Gig Review: Denys Baptiste
14.11.2003

By Jason Caffrey
jason@jazznation.co.uk

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 14 November 2003

Denys Baptiste(ts); Nathaniel Facey (as); Abram Wilson (tpt); Trevor Mires (tbn); Omar Puente (vl)' Jenney Adejayan (cello); Andrew McCormack (p); Robin Banerjee (g); Gary Crosby (db); Satin Singh (perc); Rod Youngs (d)

It's not often you get to hear a jazz suite performed live, let alone one composed and performed by a UK musician. Baptiste brought his homage to Martin Luther King to the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the London Jazz Festival. Having spent a week listening to the CD of Let Freedom Ring! it was with baited breath that I took my seat for this live performance.

I wasn't disappointed. The music was accompanied by some compelling (if occasionally distracting) visuals, which Baptiste was pleased point out were accompanying the performance for the first time. The band made it's way with confidence through the opening section, Nathaniel Facey rising to take an assured solo.

Everything was looking good, but maybe the band just needed to relax a little. The ice was truly broken thanks to Trevor Mires' excellent trombone solo, and the band loosened up as we headed into a celebratory gospel-style passage. Things started to get raucous and the audience responded with hand-claps as t-bone and trombone embarked on an energetic duet.

And this was exactly what was needed to give the live set something that the recording can't offer. With so much of this work closely arranged, it's to the musicians' credit that they negotiated enough elbow room to take some risks.

The benefits showed. In the funk section on With This Faith more loose hand-claps were thrown around what really is a damn good groove; free blowing over Let Freedom Ring! approached critical mass with an almost reckless freakout; Omar Puente stretched out with his violin solo on Free At Last!

Some things didn't transpose quite so well from studio to stage: the odd mis-cued chant takes nothing away from the pleasure of a vibrant live performance, but the band suffered a genuine loss on the occasions when Ben Okri's recorded voice didn't cut through the low-end mix. The Booker Prize-winning author has a voice that falls somewhere between velvet and red wine. His contribution is one of the highlights of the entire project.

My only real bug-bear is that I wanted to hear more of Baptiste the instrumentalist. But let's be fair - he's done his work, and we hear much more from him through his writing in this piece than any solo might allow. His suite is a real achievement, and this was a vigorous, exciting performance. The second leg of Baptiste's Let Freedom Ring! tour starts next year. Don't let it pass you by.