16 May 2009
Jazz Breakfast
Peter Bacon

I think there might be a first here - unless there are any other jazz groups that have covered a Clash song. Seize The Time has the propulsion and vigour of political protest translated through warm and rich, pushing jazz, and it opens with Mick Jones and Joe Strummer's Clampdown.

Chicago drummer Ted Sirota takes his inspiration from not only Ornette, Coltrane, Charlie Haden and Monk, but also Bob Marley and Fela Kuti, and in this programme of covers and originals he chooses to do songs by Caetano Veloso, Charles Mingus, Stephen Foster and Miriam Makeba.

The Rebel Souls is a five piece with Geof Bradfield and Greg Ward on saxophones, Dave Miller on guitar and Jake Vinsel on bass., and they cover quite a lot of ground, sometimes sounding like a more electric mini-version of Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, sometimes like a street party band, sometimes like the Jazz Messengers.

The band has been together for over a decade and can dip into all these traditions without losing a clear character developed over that time. The two saxes have a great time on Mingus's Free Cell Block F, ‘Tis Nazi U.S.A., while Miller does some great reggae dub on Sirota's Killa Dilla. The guitarist's composition Tollway has a lovely reflective slow line over free time atmosphere that somehow reminded me of Ornette's Lonely Woman, before it relaxes into a swing groove and bass clarinet building to a wail from Bradfield.

Guys worth following over the barricades.