Photograph of Africa Space Programme by Dave Fuller

Brick Lane Jazz Festival – Sunday 27th April 2025

Alley Lloyd @ 91 Living Room
(4 stars)

Alley Lloyd – bass guitar, guitar, vocals
Sophia Grant – vocals
Carla Kazana – keys
Shama – guitar
Jansen Santana – percussion
Ben Brown – drums

(Guest appearances on “Hablando con Juana”)
Poppy Daniels – trumpet
Allexa Nava – tenor sax
Juanita Euka – vocals

I first met Alley Lloyd at Brick Lane Jazz Festival last year, when she appeared in the incredible Latin ensemble Colectiva, which also featured Allexa Nava who performed on Friday with her own band (reviewed here https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/allexa-nava-quintet-ninety-one-living-room-london-25-04-2025-part-of-brick-lane-jazz-festival).

I saw her again later in the same year at Mostly Jazz Funk & Soul Festival in Moseley, with vocalist Sophia Grant, who returned the favour appearing in today’s line-up. Alley has performed and recorded with an extensive list of artists including Fleur East, Poppy Ajudha, Angélique Kidjoe and Yasmin Lacey, but to date has only recorded one single herself.

Jazz Re:freshed co-founder Adam Moses lined up this gig while Alley still had ‘only one song’, a tactic to push her to write new music and perform it with her own band – a move that was very successful, as we discovered in this performance of the resulting work, with a top-class band.

The set opened with Alley softly setting up “Cataclysm / Oblivion” on guitar, sharing vocals with Sophia Grant. Shama joined in on guitar, Alley switched to electric bass and the timbales slammed the band – and the room – into a vibrant upbeat party mode! The song, with the repeated chorus “How can we live like this?”, is Alley’s response to the rage and anger she feels with the many terrible things that are happening around the world at the moment.

“All The Nights” was introduced with a melodic bass solo, before Shama, Ben and Jansen got involved on guitar, drums and percussion respectively. Alley took the lead vocal, with Sophia harmonising backing vocals as the song eventually erupted into a full-on Latin swing, with a brief timbale feature from Jansen to whoops and yells from the dancing crowd. Fantastic!

“For The Depths” is Alley’s only single recorded to date, released in October last year and is a journey through the chaos, euphoria and heartbreak of experiencing love. After the song finished, Alley announced that she is donating 100% of her earnings from the sales of the single on Bandcamp to support the Khartoum Aid Kitchen (https://www.khartoumaidkitchen.org/), a Sudanese-led initiative providing essential food and medicine to vulnerable individuals and families affected by the war in Sudan. (Note that Friday 2nd May is Bandcamp Friday, where Bandcamp waive their fees, maximising the revenue for artists, so if you’re seeing this in time, there’s no better time to buy it than on this Friday!)

“Everything You Say” was performed as a dextrous bass solo with some gorgeous use of double stops with percussion gently shimmering in the background as Alley added vocals.

“Sweet Company” featured Carla with an electric piano solo and wrapped up with some excitement featuring Jansen on percussion and Ben on drums.

The band initiated rhythmic clapping to introduce “Heavy Burden” that was duly picked up by the audience as the band launched into the song, which Alley described as a mechanism for managing grief, acknowledging that writing allows her to spin it differently and become playful with it.

Without doubt, the highlight of the show was the grand finale! Alley expressed her love of Cuban timba music that has influenced her own playing and inspired her decision to have a go at Alain Pérez’s “Hablando Con Juana”, for which she enlisted the help of Congolese-born, Buenos Aires raised and now London based vocalist Juanita Euka, along with Poppy Daniels on trumpet and Allexa Nava on tenor sax. There was barely room for the 9-piece band on the Jazz Re:freshed stage, but for the next five minutes or so they belted out pure positive, sunshine-drenched energy, which took me back to a mesmerisingly joyful night at Casa de la Musica in Holguin some ten years ago. The whole room was dancing to Juanita’s bold command of the Spanish vocals, backed by Alley and Sophia, with the horns and percussion ensuring no-one could possibly stand still.

The show, which was now running overtime (although to be fair had started a few minutes late), had ascended to a collective and hugely supportive experience for Alley, performing her new music to a live audience for the first time. This was clearly reflected in the absolute glee on her face as the song and performance came to an ecstatic end and closing adulations were hurried along by MC Adam Moses, keen to get the change-over for the next band underway.

Alley should be incredibly proud of what she achieved with this performance. She is a notably supportive artist for others, but this was my first opportunity to see her broader range of musical talent, in particular some excellent writing that deals lyrically with very emotive and personal experiences while musically projecting a positive, elevating outlook. Her band were top notch, all with their own exciting projects on the go, and the additional guests at the end were a delightful bonus. I’m sure there will be an EP or possibly a full album recorded and released on Jazz Re:freshed soon, and I’ll do all I can to bring this excellent music up to Worcester for the Music Spoken Here program next year (I’m fully booked through to February so we’ll have to wait a while).

 

Gary Crosby’s Africa Space Programme @ Village Underground
(4 stars)

Gary Crosby – double bass
Denys Baptiste – tenor sax
Steve Williamson – tenor sax
Winston Clifford – drums

This gig was a spontaneous decision for me, as the festival was coming to an end and my back and legs were reminding me that three days on your feet is not as easy as it might have been 30 years ago!

Due to technical issues at the venue, the start was delayed by about an hour and those of us that arrived in good time were turned away to come back later. When I did return, there was already a long queue and by the time I got in, a crowd had already formed so I got a spot towards the back by the sound desk. There was very little light, so my notes were minimal and scrawled almost blindly, but this was definitely worth documenting as best I can, so here goes!

This was apparently the first live performance of the Africa Space Programme, a quartet of British jazz nobility put together by bassist, former Jazz Warrior and co- founder of Tomorrow’s Warriors, Gary Crosby. My attention was sparked when I noticed Steve Williamson was in the line-up. Steve was notable in my growing discovery of British jazz as we entered the nineties. I saw him in St Albans around the release of his debut album “A Waltz for Grace” in 1990, which incidentally featured Gary Crosby on bass, but he seemed to disappear from the scene not long after, so this was my first time seeing him play since. The line-up was completed by Denys Baptise on tenor sax and Winston Clifford on drums.

The set was largely freely improvised, although more musically structured and elegant in contrast to the free improvisation of Ill Considered experienced the previous evening (also reviewed on this site). If the pieces had titles, they were not announced and I wasn’t able to speak to Gary after the gig to find out.

The set opened with Gary introducing the band with the advice to “Strap yourself in!”. A pedestrian bass solo from Gary was a fitting introduction to the proceedings as Steve took the first of the sax solos, taking me back 30+ years, recalling how he seemed at times to be able to produce the illusion of an almost polyphonic sound from his monophonic instrument. Then it was Denys’ turn to add his character to the story, a brighter tone, occasionally getting up in the squeakies a bit more than Steve had previously as the solo developed with minimal underpinning from Gary and Winston. The music spiralled upwards with excitement, Steve and Denys traded bars as the crowd got behind them on this wonderful mission into the musical stratosphere!

For the second piece, Winston curiously got up from his throne unannounced and looked as though he was walking off stage, but no. He stopped mid stage, faced the audience and started a syncopated clapping rhythm. With no words said, it was obvious that our job was to replicate and continue this and, once we had it down, he returned to the kit, maintaining the accents on the snare drum to keep us all in check as the band set up a bouncing musical excursion. Around this time there were quite
a few departures from the audience, most likely an unfortunate case of schedule conflicts caused by the late start of this performance, but I was able to move closer to the stage and enjoy the rest of the performance feeling more engaged with the band.

Again unannounced, a woman in a striking red hat (later identified as Annette Walker) enigmatically joined the stage, before launching into a tap-dance routine – an extra dimension that I’ve seen added to several performances only in the last year or two, neatly bringing the cultural history of the jazz art-form into the space age of the 21st century.

Winston, who had a few spontaneous outbursts on the kit throughout, delivered an extended feature to close out the last piece as Gary thanked each of the band members and the audience.

There is something special about being present at the start of something new, especially when it involves a super-group of luminaries like this. Being very much absorbed in the moment and a novice writer, I left with insufficient notes and skill to do this performance justice in a review, but felt compelled to document it as best I could. Look out for this project as I’m sure they will be touring and possibly recording, and when they do, strap yourself in and as I did, immerse yourself in the immediate experience.

DAVE FULLER

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