When Soweto Kinch moved into his ‘free-styling’ rap, he elicited words from the audience that came from the letters of ‘Marsden’.\u00a0 The Marsden audience, part of the arc of Pennine post hippydom that runs from Hebden Bridge, through Todmorden, and Marsden to Mossley, initially gave him ‘melifluous’, ‘artisanal’, ‘sheep’, ‘dung’,\u00a0 ‘energy’ and, finally, ‘Northern’.\u00a0 Kinch, rejecting ‘melifluous’ as too polysyllabic, was left with ‘artisanal’ since\u00a0no audience member could provide him with an alternative. He rejected ‘dung’ too and replaced that with ‘dream’.\u00a0 Kinch then launched into an astonishing display of wordmanship, and earned the kind of cheer that his bravura performance deserved.\u00a0 Kinch is known these days as both alto saxophonist and rapper, but it was, I suspect the alto playing that had drawn the audience.<\/p>\n
Kinch’s material came mostly from his latest album, The New Emancipation, <\/em>and it is strong, vibrant material with striking tunes.\u00a0 Such tunes sometimes ran beneath Kinch’s energetic rapping.\u00a0 Elsewhere, he used a laptop,\u00a0to provide\u00a0‘strings’ and ‘brass’ behind some of the numbers. Mostly, however, he played in a trio with Nick Jurd (bass) and Graham Godfrey on drums.\u00a0 The alto saxophone’s rather nasal production has lived in the shadow of Charlie Parker’s dominance of the instrument since the 1940’s and no jazz player can escape that legacy.\u00a0 But Kinch has a fierce drive all of his own, and there is no doubting his profound virtuosity on the alto.\u00a0 Jurd and Godfrey are a fine driving young rhythm section, and the Pennine audience were suitably roused by the whole group.<\/p>\n Later on, the same venue, Marsden Mechanics, Submotion Orchestra brought their own highly charged blend of dubstep, electronica, soul and jazz.\u00a0 The Submotions are yet another product of Leeds College of Music, and their musicianship is clear for all to see.\u00a0 Fronted by the mesmerising Ruby Wood on vocals, the band imparts great energy to the compositions of keyboardist, Taz Modi.\u00a0 The songs again mostly taken from the band’s album, Finest Hour<\/em>, are melodic but plangent.\u00a0 And they operate at a volume that didn’t always appeal to an audience that was most of the group who’d come to Soweto Kinch.\u00a0 But Submotion Orchestra are the real deal, and their current tour should break them out to wider audiences.\u00a0 Tommy Evans’ lyrical flugelhorn playing offers a beguiling counter to Woods’ soulful vocals and the rhythm section of bassist Chris Hargreaves, percussionist Danny Templeman, and drummer, Simon ‘Bobby’ Beddoe, had nearly everyone in the room on their feet, on a damp, squally Pennine night.<\/p>\n Marsden Jazz Festival is, this year, celebrating its 20th anniversary.\u00a0 Long may it continue bringing such wonderful contemporary music to this little town in the hills.<\/p>\n Ian Pople<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Soweto Kinch moved into his ‘free-styling’ rap, he elicited words from the audience that came from the letters of ‘Marsden’.\u00a0 The Marsden audience, part of the arc of Pennine post hippydom that runs from Hebden Bridge, through Todmorden, and Marsden to Mossley, initially gave him ‘melifluous’, ‘artisanal’, ‘sheep’, ‘dung’,\u00a0 ‘energy’ and, finally, ‘Northern’.\u00a0 Kinch, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[15],"tags":[175,236,242],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n