Jazz breaking news: Marc Ribot Trio Calls Upon The Holy Ghost At City Sessions

Ribot told the audience that he wouldn’t speak much, but simply said that the trio would play the music of Albert Ayler and John Coltrane.

A music born of protest, humility, humanity, life itself, as relevant today as yesterday, was being played out just over a mile away from the tents at St Paul’s as the cathedral reopened. The Holy Ghost, as Ayler was dubbed, the counterpart of Trane as Father, was being invoked. As for the Son (an absent Pharoah Sanders) who knows? As for Henry Grimes, who played and recorded with Ayler, he was at the centre of everything the trio did, while Chad Taylor’s excellent multi-directional drumming summoned up the style of the much missed Rashied Ali, who Grimes performed with not long before Ali’s death two years ago.

Ribot was a talismanic presence, a tonic to the senses, who, it would be foolish to think otherwise, played quite superbly. What Ribot didn’t indicate when he briefly spoke to the audience, and he couldn’t possibly have predicted, was that what was to come was the natural blues pure and simple: unforced, unclichéd, just there naked. Ayler fans would say the saxophonist played the blues like no other and who’s to disagree?

Certainly not the simpático Grimes who, and it’s not unfair to Ribot, carried the gig, presiding over every shift, subtle, obvious, rhythmic, conceptual, or otherwise. Mobile, fast impressive ideas worn big and to fit, the years melted away and a music was reborn without sounding dated at all. Trane’s ‘Sun Ship’ near the end was unbelievably potent and earlier what sounded like ‘Truth Is Marching In’ was another highlight. At other times the spirit of Robert Johnson sprang to mind. Ribot’s project exploring Sun Ship further with guitarist Mary Halvorsen is surely a must hear for all the fans who spent 20 minutes or more queuing to get in.

Needless to say a very attentive crowd despite a few chirruping mobile phones interfering filled the restored 300-seater Great Hall inside the splendid terracotta façade of the nineteenth century building. Earlier, support was provided by the hugely talented improvising jazz pianist Matthew Bourne in a short solo set which even marked a subtle change in Bourne’s improvising scope, as it featured some Tord Gustavsen-like control at quiet volumes, contrasting with the Leeds motivator’s frantic accelerating bar vaulting characteristic momentum. The less said about a disappointing performance by cello/voice duo Mayming, however, the better, despite vocalist Seaming To's obvious talent.

– Stephen Graham

The Vortex City Sessions next month feature The Necks at the Bishopsgate Institute on Friday 18 November and Saturday 19 November. To book go to www.bishopsgate.org.uk