Bringing together the rhythm section of frequent collaborators, percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker, with London's improvising duo Black Top of Orphy Robinson on marimba and electronics & Pat Thomas on piano & electronics, plus improvising vocalist Elaine Mitchener, for a passionate and often ecstatically cathartic live concert at Cafe OTO.
Label: Otoroku Catalog ID: ROKU 025CD Squidco Product Code: 30102
Format: 2 CDs Condition: New Released: 2021 Country: UK Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded live at Cafe OTO, in London, UK, on July 28th, 2019, by Paul Skinne.
"Double CD documenting the magic meeting of one of the all-time great rhythm sections in jazz: percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker, with London's brilliant Black Top (Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas) and Elaine Mitchener. Across two sets the quintet are infectiously energetic and inspired, striding from synchronised heavy groove to star bright solos, whilst incorporating dub effects, guimbri and sumptuous blues piano playing.
Formed by Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas but always realised with an ever changing number of invited musicians, Black Top's blend of lo-fi samples, dub effects and experimental electronics has been daring free improvisation since 2011. Their virtuoso performances draw on their Afro-Caribbean roots with delicious spontienty and humour; the histories of Ridley Road Market, the LIO and Islamic West Africa are sounded out side by side on iPad, marimba and vibraphone. Having met in 2006, Black Top played with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake as part of their residency at Cafe OTO in 2016; forming a quartet grounded in transatlantic kinship but which looked outward to the Carribean, calypso music and Saharan gnawa rhythms. When Parker and Drake returned to OTO in 2019 Black Top reformed again, but this time with the brilliant addition of vocalist Elaine Mitchener.
Over the last few years the clarity with which Mitchener has explored vocal expression in the global Black Avant Garde has been stunning, but here the range in her influences is manifest, moving effortlessly between phonetic and poetic experimentation and spoken word, all the while at ease with soul soaked jazz and dissonant free fall. A hand drum duet with Hamid Drake astonishes before being laced perfectly with cosmic theremin and Parker's fantastic acid shehnai."-Otoroku
"Heavyweight UK improvisers Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas conceived Black Top in 2011 as an open-ended duo augmented by a series of guests. On these two hour-long sets recorded live at Cafe OTO, they're joined by the stellar US rhythm section of Hamid Drake and William Parker, plus British vocalist Elaine Mitchener, for a trans-Atlantic summit that vibrates with wild energy from start to finish. In the company of one of the truly great backlines in jazz, Thomas unfurls some of his most deeply lyrical musings to date, building to frenetically pounded, splay-fingered chords as bass and drums turn up the heat for a crashing free-jazz tumult. Mitchener is a hyperactive presence, channelling Jeanne Lee as ululations, hiccups, cartoonish baby talk and soulful crooning pour forth in a torrent of invention. But what really lifts this above the average is the unit's ability to switch seamlessly into diasporic pan-global grooves: a deep reggae vibe bubbles up out of nowhere; Parker picks up a Moroccan guimbri, joined by Robinson's marimba for a lilting Fourth World jam; Drake's frame drum and devotional song invite reedy shehnai calls from Parker, seeded with B-movie sci-fi electronics. This 21st century melting pot is brimming over with thrills."-Daniel Spicer, JazzWise