So find that drummer, guys, please – and then you really could be a live band to contend with.. Immaculately programmed beats can only get you so far because they never go anywhere apart from round in circles.And it’s surely not a good sign that during their one-song encore – their most well known tune “Midnight Marauders” – I found myself looking up at the spot-lit windsurfing seagulls above, rather than at the band. And it’s not the band’s preference for the slow- to mid-tempo tune. The real problem is Fat Freddys Drop are in search of a drummer, even if they don’t realise it yet. At times they nearly took flight during their two-hour set (the rock-steady “Roadie” when 500 arms waved from side to side being a case in point) but those without-momentum, leaden loops prevented them even getting out on to the runway. Sting in pensive ballad mode more readily springs to mind.As the evening goes on it becomes obvious what that missing thing I mentioned earlier is It’s not Dukie’s restraint – that’s his style. And those uncluttered arrangements are the perfect foil for Joe Dukie’s smooth crooning as he stands there stock-still, looking cool in a black shirt and matching sarong, treating his microphone as if it were an intimate confidant.Dukie’s voice has been compared to Bill Withers’ but he’s not quite there yet.
It’s pleasing enough, almost clarinet-like in its purity of tone, but he doesn’t have Withers’ range or emotional nakedness. It’s feng shui reggae or Zen dub in its everything-in-the-right-place, stripped-down take on Jamaican music, yet it just doesn’t quite hit the spot. So I’m curious to see if their music will spring to life in a live context. And when the song shifts seamlessly into Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams”, which gets an enthusiastic cheer, it’s clear they know how to keep an audience happy.The brass section (trombone, trumpet and sax) are admirably restrained when they need to be and deliver perfect, economic solos when things start to heat up. And the open-air square behind Somerset House seems like the ideal setting.
When the bass drum on the opening “Ernie” makes my trousers vibrate, it’s immediately apparent that at least they’ve found a way to transpose their lounge sound into a live context. Their debut album, 2005’s Based on a True Story, is certainly a soulful and groovy entity in a curiously detached kind of way. Garrett can lock his gaze on to any musical ingredient and command it to serve the purpose of jazz.I’ve often thought Garrett is unequalled as the modern master of the alto sax Now I know it for sure.
Jazz is a higher purpose, and a player of Garrett’s stature reminds us of that.. There’s something about New Zealand’s Fat Freddys Drop which is missing – and it’s not just the apostrophe from their name. There’s occasionally been almost too noticeable a jump between the acerbic swing and the downhome funk in Garrett’s repertoire With this quartet, he has achieved a marvellous coherency. Nothing is employed to show off, nothing extraneous is brought in to lend a commercial edge. It was severe, but sexy; it swung like hell, but with serious intent.
Then – and this was one of the remarkable aspects of the near-two hour set – the quartet moved seamlessly on to a slowish groove so fat it could have kept a crowd on a dancefloor. Benito Gonzalez switched from grand to Rhodes piano, coaxing tight minor chords from the electric instrument.
Garrett himself turned on a distortion pedal that produced such a superior, clear sound that I fancied the late Eddie Harris was nodding his approval from beyond the grave.The group, driven by the no-nonsense double bass of Kris Funn and insistent drumming of Jamire Williams, continued to touch different stylistic bases, bringing out the profundity and majesty of Garrett’s hymn-like “Sing a Song of Songs” and letting the silences speak when he switched to soprano sax for a trio of East Asian ballads.All, however, was clearly woven from the same cloth. It was the most uncompromising yet utterly captivating exposition of post-bop to have issued from the stage of the Frith Street club for a long time. Backed by a rhythm section that fitted as snugly to Garrett’s sound as his trademark hat does to his head, the 45-year-old from Detroit twisted thick ropes out of his churning alto, alternating with short wails and extended “off” notes strongly reminiscent of mid-to-late Coltrane. And with Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, on a nearby stage, screaming the lyric of “Swastika Eyes” as “American Eyes”, and rapping the mantra “USA is a fascist stage”, there was further proof that this festival held all things for all people..
From the moment Kenny Garrett strode on stage, the skull-cap-wearing prophet of the alto sax began roaring through “Chief Blackwater”, his tribute to McCoy Tyner, going straight into a 15-minute solo that picked the audience up by the earlobes and seared onto their brains an imprint of what it means to have drawn so deeply on the well of jazz that nothing but its essence escapes from his horn. Franz Ferdinand would have to try to fail in front of such a partisan crowd, although the Red Hot Chili Peppers might almost have been accused of doing just that, and we were left hoping that Sunday might offer a more spectacular sign-off.Of course it did, as The Who can’t bury a legacy as strong as their own. But for sheer good-timing – having just found out her single, “Smile”, had charted at number one – Lily Allen’s cheerful reggae-pop proved hard to resist.By and large, the headline acts were also a success. This stage’s pick of Saturday was Giant Drag, the Californian duo Annie Hardy and Micah Calabrese, who blend the laid-back, non-attitude of Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine into a charged sonic wave.Sunday saw the Futures Stage welcome debonair French indie-poppers Phoenix and Scotland’s crowd-pleasing Ramones-wannabes The Fratellis, both arriving to warm receptions.
