Sly5thAve soars high at Ronnie Scott’s, London

“I’m six foot five, I’m from Texas. People say, what sport do you play? I say, I play the saxophone.”

So quipped Sylvester Uzoma Oyejiaka II, aka Sly5thAve, at a standing-room only Ronnie Scott’s. And yes of course he plays the saxophone - well enough to work as a member of Prince’s New Power Generation for two years, and later with Taylor Swift. Now he’s signed to the UK’s extremely hip TruThoughts label (also home to Jarrod Lawson), who released Sly’s excellent Agua de Jamaica album in collaboration with Roberto Verástegui in 2022.

This was a hugely enjoyable gig - part of Sly’s ‘Too Blessed to be Stressed’ tour, showcasing his new album Liberation which he recorded with a 40-piece orchestra. Tonight, however, Sly makes do with a string quartet - an idea that sometimes makes you wonder why people bother, but in this case, it greatly enhanced the music. Like Kamasi Washington, Sly writes in a filmic manner: it’s funky and soulful, natch, but also drenched in melody, with plenty of dramatic light and shade, allowing the strings to sweeten or darken the mood, as Sly switched between tenor sax and flute.

On tunes like ‘Water Suite’ and ‘Actin’ Whyte’, the solid groove established by Isobella Burnham (bass) and perma-smiling Jackie Whitmill Jr (drums) was aided and abetted by the tasteful soul interventions of guitarist Tal Janes. Our very own Deschanel Gordon  completed the rhythm section on piano.

The music is unclassifiable, hence never predictable. The great thing about Sly5thAve is that he goes his own way.