Music / Jazz
Return of The Enemy
OK – so committed hep cats will need to plan a quiet Sunday morning to balance out their weekend’s jazz energy. Two powerhouse visitors from the cutting edge of the UK contemporary scene will be hitting town, the first being The Comet Is Coming at Canteen (Saturday 2). This is a hot new trio project featuring the great reeds player Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet) and delivering science fiction inspired electro-jazz in highly danceable bursts. It’s great fun – like a 21st century update on Sun Ra’s cosmic jazz – and brilliant Saturday night fun, but it’ll leave you wrung out for sure. So if you’re aiming to catch pianist Kit Downes’ high-powered band The Enemy (pictured) at The Hen & Chicken on Sunday evening then a late and leisurely breakfast would seem to be in order. The Enemy’s last trip to Bedminster was a real treat and for this return visit the trio will have Troyka guitarist Chris Montague as a fourth member which should add even more grit to their rich soundscapes and improvisational energy.
Plenty of that improvisational energy will be heard at The Fringe (Monday 28) when the regular quartet hosts the monthly Fringe Free Music session, and there’ll be some impressive soloing at the same venue on Wednesday (30) when George Cooper brings his hard-bopping Jazz Defenders sextet. With Nick Malcolm (trumpet) and Nick Dover (sax) joining George’s piano and the eminent Will Harris/Matt Brown rhythm section the band’s Foyer performance at the Bristol Jazz Festival was a sparkler.
Jazzfest organiser and guitarist Denny Ilett takes centre stage again at Future Inn (Thursday 31) with his quartet including Riaan Vosloo’s intelligent double bass and Kasabian drummer Ian Matthews. The band also features the versatile keyboard skills of Dan Moore who appears at the Bebop Club on Friday (1) in Craig Crofton’s Organ Quartet alongside Craig’s sax and Neil Smith’s guitar in a set of ‘hard driving swing and funky grooves’ and then turns up at LeftBank on Sunday (2) playing boogaloo-style Hammond with his very own Dan Moore Trio. You can catch Craig in Tommy McCook mode at Canteen on Thursday (31) when the Jazz Reggae Session celebrates the Jamaican swing-meets-rocksteady music of Ernest Ranglin and others, and No Go Stop’s ebullient tenor sax player John Pratt leads his organ trio at Canteen on Wednesday (30). The threesome also includes Jonny Henderson, one of the best exponents of classic Hammond style hereabouts and the irrepressible drumming of Matt Brown.
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