JAZZ SABBATH
VENUE HOXTON HALL, LONDON
DATE 30/11/2023
Almost seven years since their final concert and the popularity and influence of heavy metal progenitors Black Sabbath show absolutely no signs of abating. Over in their home city, the Birmingham Royal Ballet have fashioned Black Sabbath – The Ballet, a theatrical event that sees contemporary dance applied to new orchestrations of familiar blasts from the rock canon. And down here in London, on this cold winter’s evening, there are those who challenge the orthodoxy of Black Sabbath’s history.
The screen behind the stage of this beautifully restored former music hall in the heart of London’s East End shows a short pre-gig film to claim that it was indeed Jazz Sabbath – the brainchild of jazz pianist Milton Keanes – who’d actually brought those musical nuggets into existence. Having recorded two jazz albums in the late 60s – or so the story goes – a certain Brummie quartet pinched the songs for themselves after the master tapes supposedly went up in flames in a mysterious warehouse fire. And even if you squint hard enough and ponder the bizarre resemblance between Milton Keanes and Ozzy Osbourne guitarist and keyboardist Adam Wakeman, the story must surely be true because here are vox pops from Chesney Hawkes, Rick Astley and, er, Prog Editor Jerry Ewing to confirm it!
But for all the comedy shenanigans surrounding and included in the show (see the shaggy dog story concerning the origins of Iron Man), Jazz Sabbath largely succeed as a musical venture because they play it straight. Unlike previous endeavours that transposed classic rock texts into other genres purely for laughs – the memory of
Dread Zeppelin still festers – here are musicians curious and skilled enough to see where it can be taken to treat the music with a high degree of respect.
Jazz Sabbath work best the further they move away from the source. So while the galloping pace of Children Of The Grave remains fundamentally the same bar, a switching up of the drum rhythms, it’s with deeper cuts such as Rat Salad that the trio hold the attention. And while the original instrumental acted as a succinct calling card for Bill Ward, here Jazz Sabbath themselves shine under the spotlight. Drummer Juan Také (aka Arthur Newell) clearly enjoys making the most of his kit thanks to some skittering work with his sticks, while double bassist Jacque T’fono (aka Jack Tustin) interjects with smooth pulses as Keanes’/Wakeman’s fingers dance exquisitely over his grand piano’s keys.
Elsewhere, Iron Man is slowed down to a mournful blues that then picks up in pace to evoke the cool jazz styling of Dave Brubeck while nodding to The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby. Untethered from its moorings for an extended voyage, the encore of Paranoid confirms an evening that’s more homage than pastiche.