SHABAKA HUTCHINGS
Kinetic British sax diviner and serial collaborator achieves escape velocity!
“YOU NEED TO BE PUTTING AS MUCH WORK AS A GUY WORKING ON A CONSTRUCTION SITE.”
The moment the six-foot-plus, Afrocentrically-garbed figure of Shabaka Hutchings strides into Dalston’s Café Oto he is courted by well-wishers. Unsurprising, since the sax man’s eclectic energies, visceral blowing and buoyant charisma means he orbits near the centre of a left-field, genre-bending music scene that calls this venue home. Best not call it jazz, is all. “Most people are like, ‘I don’t really like jazz because I went to the pub on Sunday and it stopped me having a conversation with my mates’,” he mock-protests, cracking a gap-toothed grin. Ostensibly, we’re here to discuss Wisdom Of Elders by Shabaka And The Ancestors, a dream-team collaboration between the Anglo-Barbadian saxist and South African players including Amandla Freedom Ensemble altoist Mthunzi Mvubu and drummer Tumi Mogorosi, which melds calypso and Nguni with shades of ’60s spiritual jazz and a sip of Bitches Brew. And yet Hutchings’ prolific output means we could just as easily be featuring last week’s or next week’s project, with ongoing shows with his Sons Of Kemet (a boisterous low-end-fest comprising drummers Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford plus tuba-toting Oren Marshall) and horn-spattered space-techno anomaly The Comet Is Coming still basking in their recent Mercury Prize nomination. What’s different about The Ancestors? “The energy source,” says Hutchings. “It feels like the point at which the excitement within an improvisation is at a peak. They get to that point faster and sustain it. In a lot of groups I see in the UK that is not the primary consideration.” Calling Hutchings Britain’s most exciting saxophonist might sound like faint praise, but he brings voltage that makes a lot of his peers appear wan and polite. He’s keen on exploring “extremes”, averse to the clichés of his genre (“Like ‘less is more’,” he grumbles. “No it’s not. Less is less and more is more”) and determined to shed some sweat on-stage. “I get that from my classical training,” says the Guildhall graduate with a string quartet to his name. “My teacher had a real thing about physicality. I’d be playing Brahms sonatas and he’d be like, ‘Blow! Blow!’ And I’d be blowing the crap out of the instrument. You need to be putting as much work as a guy working on a construction site.” Wisdom Of Elders maintains Hutchings’ essential earthiness, and surrounds it with a tingling glow imparted by some of his freest instrumental excursions yet. But acclaim won’t blind him to the practicalities of life in one of music’s least market-facing pigeonholes. “Kamasi Washington showed the jazz community what it takes,” says Hutchings. “That’s a powerful image – wow! Mr Moon Man! Compare that to the album covers of the average British group: some guys in grey T-shirts and H&M jackets, or a guy standing next to a brick wall looking sad.” Hutchings claims that he’s had a “plan my whole life” – another refreshing admission. The next stage involves the arrangement of a US work visa, a trip to Brazil with Sons Of Kemet, and UK shows with The Ancestors in the New Year. Luckily, there’s a lot of him to go around. “Some people say, the person is the medium for the music,” he ponders. “I don’t believe that. I think music is a reflection of people’s experience or people‘s perception of what life is to them. Music isn’t above people.”