Alfa Mist Lifts Concorde From The Fog With Post-Modern Vision

Still, she gets warmed up enough to charm the crowd with her unassuming persona and easy-on-the-ear combination of sweet alto-sax and relaxed ambient beats. Her act is more engaging when she sings as well – clear-toned vocals crooning songs of millennial urban angst.

Alfa Mist is here promoting his new record – '.44' starts with a vocal sample leading into a smoky, post-Erika Badu vibe clearly related to ‘Apple Tree’. This isn’t lowest common denominator smooth jazz, though; trumpet/flugel man Johnny Woodham is out of the starting blocks right away with an electronically-enhanced torrent of notes demonstrating real post-bebop chops, and Jamie Leeming shows that he’s a fearlessly creative guitarist with a definite penchant for the oblique and the unexpected, favouring squiggly chromatic lines that veer in and out of the harmony. Mr Mist’s own contributions on Rhodes hark back to the reverb-drenched chording style of Lonnie Liston Smith; Jamie Houghton is crisp and responsive on drums.

This is a modern jazz fusion that eschews the soulful vocal histrionics and uptempo popping basslines of earlier incarnations of the style as propagated by, say, Incognito, and replaces them with a much more ambivalent, questioning contemporary mood. The playing is as tight and focussed as you could wish, but chords are ambiguously voiced, grooves come in unexpected odd-number combinations, melodies drift past without ever clamouring for your attention; the general onstage vibe is reserved introspection. Bassist Kaya Thomas-Dyke’s mournfully impassive demeanour, under her flamboyant afro, sets the tone and makes her the coolest onstage; her basslines are on point, rock solid over the tricky metre changes.

Alfa, when he speaks, is a relaxed and genial host; when he raps, as on ‘Closer’ from his debut, the show comes into focus. His voice has a gravelly authority and could be his secret weapon; it’s a shame he self-deprecatingly claims to be too lazy to write more than one verse per album. ‘JJajja’s Screen’ is dedicated to his Luganda-speaking grandma; the consistently downbeat mood means that a certain longueur sets in and it’s not til Thomas-Dyke takes to the mic to add her clear, soaring vocals to ‘Breathe’ that the magic returns and the crowd of hip young metropolitan types are all rapt through to the propulsive groove and tumbling melody of ‘Keep On’ – his most recognised tune, and the one that you could describe in the context of contemporary post-modern jazz/hip-hop streaming culture as his smash hit. Alfa Mist is a man with his own beguiling musical vision, gently but positively spreading the word.

– Eddie Myer