STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
Latest editorial
Joe McPhee, Paal Nilssen-Love and Black Top, Cafe Oto, London
Intoxicating improvisation from a quartet with a global reach
Man of many parts: Joe McPhee
[Dawid Laskowski]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
AN AMALGAM of origins is on show at Cafe Oto as these four boundary-breaking musicians take the stage.
Pianist Pat Thomas and vibraphonist Orphy Robinson — the duo of Black Top — are London-based but with deep Caribbean connections to Antigua and Jamaica. Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, who’s been making audacious and rebellious records since 1968, lives in New York state, while some thunderous percussive subtlety is provided Norway’s Paal Nilssen-Love.
McPhee opens by respiring into his pocket trumpet as if it’s the first breath of his life. Nilssen-Love’s drumscape gradually grows cyclonic, while Thomas alternates between trenchant piano chords and the electronics of his whining, whistling Moog theremini and Robinson’s flying mallets pummel his xylosynth and his hands address the box he sits on.
Similar stories
CHRIS SEARLE wallows in an evening of high class improvised jazz, and recommends upcoming highlights in May
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to drummer Steve Noble
CHRIS SEARLE picks his favourites
CHRIS SEARLE translates the fusion of four jazz maestros into a mental image of Hackney Carnival