Singer-songwriter and poet Aimua Eghobamien, now based in New York having moved from his hometown of London recently to the city where he studied, is to release his latest album London Live via Quaesitor Music on 4 September. Recorded at Black Sessions nights in London venues Kings Place and at Pizza Express Jazz Club, the first tracks of this second album following on from the earlier Poured Gently four years ago are ‘Benediction’ based on an Edo lullaby, the singer digging deep into his Nigerian roots and featuring the marimba playing of Justin Woodward; and ‘On The Surface’, where the singer is joined here and on other tracks by double bassist Jerome Davies, percussionist Chris Wells, marimba player Justin Woodward, violinist Julian Ferraretto, violinist Miles Brett, violist Helen Sanders-Hewett, and cellist Alex Eichenberger.
Then ‘Patches’ begins with a spoken word poem segueing into experimental voice before switching into ‘Enough’. ‘Coffee Shop Window’, one of the big songs of the album, ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ a duo featuring Eghobamien and percussionist Chris Wells, ‘Same Girl’ by Randy Newman, a song that featured in the set of Aimua’s long running National Theatre shows, the delta blues ‘You Gotta Move’ rendered convincingly as a duo with bassist Davies, the spiritual ‘There Is a Balm in Gilead’, Sade’s ‘Pearls’, ‘Indigo / Slate Of The Atlantic’, and ‘Loving You’ complete the album.
Eghobamien has a very strong ringing voice, and a sound of his own, influenced by Miles Davis, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Fela Kuti, Babatunde Olatunji, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau among others. London Live is to be launched at David Beahm Design 529 w 20th Street suite 11 in New York on 4 September where Eghobamien is to be joined by Bashiri Johnson, the percussionist who appeared on Eghobamien’s debut Poured Gently and by bassist Ben Zwerin, with a London date as part of the London Jazz Festival on 16 November at the Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho.