Upcoming Gigs

So, of late I've been to a fair few great gigs, a brief round-up is below.

John Scofield Trio + Horns @ Jazz Cafe

Scofield's blues informed jazz-fusion guitar was on great form at this first of two gigs at the Jazz Cafe. His Trio + Horns group was a nice change from his previous smaller group, with the horns augmenting the sound of the band rather than playing a fuller role. While it might have been nice to see (or rather, hear) them slightly more to the fore, it gave a good backing to the trio's solos and fleshed out the melodies to the tunes, which included covers of House Of The Rising Sun and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Scofield's still at the top of his game and it was brilliant to see him still playing and sounding as inventive as he has for the last couple of decades.

Porpoise Corpus @ Charlie Wright's

This highly regarded venue, tucked away off Old Street offers up some real treats - Robert Glasper was there recently - and last weekend avant-garde post-jazzers Porpoise Corpus (seriously, we either need some defined classifications for jazz these days or forget the whole genre thing altogether) held court for the night. I saw their pianist ripping it up on double bass at a warehouse party the weekend before, playing improvised hip hop and drum n' bass in the company of some freestyle MCs, but for this gig he was leading the way, P.C.'s expansive compositions covering a lot of ground. More intriguing than out-right enjoyable, but I was tired on a Sunday night and this was mostly new material from the band. These guys can really jam, well worth watching out for.

Neil Cowley Trio @ Cargo.

Album launch for the ever-entertaining NCT at Cargo, and great venue for it. The band rocked it pretty hard, using the live show to rank up the power of their crescendos a fair few notches. The combined chops of NCT are pretty unbelievable, Cowley's virtuosity on the keys matched by Evan Jenkins' explosive drums and Richard Sadler's rock- solid bass grooves. Their old material still stands up well against the newer stuff, which has cemented their sound nicely. If I was to level any criticism, which I don't want to do seeing as I really, really enjoyed the gig, it would be that although the NCT are brilliant at what they do, they don't do much else. Build-ups and serious riffage are fine and dandy, but occasionally I found myself thinking the format could do with a little more variation at times, but this was still one of the most straight-up fun gigs I've been to for a while.

There are some brilliant Air gigs coming up - Polar Bear and Tom Cawley's Curios at Ronnie Scott's (April 7th-9th), Tom Richards at the QEH Front Room with his full 19-piece group (April 11th) and the awesome double-billing of Tony Kofi and Anita Wardell at The Purcall Room (April 21st)- but I'm also looking out for the phenomenal Stanley Clarke at the Jazz Cafe at the end of May, which promises (for me at least) to be a glorious night of jaw-dropping bass geekery. I'll let you know how I get on...

J.