Photograph of James Brandon Lewis by Tim Dickeson

SUNDAY AT CHELTENHAM JAZZ FESTIVAL, 04/05/2025

JAMES BRANDON LEWIS TRIO, JAZZ ARENA

James Brandon Lewis – tenor saxophone, Josh Werner – electric bass, Gerald Cleaver – drums

My Sunday commenced with this performance by the American tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis and his trio at the all standing Jazz Arena.

Originally from Buffalo and now based in New York City the forty two year old Lewis is one of the major figures of contemporary American jazz, a versatile musician with an impressive catalogue of recordings embracing a diversity of jazz styles and performed in a variety of instrumental formats.

My first introduction to his music came with his excellent 2021 album “Code of Being”, a quartet recording featuring pianist Aruan Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Chad Taylor.

More recently I enjoyed seeing him play live for the first time when he visited the Hare & Hounds in Birmingham in a collaboration with the band Messthetics, a quartet featuring guitarist Anthony Pirog, a regular Lewis collaborator and a rhythm section featuring bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty, these last two founder members of the Washington based hardcore act Fugazi. Canty has also played drums for one of my rock heroes, guitarist and vocalist Bob Mould of Husker Du and Sugar fame.

Make no mistake Lally and Canty are seriously talented musicians and that Birmingham performance was a thrilling amalgam of jazz and rock with Lewis’ authoritative tenor sax providing the primary jazz content in a performance that also featured the kind of complex math rock riffing of which King Crimson would be proud. It was a terrific performance with Lewis a fully integrated member of the ensemble as opposed to just functioning as a ‘guest soloist’. It certainly whetted my appetite for seeing Lewis play live again, hence my decision to choose this event featuring Lewis’ regular trio. 

Lewis’ latest album is “Apple Cores”, released on the US indie label Anti-, usually the home of alternative rock groups. The album takes its title from the column that the author and activist Amiri Baraka used to write for DownBeat magazine in the 1960s. The music itself is inspired by the example of the late trumpeter Don Cherry, another musician prepared to fearlessly defy musical boundaries and categories.  It features Lewis’ regular trio of electric bass specialist Josh Werner and drummer / percussionist Chad Taylor.

The trio is currently on tour in Europe, but with Taylor replaced by Gerald Cleaver, another regular Lewis collaborator. The programme featured group originals from the “Apple Cores” repertoire interspersed by pieces written by other leading Afro-American jazz musician / composers such as Eddie Harris, Mal Waldron and Ornette Coleman, these choices indicative of Lewis’ deep knowledge of the jazz and wider Afro-American tradition.

When reviewing the blues double bill featuring Alice Armstrong and Elles Bailey that took place in the Jazz Arena on Thursday I expressed some reservations about how suitable the now all standing venue would be for heavy duty jazz acts such as the Lewis trio. As it turned out it worked very well, despite its complexity this was still music you could move to, courtesy of Werner’s fluid electric bass grooves and the snap, crackle and pop of Cleaver’s precise and propulsive drumming. These two provided a solid yet supremely flexible foundation for Lewis’ fluent and imaginative sax soloing, which channelled the spirits of previous tenor sax masters such as John Coltrane and even Albert Ayler, while still sounding utterly contemporary. Lewis may be steeped in the tradition but his music is very much his own and he draws on other sources such as rock and hip hop too, his deployment of Werner’s electric bass symptomatic of his open minded approach. For Lewis there is no musical snobbery with regard to the use of electric instruments, he may be a kind of purist, but he’s one ready to move with the times.

The trio began with a lengthy unbroken segue of six tunes comprised of original pieces from the “Apple Cores” recording merged with inspired covers of compositions by Eddie Harris and Mal Waldron.

The trio kicked off with the Harris tune “Alicia”, with Lewis quickly establishing his big,  authoritative tone on the sax, his declamatory tenor ringing out above the low end rumble of Werner’s bass and the crisp drumming of Cleaver, the latter’s face a study in concentration.

The establishment of a loping electric bass groove took us into “Apple Cores # 1” followed by “Prince Eugene” and “Five Spots to Caravan”, the opening three pieces on the “Apple Cores” recording and presumably always intended to be performed as a sequence.

Brief bass and drum interludes punctuated Lewis’ tenor sax sermonising. There’s a real sense that Lewis is preaching through his horn and in this sense he is the natural heir to the spiritual jazz of John and Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders, updating it for the 21st century.

In addition to the acknowledged influences of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler Lewis is also an admirer of Ornette Coleman and recorded a version of Coleman’s composition “Broken Shadows” for “Apple Cores”. We heard this next, followed by “Left Alone”, a composition by the pianist Mal Waldron as this stunning open sequence built to a climax with Lewis’ ferocious sax shredding underpinned by the mighty rhythmic grooves laid down by Werner and Taylor.

Lewis now addressed the audience for the first time, speaking with eloquence and dignity as he introduced the next sequence of tunes. He talked warmly about the influence of Don Cherry and this section included the Cherry tribute “D.C. Got Pocket”, a tune from the “Apple Cores” album.

The sequence began with a passage of unaccompanied tenor saxophone from Lewis that made allusions t several standard tunes. Lewis is kind of musician with both the gravitas and the technical facility to make a solo saxophone exploration utterly compelling, as he did here.

After progressing through both “Of Mind and Feeling” and “Deville” we came to the Cherry tribute, an upbeat celebration driven by a catchy melodic hook, vigorous bass and drum grooves and featuring the leader’s exultant sax declamations.

“Apple Cores # 2” followed a similar trajectory, again introduced by Werner at the bass with Cleaver combining to create a powerful groove, the perfect launch pad for Lewis’ declamatory sax blasting as the set built to a rousing climax.

The encore, the gentler and profoundly spiritual “Sparrow” was an encapsulation of Lewis’ gospel influences and had something of a valedictory feel about it.

This was a hugely enjoyable set from one of the world’s leading contemporary jazz saxophonists and his impressive trio. Lewis’ command of the jazz vocabulary is unsurpassed and the way that he blends it with more contemporary influences such as rock, hip hop and dub is genuinely impressive as he updates the tradition for the 21st century. As a saxophonist he is assured, powerful and fluent, at one with, and totally in command of, his instrument. Werner, and either Cleaver or Taylor represent the perfect foils and also perform with consummate skill. My thanks to Josh Werner for providing me with a set list after the show, which has proved invaluable in the writing of this review.

If I’m totally honest I’d say that I probably preferred the Birmingham show, primarily because Pirog provided an additional instrumental voice and an additional visual focus too. But the Messthetics and the trio are separate projects and perhaps shouldn’t be compared directly, and in any case there wasn’t much to choose between two exciting performances that included some brilliant playing, writing and improvising.

POPPY DANIELS, PARABOLA ARTS CENTRE

Poppy Daniels – trumpet, Eddie Lee –piano, keyboards, Kian Cardenas – guitar, Tricky – electric bass, Lox - drums

Back at the PAC for a run of three shows led by trumpeter / composers.

First up was a quintet led by the young trumpeter and composer Poppy Daniels, a graduate of Leeds College of Music who has also studied in New York. In addition to leading her own groups she is also a prolific session musician who spoke of having played CJF before with Nu Civilisation Orchestra and with Jordan Rakei. Daniels has also worked with Daniel Casimir, China Moses, Blue Lab Beats,  the Latin ensemble Colectiva, rapper Nix Northwest and more. Her jazz influences include Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Chet Baker and Blue Mitchell.

Encouraged by Adam Moses of the Jazz re: freshed  organisation Daniels made her debut as a bandleader at the 2023 Brick Lane Jazz Festival. Today’s Cheltenham show came just after the release of her debut EP “Keep On Going”, which was issued on the Jazz re: freshed  record label on April 25th 2025.

Today’s performance featured Daniels leading a young quintet featuring pianist Eddie Lee, guitarist Kian Cardenas and two modishly titled single name musicians in the rhythm section, bassist Tricky and drummer Lox.

The quintet kicked off with “Boundaries”, the single taken from the EP, a fast moving piece featuring solos from Lee at the piano and Daniels on electric hooked trumpet, these powered by the hyper-active drumming of the splendidly dreadlocked Lox, who climaxed the piece with an explosive drum feature.

As I’ve said this was a very young band, they scarcely looked older than the students at yesterday’s Jazz Exchange event and the sound mix was fashionably loud, with much more volume than we’re accustomed to witnessing at the PAC. As a result Daniels’ trumpet, even though it was electrically hooked up, allowing her to roam the stage, was too low in a mix dominated by Lox, a brilliantly gifted drummer with chops to burn,  but a little too overpowering at times. Still, they used to say that about Billy Cobham too.

“2AM”, also from the new EP featured a spiralling guitar solo from Cardenas, underpinned by Tricky’s electric bass motif.

“Keep On Going” was presaged by an extended solo piano introduction from the impressive Lee, who later switched to electric piano as Tricky and Lox combined to set up a powerful groove that provided the launch pad for solos from electric piano and trumpet.

I didn’t catch the title of the next piece, a composition co-written with pianist Eddie Lee that featured each of the co-composers. Daniels has also collaborated with bassist, composer and vocalist Alley Lloyd, who shares bass duties with Tricky on the “Keep It Going” EP.

Next came an arrangement of the Chet Baker tune “I’ve Never Been In Love Before” that Daniels recorded for the album “Chet Baker Re-imagined”, a compilation album issued by Decca Records. Adapted by Daniels and Lee this began with a delicate trumpet and piano intro before mutating into a modern and powerful updating that featured a strong rock influence and the liberal use of guitar FX during Cardenas’ solo. We also enjoyed an effusive trumpet solo from the leader and a positively torrential piano solo from Lee, who was really ‘going for it’.

Daniels, visibly out of breath, announced that the next tune would be the last, but that it would be a long one, around fifteen minutes or so. The title wasn’t announced but I suspect that it might have been an extended version of “Feeling Better”, the closing track on the EP. It was ushered by an unaccompanied intro from Tricky on five string electric bass, with electric piano, trumpet and guitar added as the music gathered momentum, with Daniels stating the main theme on trumpet. The piece progressed through various phases, variously led by trumpet, electric piano, guitar and electric bass before culminating in a series of storming solos from Cardenas, Lox with an extensive and explosive solo drum feature, and Daniels on trumpet, leading the ensemble into a powerful collective outro followed by an unaccompanied trumpet cadenza at the close.

This was undeniably an exciting performance from a group of young musicians who played with a collective youthful brio and with impressive individual techniques. Daniels was touchingly genuinely excited to be playing a headline gig at such a prestigious festival and seemed to be loving every minute of it.

There was much to enjoy and to appreciate here and I’d probably have been even more impressed if I’d seen Daniels and her band at one of the regular club nights at Music Spoken Here in Worcester or at the Corn Exchange in Ross-on-Wye. As it was it suffered a little bit in comparison with the performances by US heavyweights James Brandon Lewis and Keyon Harrold that immediately preceded and followed this event, with Daniels’ performance coming over as rather callow next to these two masters.

Nevertheless there was much promise here and I expect to hear a lot more from Poppy Daniels.

KEYON HARROLD, JAZZ ARENA

Keyon Harrold – trumpet, vocals,  Rashon Murph – piano, keyboards, Jermaine Paul –  double bass, electric bass,  Charles Haynes – drums, electronics

Originally from Ferguson, Missouri trumpeter, composer and sometime vocalist Keyon Harrold is a significant presence on the US jazz scene and a fairly frequent visitor to the UK and Europe. His music is politically and ideologically charged and his three albums to date “Introducing Keyon Harrold” (2009) and particularly the more recent “The Mugician” (2017) and “Foreverland” (2024) blend jazz, soul, r & b and hip hop influences. His sound embraces all elements of contemporary Afro-American music but remains firmly rooted in jazz, and particularly so at jazz festival appearances such as this.

In 2019 I was fortunate enough to witness a performance by Harrold and a group featuring Shedrick Mitchell on piano and keyboards, Nir Felder on guitar, Dominique Sanders on electric bass and ‘Little’ John Roberts at the drums at Ronnie Scott’s as part of that year’s EFG London Jazz Festival. In the main they performed material from the “Mugician” album. It was an impressive performance that is reviewed as part of my Festival coverage here.
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/efg-london-jazz-festival-2019-day-eight-friday-november-22nd-2019

There was even the bonus of seeing Harrold again the following night when he played as a guest at the same venue with bassist / vocalist Ben Williams’ Sound Effect band.

Today’s performance began with an atmospheric intro featuring the sounds of Paul’s guitar like six string electric bass and Haynes’ drums and electronics, allowing the imposing and charismatic figure of the shades wearing, leather clad Harrold to make the grand entrance.

Harrold and the quartet then got down to business with a thirty minute instrumental segue that improvised around the themes of the Freddie Hubbard composition “Little Sunflower” and a Miles Davis tune that I didn’t quite recognise and which Harrold failed to clarify. It also included a new Harrold original, as yet just titled “Commission 8”.
This incorporated the stentorian soloing of Harrold on his electrically hooked trumpet, speaking eloquently through his horn and almost using the trumpet as a weapon, There was also some bravura soloing from Murph on acoustic piano, a seriously talented musician who also works as a producer and arranger. Harrold and Murph were well supported by Paul’s propulsive double bass lines (he’d switched following the intro) and Haynes’ punchy and dynamic drumming, with the latter also enjoying his own solo feature.

When Harrold finally spoke to the crowd he did so with warmth and wit, allied to a steely sense of resolve. The next tune proved to be an extended version of “Well Walk Now”, subtitled “Perseverance”, a composition from “Foreverland” that saw Paul moving back to electric bass. Initially this was less frenetic than the opening sequence and included extensive solos from acoustic piano and six string electric bass, with Paul’s liquid and lyrical offering particularly impressive. When Harrold soloed the music took on a more dynamic, celebratory and anthemic quality that was more in keeping with the “Perseverance” part of the title.

This took the performance up to the forty five minute mark and I decided to leave at this point as I was due to see another trumpeter, the UK’s own Byron Wallen at the PAC. It would be a lot easier to sneak out of the all standing Jazz Arena than into the all seated PAC, plus Wallen was due to be performing his “Hurricane Bells” suite, a work that demanded to be heard in full.

But having enjoyed Harrold’s performance so much in London I was determined to catch something of his show here and I was very glad that I did. What I’d heard in this opening forty five minutes was excellent.

I’m grateful to my fellow scribe AJ Dehany, who was covering the Harrold show for UK Jazz News, for updating me with what happened next. Apparently the second half featured Harrold’s singing, (he’s an adequate and effective, if not great, vocalist) and storytelling, which I suspect probably wouldn’t have been quite so much up my street.

The material included a lullaby originally written for Harrold’s son, who is now aged nineteen, which AJ found quite touching, although I gather that he found some of Harrold’s later proselytising to be rather mawkish and platitudinous.

And of course there were plenty more instrumental fireworks too, particularly from Harrold and Murph. I’m just glad that I was able to enjoy some of this, and probably the best bit at that.

 

BYRON WALLEN, ‘HURRICANE BELLS’, PARABOLA ARTS CENTRE

Byron Wallen – trumpet, wood flute, voice, Jonny Mansfield – vibraphone, bells, Daniel Kemshell – guitar, Menelik Claffey -  double bass, Zoe Pascal – drums

I’d heard great things about Byron Wallen’s “Hurricane Bells” suite from friends who had seen the work performed at Birmingham Jazz in October 2024, so as a long time admirer of Wallen’s playing I just had to see this.

It was in 2019 that Wallen was commissioned to write a work responding to the contemporary artist Peter Shenai’s “Hurricane Bells”, set of bells cast in the shape of the co-ordinates of Hurricane Katrina, the storm that devastated New Orleans in 2005, the consequences of which are still being felt today.

The tones of the bells were used as a source of inspiration for Wallen’s writing and I gather that the full suite is a two hour work, of which we heard just a little over half today as the performance was sandwiched into a seventy five minute festival slot. Nevertheless what we did hear was magnificent and whetted one’s appetite for the planned recording of the suite.

Shenai’s bells themselves were present on stage and were periodically played by vibraphonist Jonny Mansfield, who joined Wallen in a quintet line up that also included the young jazz talents of guitarist Daniel Kemshell, bassist Menelik Claffey and drummer Zoe Pascal (of Zenel fame).

The performance began with Wallen reading a passage of Katrina inspired poetry.  The individual titles of the movements were largely unannounced but the first began with a solo drum introduction from Pascal, to which bass, vibes and guitar were added and eventually Wallen’s trumpet as he stated the main melodic theme before embarking on the first solo of the evening. He was followed by Kemshell at the guitar, an impressive young musician who represented an exciting new discovery for me.

The bells themselves, suspended on a framework immediately behind Mansfield’s vibes, were featured on the next piece, their eerie resonations, akin to Buddhist gongs and singing bowls,  augmented by a military style snare tattoo from Pascal. Bass, guitar and trumpet were subsequently added but this movement proved to be something of a feature for Mansfield, who following the opening passage on the bells was also featured as a vibraphone soloist, his four mallets gliding effortlessly across the bars.

The bells were also featured on the introduction to the next piece, this time augmented by the sounds of Menelik’s bowed bass and Pascal’s mallet rumbles. When Mansfield moved to the vibes Kemshell’s guitar atmospherics replaced the ethereal shimmer of the bells. Wallen’s melancholic muted trumpet incorporated vocalised effects, but following a vibes solo from Mansfield he switched to an open bell for his own feature. .A ‘free jazz’ section then incorporated skittering drums and vibes plus gruff vocalised trumpet, before Wallen adopted a softer, Harmon muted sound, before removing the mute to deliver an angry clarion call. There was the sense that this was very much protest music without words, a swipe at the failure of the American government of the time to deal with the crisis adequately.

The fourth movement commenced with the eerie sounds of bowed vibes and arco bass plus Wallen tapping the bell of his trumpet as a form of auxiliary percussion. To this were added the equally atmospheric sounds of guitar FX and cymbal shimmers and finally Wallen’s deep, gruff vocals, almost a form of throat singing. Eventually Pascal established a monolithic drum groove, augmented by a combined bass and guitar motif, this the backdrop for an unsettling trumpet solo from Wallen that made extraordinary use of vocalised vibrato techniques.

A passage of unaccompanied guitar opened the fifth movement, with Kemshell instigating a riff that mutated into a slow (funeral?) march with the introduction of bass, drums and percussion. Kemshell then soloed expansively, first over a trumpet led riff and then in a quartet format as Wallen temporarily dropped out, returning again towards the close.

Movement six was ushered in by the combination of trumpet and vibes underpinned by double bass. Wallen stated the theme and incorporated some variations before again handing over to the impressive Kemshell, with Mansfield following on vibes.

Before the last number Wallen talked eloquently about the project, talking about how the melodic themes had first been instigated on the bells themselves and later developed at the piano,  and that when he had played the bells in the woods near his home a bird had replied! But there was a more serious side to his words as he warned against the dangers of “cataclysmic capitalism” and declared that the letters BP actually stood for “beyond principle”.

But for all this the performance ended on an optimistic note with “Bells of Hope”, a paean to the spirit of human resilience and the resurrection of New Orleans. This was introduced by Kemshell at the guitar and featured Wallen on some kind of small flute like instrument, an ocarina perhaps?  The leader was also featured as a trumpet soloist, with Kemshell following on guitar and Mansfield at the vibes.

This was a superb performance from a highly accomplished quintet and the only disappointment was that we were unable to hear the work in its entirety. There is however the promise of a recording to come, which will be very keenly anticipated.

 

OLIVIA MURPHY ORCHESTRA. “SIREN CYCLE”, PARABOLA ARTS CENTRE

Olivia Murphy – conductor, clarinet
Becca Wilkins, Rebecka Edlund, Lucy-Anne Daniels – vocals
Maddie Ashman – vocals, cello
Julia Brussel – violin
Edie Bailey – viola
Lewis Sallows, George Garford, Alicia Gardener-Trejo – woodwinds
Charlotte Keeffe – trumpet
Dave Sear – trombone
Anna Carter – tuba
Daniel Kemshell – guitar
Olly Chalk – piano
Aram Bahmaie – double bass
Kai Chareunsy – drums

The second commission of the evening at the PAC featured “Siren Cycles”, a newly commissioned work by musician and composer Olivia Murphy.

It was commissioned by Tony Dudley-Evans, former programmer at the PAC and Artistic Advisor to Cheltenham Jazz Festival, who has recently handed over the reins to Alexandra Carr.

The performance was jointly introduced by Carr and Dudley-Evans, who thanked financial backers Longrow Capital and David McLean before handing over to Olivia Murphy to explain something about her work.

A graduate of the Jazz Course at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Murphy is a saxophonist and clarinettist but sees herself primarily as a composer and arranger, having won the Mike Gibbs Award for composition and the John Dankworth Prize for arranging. She explained that “Siren Cycle” was a suite featuring performers from both Birmingham and London and from both the jazz and classical traditions, with a degree of improvisation and interaction within the framework of the hour long suite actively encouraged.

Murphy wrote both the music and the text and the work is based on Greek myth and the story of the Sirens, with Murphy writing the long form poem that provides the text, or libretto, for the work.

Central to the project are the voices of Becca Wilkins, Rebecka Edlund, Lucy-Anne Daniels and Maddie Ashman, the latter also an important instrumental component as she doubles on cello. The vocalists variously act as characters in the story, narrators and improvisers, with multiple vocal lines occurring simultaneously. Allied to an instrumental ensemble featuring several leading jazz musicians this made for complex music that demanded the full attention of the listener.

In summary the story is “a tale of four sisters lost at sea and their search to be reunited”.

The piece was a tour de force for the four vocalists who handled the complexities of Murphy’s writing with aplomb and who were well served by the sound engineers at the PAC who did a terrific job with a such large ensemble that must surely have been difficult to mix. As it was everybody, and especially the singers, sounded great.

The unbroken performance began with the sounds of the four vocalists as The Muses, with echoed, multiple vocal lines accompanied by the sound of bowed bass. Throughout the suite the lead vocal line was passed around seamlessly around the four singers, the vocal polyphony continually impressive. The use of extended vocal techniques was also a characteristic of the performance.

But it wasn’t just about the singers, the instrumentalists had their moments too, including an explosive passage of Cecil Taylor-esque piano from Olly Chalk, very much Murphy’s ‘right hand man’ on this project.

Also involved with the project is Murphy’s sister, Darcey Murphy, a visual artist who designed the handsome illustrated brochure given out free of charge to audience members and which contained the text or libretto. With a full personnel listing it was very useful for this reviewer, so thank you!

After a while I tried to follow the story and this positively helped my enjoyment of the music, but to the detriment of note taking! A plus was that the instrumental interpretations of phrases in the lyrics could be better appreciated, including the bird like sounds of the composer’s clarinet as the sisters are transformed into the half bird, half girl sirens or the guttural the rasp of Gardener-Trejo’s baritone sax during another section in which the sirens are cruelly stripped of their wings.

In the main the instrumentalists were musical commentators on the scenarios described in the lyrics and there were few outright soloing opportunities in the conventional jazz sense, although Keeffe on trumpet, Sear on trombone and Garford on alto sax all had their moments.

Essentially a contemporary classical / jazz hybrid this was an absorbing performance that constituted an absorbing and enjoyable live music experience and the performances of the four featured vocalists were quite exceptional, with the supporting cast of instrumentalists also doing a sterling job under the baton of Murphy.  The sound engineers deserve great credit too.

Whether it’s a work that I’d want to listen to at home I’m not quite so sure, but it got a rousing reception on the night and was an undoubted triumph for Murphy and for its commissioner Tony Dudley-Evans.

It brought a programme of eleven performances at the PAC (I think I’d seen eight of them, Peter Slavid writing for UK Jazz News saw them all) and completed a successful first season in charge for Alexandra Carr, with Marco Mezquida and Byron Wallen my personal highlights.

Some reservations were expressed that the PAC programme had become more ‘populist’ but there was still plenty of ‘real jazz’ on offer, including some challenging performances from the likes of the Musho Duo (vocalist Sofia Jernberg and pianist Alexander Hawkins) and this from Olivia Murphy and her Orchestra.

For ‘serious’ jazz listeners the PAC programme represents the beating heart of the Festival. Long my it continue to do so.

NUBYA GARCIA, CHELTENHAM TOWN HALL

Nubya Garcia – tenor saxophone electronics, vocals,  Lyle Barton – piano, keyboards, Max Luthert – double bass, Sam Jones – drums, electronics

It’s been a pretty spectacular rise for saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia since I first saw her play with the all female ensemble Nerija at the tine Green Note venue in Camden as part of the 2015 EFG London Jazz Festival.

Since then she’s established herself as a solo artist with an international following and has become something of a favourite at Cheltenham Jazz Festival following previous visits in 2019 and 2022.

Her current quartet features long serving drummer Sam Jones, Partikel bassist Max Luthert and keyboard player Lyle Barton. Luthert and Barton replace Daniel Casimir and Joe Armon Jones respectively, two musicians who appeared with their own bands elsewhere on this year’s CJF programme. However both Casimir and Armon Jones appear on Garcia’s latest album “Odyssey”, released in 2024 and the source of all of tonight’s material.

This was a standing only performance, which was probably appropriate for Garcia’s audience demographic, a younger jazz crowd that is also into the likes of Ezra Collective and Joe Armon- Jones as a solo artist.

As at the 2022 show at this same venue the programme began with the trio of keyboards, bass and drums, allowing Garcia to make the grand entrance. Like James Brandon Lewis and Keyon Harrold she likes to perform medleys of tunes and thus actual song announcements were rare.

Garcia continues to update the ‘spiritual jazz’ of the Coltranes and Pharaoh Sanders for the twenty first century, filtering it through more modern sensibilities derived both from her native London and from the Caribbean, a reflection of her Guyanese / Trinidadian heritage.

The recent “Odyssey” album, her third, includes a number of high profile guest slots from the likes of esperanza spalding and includes several vocal items but tonight the focus was on Garcia the tenor sax soloist, skilfully supported by an excellent band.

Garcia is a powerful, fluent and authoritative sax soloist and an increasingly compelling stage presence who impressed with her playing throughout. She was matched in terms of excellence by Barton, who I’d previously seen as part of Matters Unknown, a band led by Nubiyan Twist trumpeter Jonathan Enser. He’s worked with Emma-Jean Thackray too. Barton impressed on both grand piano and electric keyboards and was a worthy replacement for Armon-Jones.

Behind Garcia and Barton Luthert and Jones were a vibrant rhythm section who gave the front line soloists the impetus that they needed to produce compelling and absorbing statements. The perpetually busy, hard hitting Jones also enjoyed a dynamic drum feature and even Luthert had his moment in the spotlight during a forty minute opening sequence that included the tunes “Dawn”, “Solstice”  and “We Walk in Gold”, all sourced from the “Odyssey” album. On disc both “Dawn” and “We Walk In Gold” are vocal items featuring spalding and Georgia Anne Muldrow respectively, but they worked superbly as instrumentals too.

A passage of unaccompanied grand piano introduced “The Seer”, one of only two tracks on the “Odyssey” recording to feature just the core quartet of Garcia, Jones, Casimir and Armon-Jones.  It was a disarmingly quiet introduction to a tune that quickly kicked into action with hard driving rhythms fuelling Garcia’ impassioned tenor sax soloing and Barton’s furious McCoy Tyner inspired piano soloing, both lashed on by Jones’ powerful drumming.

“Water’s Path”, a composition that features just strings and solo cello on the recording was re-arranged for the quartet and was transformed into an atmospheric jazz ballad featuring the warm, breathy sound of Garcia’ tenor sax, but with her sound becoming increasingly plaintive as the music began to gather momentum, the music taking another left turn with the introduction of looped and layered sax and keyboard parts. Next a foray into more recognisable ‘spiritual jazz’ territory with the gently rolling thunder of Jones’ drums the platform for more barnstorming soloing from Barton at the piano and Garcia on tenor. There was a pause for breath with a passage of unaccompanied double bass that presaged a blistering collective outro, followed by a solo tenor sax cadenza from the imperious Garcia at the close.

The encore was “Triumphance”, the final track from “Odyssey”, with a dub reggae groove that saw Garcia electronically treating the sound of her sax alongside the spacey sounds of Barton’s keyboards. Solos for tenor sax and keyboards were followed by Garcia’s vocalising as she recited the spoken word lyrics, a paean to the worth of the individual and the wider collective, “your journey is yours, see yourself, realise and respect your worth”, followed by “raise up your hands, uplift your soul, and in triumphance together, all as one”. A life affirming sentiment to mark the end of an assured performance from a musician with an international reputation, just back from a series of gigs in North America, plus a short stopover at the Bray Jazz Festival in the Republic of Ireland.

In terms of presentation this was probably the best show that I have seen from Garcia who is an increasingly confident stage performer, although she still engages in entertaining stream of consciousness rambles that remain defiantly British. You can take the girl out of Camden etc., but make no mistake she’s the ultimate sax diva now.

The sound in the notoriously boomy Town Hall was slightly better than it had been in 2022, so that was another plus. Also Barton was an excellent replacement for the often brilliant Armon-Jones and acquitted himself very well. Luthert locked in well with the dynamic Sam Jones to form a formidable rhythm section.

I have to say that I do find the “Source” and “Odyssey” albums with their vocals, strings and multiple guest appearances a bit too lush and over produced. I’d love to see Garcia release a live recording featuring just the core quartet.

But what a great way to round off a day of excellent music featuring the sounds of trumpets, tenors and the human voice.

 

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