Shabaka [Joseph Ouechen]

YOU are going to be hearing a lot of John Coltrane (b September 23, 1926) in the coming weeks as his centenary looms. That’s not surprising, as his legacy can be heard in almost every modern sax player – one of the rites of passage for a young man or woman with a horn is to master the fearsome “Coltrane Changes”, as heard on Giant Steps.

But ’Trane’s devotional, spiritual side has also been a lasting influence. When Shabaka (Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming) announced a break from playing saxophone in favour of the flute a couple of years ago, he chose to “retire” his horn by playing a scorching version of A Love Supreme. Now Shabaka has reunited with his sax, and he is again exploring that iconic piece with a gig on September 23 at St James the Great Church in Clapton, fronting a mighty band including Tom Skinner and Sarathy Korwar on drums. See: http://churchofsound.co.uk

Shabaka also has dates at the new Blue Note Club in St Martin’s Lane which opens on September 23. Tickets for the first tranche of shows (Robert Glasper, Jamie Cullum, Yussef Dayes) are hard to come by, but at the time of writing there were some left for Shabaka’s gigs on October 19 & 20 (www.bluenotejazz.com/london/tm-event/shabaka/). We’ll obviously be covering this important opening in more depth soon.

There is another, less secular Coltrane event at the American International Church in Tottenham Court Road on his birthday. A Love Supreme – Jazz Vespers is an “evening jazz service” which includes a performance of the devout piece plus prayers and meditation. The excellent band includes Kaidi Akinnibi on tenor sax, Liam Dunachie, piano, Larry Bartley, bass, and Winston Clifford, drums. Early doors for this one: 6pm on September 23, when there will be “wine and nibbles’. Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/coltranes-100th-birthday-a-love-supreme-jazz-vespers-sept-2026-tickets-1994669017727

As you might expect, Coltrane at 100 figures heavily in the EFG London Jazz Festival this autumn. Hot tickets include the twin sax line-up of Joe Lovano and Melissa Aldana with a killer rhythm section of South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, Linda May Han Oh on bass and Jeff “Tain” Watts behind the drums. It’s on November 13 at the Barbican.

Then there is saxophonist Branford Marsalis and singer Dianne Reeves re-calibrating the much-loved 1963 Coltrane/Hartman album. It takes place on September 21 at the new British Airways ARC venue at Olympia, which is big – 3,800 capacity – and I only hope they can get some suitably jazzy atmosphere in there, given the hushed intimacy of that wonderful record, although we are promised a higher energy version than the original. (The Marsalis/Reeves version is due out on Blue Note Records at around the same time). For all shows at the festival see: https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk

As mentioned in a recent Review column (www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/the-marvellous-mr-muoneke), the talented and versatile vocalist Marvin Muoneké and sax man Mark Lockheart bring their version of Coltrane and Hartman to the somewhat cosier Ronnie Scott’s club for a lunchtime show on September 27: www.ronniescotts.co.uk/find-a-show/mark-lockheart-and-marvin-muoneké
Marvin played the Woodman pub in Highgate recently on one of its free Wednesday jazz nights which are always worth checking out – see www.the-woodman.com

I saw maverick Chicago sax man Isaiah Collier in Ronnie’s recently, performing a tribute to Coltrane, but in an unexpected twist he began with an out-to-lunch Eric Dolphy number and then navigated through a programme that gradually became less abrasive, ending with an audience singalong to the title track of Collier’s own ebullient, gospel/R&B album Joy (Brownswood). It was like ’Trane’s career in reverse.

Collier features heavily on an exhilarating new album on the Gearbox label from Canadian drummer/composer Franklin Kiermyer called Scatter The Atoms That Remain and he’s back to taking no prisoners. Kiermyer recorded with Pharoah Sanders back in the day and this is firmly in that Sanders/Coltrane “spiritual jazz” mode – intense, uncompromising, passionate, bad and beautiful, but also startlingly contemporary. If you like the later devotional/cosmic work of either of the above artists, the power of James Brandon Lewis, the freer Sun Ra interstellar excursions or the outer limits of drummer Kahil El Zabar (another Gearbox artist) you’ll be in a happy place here.

You might want to take a breather after the catharsis of Scattering The Atoms That Remain, so let me point you in the polar opposite direction with Current, a wonderfully quirky album from Dutch-born US-based keyboard player Vivienne Aerts. This isn’t a straightforward jazz album but Aerts does have immaculate jazz credentials – she has worked with the likes of Chris Potter, Peter Erskine, Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman, John Patitucci and the great mentor/educator and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, whose own We Insist 2025! is a reworking of Max Roach’s classic slice of protest music from 1961.

Current is no kind of agitprop, except for appreciating the transient beauty of our fragile natural world. It was recorded on a vintage 1951 mahogany sailboat that Aerts and her husband took, with diversions, from Leiden to Amsterdam. It incorporates plenty of field recordings – bird song, the rustling of reeds, the lapping of water, the creak of ropes and lock gates, distant church bells (all best heard when listening through headphones). These found sounds are incorporated into a series of songs that takes onboard jazz from harmonica player Hermine Deurloo (which reminded me of Grégoire Maret’s work on Pat Metheny’s majestic The Way Up), swirling, often multi-tracked sax from Susanne Alt (listen to her album Dark Horse for some easy-on-the-ear straight-ahead blowing) and resonant bass from Adinda Meertins that would make Ron Carter nod in approval. There are improvised passages of eerie wordless vocals which suggest misty, watery landscapes, plus Aert’s own ethereal lyrics/songs, with vocals again often double-tracked. I can’t pigeonhole Current – Laurie Anderson does jazz electronica? Norma Winstone sings with a charming Dutch-American accent? Nala Sinephro goes sailing? – I can only recommend it as a piece of calming, intriguing and beguiling mindfulness that even Coltrane might have approved of. And a quick word about the ambitious packaging – it comes with stickers, postcards, a captain’s log notebook and a map. It is one of the few CDs I would consider giving as a gift. For more on the whole project see: https://vivienneaerts.nl/