Jas Kayser features in the latest album in the Jazzre:freshed series Jas 5ive, following on in the footsteps of Ashley Henry and Kaidi Tatham with a rhythmically-flowing and expertly measured set that plumbs the rich rhymical traditions of West African, Latin and Jazz, distilled through the filter of contemporary London Jazz. The Dorset raised 26-year-old has been making a name for herself as one of the finest young drummers on the UK circuit, after attaining her undergraduate and master’s degrees from Berklee. Having performed with homegrown talent ranging from Alfa Mist, Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings, her touch is well revered, and her solo output certainly reinforces her abilities while evidencing her growing legend as a bandleader and composer. Keyser is definitely a rising force in British Jazz—someone to keep a keen eye on. She is, without question, a considerable source of capital for modern drumming and, notably, women in Jazz.
Kayser leads the unit behind her trap kit—comprised of Daisy George on bass, Jamie Leeming on electric guitar, Mark Hurrell on tenor, Giacomo Smith on alto, Christos Stylianides on trumpet, Ava Joseph on vocals and Joao Caetano on percussion. Stylistically, Keyser displays gentle and milder modes of playing, not launching into her kit in a Blakeyesque full-frontal aural assault but approaching her music in a considered, if not at times slightly restrained manner. Her playing is dexterous and soft, and underpinned with a masterful understanding of worldly rhythms juggled with serious, undiluted skill, metronomic timing, fluid phrases and tonally rich registers.
Album highlights include the shuffling and deftly percussive Stupid on the Beat which begins with a frenetic duo between drums and percussion akin to a Tony Allen experiment, punctuated with delicate guitar noodling and Daisy George’s thunderous bass, a track where the rhythmical interplay builds up to boiling point with a doubled-up timbales and conga solo from Joao Caetano closing the track out in style. Darkness in the light is another key track, featuring a hazy vocal from Ava Joseph and dynamic shifts throughout, underpinned with Kayser’s fine drumming interlocking the rhymical nuances and gelling the musicians together, almost as though her playing is for the total benefit of the musicians around her. A fine alto solo from Giacomo Smith lifts the track into headier spiritual territories, while yet again Caetano’s percussion rumbles throughout the underbelly of the track, imparting deeply exotic textures and explosive rhythmical nuances, energising the soundscape with hardened and syncopated palms. Dream trundles along with a West-African lilt, a propulsive session which bridges the gap between contemporary London Jazz and Afro, imbibing a sound similar to that of Kokoroko.
Overall, a brilliant album from this highly accomplished artist, hopefully more of the same to come.
Buy the LP HERE
Listen to the tracks HERE
