Shabaka live in London: jazz pioneer impresses in a beautiful new chapter

Shortly into the last show of his European tour, the multidisciplinary jazz artist Shabaka Hutchings shares how he hopes his music communicates to everyone in the room: “In this concert, I hope you’ll be able to imagine something within your own lives that might not exist yet.”

It may seem bold to suggest you can visualise a new future for yourself just twenty minutes into his performance. But the way Shabaka creates late-night lullabies from new-age sounds and jazz improvisation, it’s hard not to drift off into an other-worldly realm and imagine those dreams.

This innate desire to create a deep, sonic journey is what has made Shabaka a mainstay in the UK jazz scene over the last decade. Making a name for himself playing with Mercury Prize-nominated Sons of Kemet and psychedelic jazz trio The Comet Is Coming, he became burnt out by the saxophone so quit it last year to focus on the flutes. Move over, André 3000.

With Shabaka picking through a dozen bamboo, metal, and Shakuhachi flutes throughout the concert, it’s clear he can translate his relentless, signature sound when playing long, tingling blows, or short, powerful percussive stabs on the woodwind instruments.

Performing the new album ‘Perceive its Beauty, Acknowledge its Grace’, Alina Bzhezhinska and Miriam Adefris double up on harps to softly trickle in and leave space for Shabaka to improvise over, whilst Elliot Galvin and Hinako Omori on the piano, synths, and modular FX produce shimmering sounds that glide through the rest of the band’s melodies.

Eska’s vocals flow beautifully in conversation with Shabaka’s flute on ‘Living’, and ‘I’ll Do Whatever You Want’ led to the most percussive range from Shabaka when you can hear the polyrhythms bounce and spit into the mouthpiece; he even moves onto the shakers and jingles to increase the intensity here and plays a small wooden flute one handed to add to the sensational, arpeggiating climax.

Shabaka chats at the end on what it’s been like to start this new chapter: “Learning an instrument at a later stage is a real privilege. It’s a real blessing to be a beginner and having to humble myself to a new practice.”

Whilst he may not see himself as master yet, Shabaka’s transcendental evening of music created the dreamy atmosphere he hoped for, and spectacularly imitated the beautiful, balmy spring evening the two thousand-strong audience left outside for his show.

Shabaka played:

‘Insecurities’
‘Managing my Breath, What Fear Had Become’
‘End Of Innocence’
‘Black meditation’
‘As The Planets And The Stars Collapse’
‘The Wounded Need To Be Replenished’
‘Ital is vital’
‘I’ll Do Whatever You Want’
‘Living’
‘Breathing’
‘Body To Inhabit’
‘Song For Motherland’

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