Harpist Tara Minton walks ‘In the Footsteps of Dorothy Ashby’ with bewitching concert at Crazy Coqs as part of EFG London Jazz Festival

Best known nowadays for being sampled by everyone from Jurassic 5 to Drake, Dorothy Ashby, the great jazz harp pioneer, was the focus of this enjoyable gig by fellow harpist Tara Minton and her band in the Art Deco fantasy room that is Soho’s Crazy Coqs.

Introducing Ashby’s eccentric arrangement of ‘Fool on the Hill’, Minton sardonically commented, “Every jazz musician of that era had to go through their flying carpet phase.” Yet for Ashby it was no mere phase, but a total commitment to the expansion of what could be thought of as jazz. And on the way she embraced the soul, funk, psychedelia and spiritual jazz of her day.

Part of this evening’s set was devoted to standards (‘Moonlight in Vermont’, ‘Portrait of Jennie’, ‘Secret Love’) as well as a couple of quality pop tunes (Stevie Wonder’s ‘If It’s Magic’, McCartney’s ‘Blackbird’). But the gig really came to life with Ashby’s composition ‘Essence of Sapphire’, a funky waltz-time tune with a pleasing electronic delay on the harp - an effect that also worked well on ‘Truth Spoken Here’, where Minton synchronised the delay rate to the rhythm of the tune, adding a percussive element. And like Dorothy Ashby, she sings as beautifully as she plays.

The less tightly arranged numbers gave saxophonist/flautist Emma Rawicz and trumpeter/flugelhornist Miguel Gorodi the chance to solo with greater freedom. Gorodi particularly shone in his duet with Minton on ‘Portrait of Jenny’, while on ‘Blackbird’ he ended the piece with some soft, fluttery bird calls on his trumpet.

It would have been nice to hear some selections from Ashby’s best albums Afro-Harping and The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby, but as this band settles down and digs deeper into the repertoire, we surely will.