Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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A celebration of the steel pan
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
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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