Words by Justin Turford

After a slightly challenging entrance to the venue - EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney) - where everybody realised that they didn’t have an updated Covid pass on their phones, you went up some fairly tatty stairs into what used to be the old ABC Cinema on Stoke Newington High Street, now transitioned into a large, cavernous and really cool and inspiring performance space. The original paint is peeling and all the original Art Deco details remain but the big wide open pallet type seating in an amphitheatre style means you choose where you want to go and the enormous soundstage is visible wherever you are. Super-friendly staff and security welcomed you in and was a welcome change from the formal environment of my previous evening at the Barbican (I didn’t feel so scruffy anyway!).

Opener and true musical visionary, Angel Bat Dawid entered the room to chants by herself and members of Black Monument Ensemble (who continued to snake around the room before leaving). Literally rolling onto the stage, Angel positioned herself up behind her set-up of keyboards, electronic bits and bobs and wind instruments. Having never witnessed Angel live, I’m instantly hooked by her obvious sense of humour and lack of ego. She cares a lot about a lot of things but doesn’t appear to worry about whether she appears as a slick ‘jazz’ musician. Of course, she is so much more than that anyway. A virtuosic clarinettist and great pianist with a solid handle on cutting-edge (and lo-fi - some of her first LP was recorded on her iphone) electronics and blessed with a voice that can soothe or roar at command, Angel Bat Dawid is the real thing. Touted respectfully but lazily as our generation’s Nina Simone, she is also palpably another representation of Chicago’s gold standard of free jazz and experimental music in general. The Windy City’s avant-garde Black music scene has deep foundations from the 60s onwards with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and related outfits such as Art Ensemble Of Chicago just the more well known contributors. Only two years have passed since her outstanding debut album ‘The Oracle’ and it’s like she's always been here.

PHOTO CREDIT: Angel Bat Dawid by Emile Holba

Solo, there is a looseness and creative flow that ensemble playing can’t allow as much and here, Angel seemed to really be enjoying herself as she moved from one creative thought to another. She stopped and started at will, asking for her trippy and powerful home-made film to be shown behind her as she tinkered and teased. From wild, slightly unhinged clarinet playing to long spoken cautionary tales told with humour, attitude and obvious love to intimate moments of wonderful voice and piano that sat somewhere between gospel-blues and classical motifs. Seemingly out of nowhere, pumping juke-like beats and beautiful synth led electronics kicked the space alive. We really should have been dancing. After more moments of audience participation and delightful playing, Angel left to roars of approval, changed her mind, hushed the audience and gave us an impromptu rendition of Debussy’s ‘Clair De Lune’. Everything I hoped for from Angel and more was delivered. Luckily she would be returning very shortly.

Damon Locks and his Black Monument Ensemble took to the stage in a tightish semi-circle. Dwarfed by the huge stage but with a band wide film screen behind them, the intensity started early. From left to right we had Ben LaMar Gay on cornet and melodica, Angel Bat Dawid on sax and clarinet, Arif May on percussion, Dana Hall on drumkit and Damon Locks’ table of electronic toys and printed notes - the scientist, teacher and conductor dressed for Tai Chi or dancing or perhaps, martial arts. He danced later (or again, was it martial arts?). Centred were three young female singers, individually unique in voice, together a force of harmony and melody. The show and the album ‘NOW’ that much of the music comes from has a lot to unpack. There is so much going on. Not in a maximalist everything-at-once way but in terms of the subjective and musical references. The sound in EartH was a bit boomy so some of the subtleties of the speech samples got a bit lost but there was no hiding the power resonating from the band. Not having a bass player meant that no matter how recognisably hip hop or housey the beats got, there was an abstract edge to the sound that allowed space for the individual players to be heard.

In the music and voices I heard the influences of field songs, the Black Church, contemporary R&B, hip hop, Chicago house, funk, Afro-futuristic sounds from Sun Ra’s universe, Moodyman (in the use of voice samples especially), the aforementioned Art Ensemble Of Chicago and much more. Sound as poetry. The sound of Chicago. Dance music (footwork, house), serious African drumming, heavy hip hop drums that swing into funk, into jazz, into….. The extended workout of ‘The Body Is Electric' was quite something. Filtered drum loops, heavy congas and drums, Angel Bat Dawid on the clarinet freaking out in the background, the three singers swirling and knitting together, killer brass. This bumped hard and wild. A superb and ecstatic rendition of Rebuild A Nation from their 2019 album ‘Where Future Unfolds’ brings cheers and smiles all round. A hell of a show and it felt like we had witnessed human expression at its finest and most human. A brilliant inclusion at the EFG London Jazz Festival. Bravo!