Jazz breaking news: Cleveland Watkiss and Jazz Warriors evoke the spirit of Martin Luther King

This Jazz Warriors International/St.George’s Bloomsbury event seeks to capture some of King’s spirit and show how his primary forces - resourcefulness, imagination, improvisation in the most testing circumstances – resonate with the jazz aesthetic. Furthermore, there is artful stylistic border-crossing during the shortish sets that feature five accomplished artists: Bonnie Greer hosts and, in the final part of the performance, reads a text off which Cleveland Watkiss extemporises before she recites part of her libretto Yes with Errolyn Wallen on piano. The sister of a certain Byron is an excellent classical composer and vocalist and her repertoire is charming for its seamless movement from avant-garde to salsa-not-salsa via a spiky reprise of ‘My Favorite Things’. 

More inventive straddling of classical and pop comes from another pianist-vocalist, Paul Gladstone-Reid, whose blend of Negro spirituals and Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ astutely channels King’s idealism into a wider African Diasporan framework. Perhaps the most ambitious moment of the evening was Orphy Robinson improvising on marimba to the last speech that King ever made. But the programme made a point of presenting the musicians in different combinations, so the duets between the latter and firstly, Cleveland Watkiss, then, secondly Gladstone-Reid were also worthy of note. Robinson, an established multi-instrumentalist, has long shown an uncanny ability to think outside of the box.

While his tremendous rhythmic drive and dot-dash line construction impress it is the little details that stand out, none more so than the beautiful timbral flourish he fashions by momentarily lifting his mallets from the keyboard and striking them together as if they were Cuban clavé. Great civil rights leaders, adept at sidestepping blades and billy clubs to keep breath in their bodies for the ‘movement’, would have endorsed such dexterity. 

– Kevin Le Gendre