August 16) is a co-creation with Milan-born, British/Turkish singer, lyricist, and poet Brigitte Beraha, who has been touring her own project and associated albums (the ambitious Lucid Dreamers) for the past couple of years.
This duo record is called Ensconced (Ubuntu) and very good it is too. It opens with a languid standard, A Kiss to Build a Dream On, with Brigitte’s beautifully recorded voice to the fore and Ant’s deft voicings on steel-string acoustic ringing clear behind her.
It moves into original songs, keeping the same intimate feel – albeit with Brigitte stretching out to explore her impressive range – until it hits Harvest, where things gradually move up a gear or two, with wordless vocals from the singer and crafty, fluid soloing from the guitarist, all driven by dynamic drumming from Cuban maestro Ernesto Simpson.
The album then shifts into subtle electronic landscapes, adds tenor sax and, on the penultimate track, the lyrical but probing piano of the perennially underrated Kit Downes, before a final soft landing on another standard, a wistful, moving version of Some Other Time, the last notes of which will send you back to the beginning.
Ant plays two London gigs in the next few weeks. First, on July 15, he brings his new partnership with fellow axeman Chris Montague to The Parakeet pub in Kentish Town. Both are highly accomplished and innovative players and with Conor Chaplin on bass and Jeremy Stacey on drums, it’ll be a feast for the jazz senses. See: https://jazzattheparakeet.com
Then, on July 19, keeping the avian connection going, Ant plays The Pheasantry on the King’s Road. If you don’t know it, it’s a building full of 1960s/70s rock history – Eric Clapton and Germaine Greer lived there for a while (not together) and Lou Reed, Hawkwind, Thin Lizzy and Queen played the basement club.
It will be in that storied space that Ant will be playing with Brigitte, showcasing the tracks from their Ensconced album.
Well worth a trip west for hot pizza and very cool jazz. Book on: https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/ant-law-brigitte-beraha-ensconced
Knats play the bandstand at Kaleidoscope Festival on Saturday, July 13 [Ellie Slorick / @eslorick on Instagram]
• Incidentally, Kit Downes has his own highly recommended vocal/piano album out now – Outpost of Dreams (ECM) – with the legend that is Norma Winstone, as latterly sampled by Drake, but who deserves to be known for far more than that.
On the face of it the Kaleidoscope Festival at Alexandra Palace this Saturday (July 13) is not entirely within my jazz remit, but it is certainly within my neighbourhood, which is reason enough for me to walk up that hill for a day in the park. But there is a jazz connection. Soul II Soul, who are celebrating 35 years of Club Classics Vol One are among the headliners.
As Gilles Peterson pointed out on his Radio 6 show recently, Jazzie B and his crew changed the face of British music for ever. That album was also played in the homes of many of the parents of the present generation of young jazzers and so there is a definite link between the rude health and eclectic range of the genre now and Soul II Soul back in the day.
One obvious join-the-dots example is the band Knats, which comprises a quintet based around Stan Woodward (bass) and King David Ike Elechi (drums), two lifelong friends from Newcastle Upon Tyne.
I saw them play a storming set on the New Generation stage at the Love Supreme festival where they blended jazz, drum & bass, broken beat, house and gospel into a very modern mix for a young audience who were well up for some funky dance moves. Think Ezra Collective with a Geordie accent.
Knats play the Bandstand at Kaleidoscope at 13.25pm – don’t miss them, it’ll be a great start to the afternoon.
Also on the bill are Brighton’s shapeshifting but always entertaining Go! Team, who run the gamut from indie to hip-hop, and Huey Morgan, another Radio 6 stalwart, whose show always serves as a great appetiser for Gilles’s afternoon slot, and who debuts his new live band here.
DJs include Archway’s own Erol Alkan and the legendary Mr Scruff and there’s also comedy, with Simon Amstell and Sophie Duker, as well as “in conversation” with National Treasure and Intergalactic Foghorn Brian Blessed.
Stand well back. The day will end with lasers and another tranche of club classics, thanks to Ministry of Sound Classical.
Tickets available on: https://kaleidoscope-festival.com/tickets/
