Coming up at the London club in August and September is a mixture of the routine, the interesting and at times fascinating. Among the highlights are:
- 11-12 August 2022: Avishai Cohen Trio ‘Shifting Sands’ – Doors: 5.30pm & 8.30pm / £55.00 – £75.00.
- 13 August 2022: Brandee Younger – Doors: 5.30 & 8.30pm / £40.00 – £55.00.
- 16-18 August 2022: Mingus Dynasty – Doors 5.30pm & 8.30pm / £45.00 – £60.00.
- 19 August 2022: Neue Grafik Ensemble – Doors: 5.30pm & 8.30pm / £20.00 – £35.00 (of which the club says: “Composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Neue Grafik has been building a strong reputation for himself over the past few years. His sound is a hybrid of jazz, house and hip hop, all with his unique geographical flavours of African ethnicity, Parisian roots and a love for London sounds like broken beat and grime thrown into the mix.”
- 29 August 2022: Stanley Jordan Quartet – Doors: 5.30pm & 9pm / £35.00 – £50.00. Jordan is one of the fascinating ones: on his appearance in the 1980s, Jordan, with his two-handed tapping technique on the guitar, was hailed by some as a paradigm shift in guitar technique. The fact that his approach wasn’t widely adopted demonstrates, if it were needed, that publicists and pundits should be approached with caution. How does he play now?
- 30 August 2022: Faraway Frequencies: Australian Future-Jazz – Doors 6pm / £20.00 – £45.00 The club says: “A showcase of Australia’s new wave of genre-bending rebels. Taking cues from soul, jazz and club culture, these brash fusionists have stamped an uninhibited style on a sun-bleached spool of influences.” Really? Natalie Slade’s very good, predictable, smooth, non-brash nu-soul-type groove Love Light suggests “genre-bending rebels” is either hyperbolic or naive.
- August Late Late Shows – Doors 11.15pm / £12.00 feature some local big names, including Mark Kavuma; Vula Malinga; Stacey, Prestone & Mullarkey; Yolanda Charles; and good-value Anglo-French funk band Wild Card.
- 14 September 2022: Chico Freeman /Antonio Faraò Quartet – Tribute To John Coltrane – Doors: 5.30pm & 8.30pm / £30.00 – £45.00. Another, like Jordan, likely to fall for many into the “whatever happened to?” category.
- 16-17 September 2022: Trilok Gurtu – Doors: 5.30pm & 8.30pm / £32.50 – £52.50.
- 22 September 2022: Kirk Lightsey Quartet featuring Alex Hitchcock – Doors : 5:30pm / £30.00 – £45.00. The American piano veteran plays with locals Alex Hitchcock (ts), Steve Watts (b) & Sangoma Everett (d).
- 30 September 2022: Cleveland Watkiss’ Great Jamaican Songbook – Doors 5.30pm & 8.30pm / £35.00 – £50.00. One show which, if it follows the album of the same name, will be some way from jazz. One might have expected substantial improvisation on the album’s reggae standards but in the event it’s fleeting, if present at all.
More on all forthcoming shows at Ronnie’s at ronniescotts.co.uk.
