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Vortex
Leon Foster-Thomas Quartet
THE London Jazz Festival has at last recognised that by offering Leon Foster-Thomas, virtuoso and pan man extraordinaire from San Fernando, Trinidad – the home of the Oil Workers Trade Union – an inaugural concert at Dalston’s Vortex. Home from home it was.
In a London quartet with pianist Sam Leak, drummer Ebow Mensah and Mirko Scarcia on bass, this Caribbean pan sunrise was full of serene, lucid melody and innovative, rampant improvisation.
Mensah’s thumping percussion, Leak’s chirping, swinging keys and Scarcia’s plunking, dancing strings jelled beautifully with the grace and power of Leon’s pan, shining like silver. The packed house, full of Caribbean souls, loved his rhapsodic, solo bursts as if they were straight from the human interaction of Gillett Square and Ridley Road Market close by.
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