The Brilliant Corners Japanese bar-restaurant on the Kingsland Road in Dalston hosted Gearbox Records’ latest Jazz Kissaten.
The evening began with a DJ set by Gearbox label chief Darrel Sheinman spinning a selection of Blue Note vinyl, drawn from the likes of Baby Face Willette’s Face to Face, Ike Quebec’s Soul Samba and McCoy Tyner’s Asante, and later saw the appearance of Binker and Moses whose debut LP for the label, Dem Ones, has just come out, an inspired new saxophone and drums-duelling free jazz album that is picking up plenty of radioplay already from tastemaker DJs such as Gilles Peterson and Jez Nelson. Drummer Moses Boyd, who also leads his own band Exodus, is on his way over to the US later today for Triumvirate gigs with Denys Baptiste the tour kicking off with a ShapeShifter Lab gig in Brooklyn tomorrow.
The Dem Ones pair began by drawing on ‘Black Ave Maria’ with its gently unravelling theme repeated and elaborated upon in a myriad of ways but then moved into a deep free improv space. Part of one long incredibly technically accomplished improvisation that called for strength and imagination in equal measure – there was no place to hide in this setting – more than half an hour long it was a performance that drew on calypsonian flavours, Binker Golding quoting Sonny Rollins in passing, but more generally hovering in the Locrian mode Coltrane-like domain with all its grandeur of expression and engagement.
Golding switched to soprano sax for a section that went that stage further dipping into Ascension territory as the sound of a siren by coincidence drifted in from the Kingsland Road, the sax player’s multiphonics and high piercing wail a match to the bustling ever changing drama of the street. Moses, fast and thunderous at times with his multidirectional Rashied Ali-like style is capable of control at speed and volume, stamping on the brakes to switch to harness swung beats, even made use of a cowbell and the rustle of African percussion towards the end of the set that marked out a new seam of ideas. An epic improvisation by a talented pair. SG
Dem Ones is reviewed here.The exterior of Brilliant Corners, above