Music / Jazz
Review: Tezeta, Lakota Gardens
And about bloody time! This long-awaited Bristol Jazz & Blues Festival promotion should have happened last October but, despite their best efforts … well, you know. And now here we were on the brink of ‘freedom’ (hah!) still stuck round tables for a set of highly danceable Ethio-funk grooves. “Yes, it’s a jazz gig,” observes keyboard playing bandleader Dan Inzani, after we’d jiggled about in our seats to another scorching tenor sax duel from Lorenzo Prati and Andrew Neil Hayes, and of course the compelling pleasure of Tezeta is that weird alchemy that turns potentially difficult rhythms into compulsive dance floor fillers. But not yet, apparently.
Tezeta: Harriet Riley, Dan Inzani, Conrad Singh, Lorenzo Prati, Pete Gibbs, Andrew Neil Hayes, Daniel Truen, Matthew Jones
If you build a band around a dazzling vibraphone player like Harriet Riley then an obvious inspiration would be Mulatu Astatke and the rediscovered Ethiopique blend of funk inspiration with Middle Eastern rhythms and harmonies. The challenge might be to find a drummer that can ride those 13 and 7 rhythms with the requisite fluidity, but Tezeta has two such in Matt Jones and Daniel Truen, seated side by side and merged into a four handed percussion beast. Locked into Pete Gibbs absolutely solid bass lines the trio provided the engine for all of what happened thereafter.
is needed now More than ever
Or almost all, because the set opened with the lounging Lydia, a laconic piece of lift music topped with shimmering Hawaiian guitar swoops and the barest minimum of drum action. It seemed designed to get us settled down, all the more ready to become invigorated by what followed. That proved to be an instant Ethio-dub groove, complete with wonky electronics and guitar, that stoked the drums and goaded the two saxes into some kind of meltdown. All very cosmic, but soon resolved into a tight unison dervish dance finale.
And thus it went on, with noted scene stealer Pagume doing its 13-time cosmic prog-meets-Horn of Africa thing, the vibraphone weaving sinuously around Conrad Singh’s guitar. Loopy waltz Bradshaw again ventured into lounge territory, with deceptive vibes and sax eventually giving way to to some crashing drums, keys and guitar.
The set built its energy steadily while finding room for an entertaining double-drummer solo, flashes of Zappa-influenced vibraphone and raucous moments of cutting sax playing. They closed with a fast and bluesy boogie encore that showcased Harriet Riley and Dan Inzani but the set had really peaked with the ‘last one’, a burner that began with ponderously laden drumming before hitting an Afrobeat gear change complete with Fela Kuti style sax solo from Lorenzo Prati and some hard nosed drum work that built to a frenzied climax before snapping tightly shut. The combination of musical energy, group cohesion and plain old good fun was exhilarating for band and audience alike.
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