World-renowned drummer Myele Manzanza has made a musical splash over the past few years since landing in London from his native New Zealand. The percussive ripples of his musical arrival have fanned out across the capital and beyond, hitting the right pairs of eardrums successively and accruing him somewhat of reputation as one of the brightest lights on the British Jazz scene, certainly one of its most skilled players.
Manzanza, son of the Congolese percussionist Sam Manzanza, is a powerful presence on the international Jazz stage, an inventive and dynamic drummer who brings a particular sense of time and shuffling, broken energy to his playing, a deftly skilled practitioner with a totally idiosyncratic style of playing, circumnavigating the trap-kit with a fascinating fluidity and awe-inspiring range. Certainly experimentation is a concept that lives long in his musical vocabulary and something that he embraces in his recorded and live music, having seeped up the musical motifs and cultures of West African drumming, Hip-Hop, Broken Beat and Jazz throughout his budding career.
Having performed live alongside some rather noticeable and influential names—Mark de Clive-Lowe, Electric Wire Hustle, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Amp Fiddler and Theo Parrish to name a few—and after a recent string of solo albums and features, Myele has recently teamed up with Deepmatter records for a series of albums entitled Crisis & Opportunity—a possible reference for the unprecedented challenges that musicians and the industry by extension have faced since the beginning of the pandemic, and the various degrees of opportunity and respite that it has afforded in parallel. While Volume 2 will be coming out (exclusively on vinyl) towards the end of November, we have recently been able to get hold of extra copies of Crisis and Opportunity Vol. 1 after a chance encounter with Myele’s A&R at Ronnie Scotts—an album that practically disappeared after it was initially released. Featuring Ashley Henry (Piano), James Copus (trumpet), George Crowley (tenor saxophone), Benjamin Muralt (bass) and Mark de Clive-Lowe (synths), with Manzanza holding things down on the trap-kit.
The set begins with the crisp stepper Big Deal 2 (Bigger Deals) which at 11 minutes long allows ample time for the players to introduce themselves with elongated solo sections enabling some fantastic dialogues from Crowley, Henry and Copus respectively. Particular mention to Crowley on Tenor sax. This cat can blow… London seems to be a continued source of inspiration for Manzanza, the following track Portobello Superhero capturing a bustling Saturday market with de Clive Lowe’s swirling synth work honing in on the geography of the track and identifying with raw rhythmical and tonal influences from the West London school of Broken Beat, an undeniable influence on the sound register of the track and the album by and large. Manzanza’s drumming becomes slightly un-quantised to head bopping effect in the latter part of the track, while retaining an octopus-like and mesmerically ambidextrous reach and range on the kit. How does he do it?
Brixton Blues is a low kilter mood-setter, a track that sounds like a sonic night bus—the 37 if you will—traversing from Brockwell Park to Lambeth Town hall at 4AM on a Sunday morning, clubbers filtering out of venues under the ultramarine canopy of the night, the lights of the Ritzy flashing neon red and yellow and the clank of the Overground tapping away overhead on electrified tracks embedded—for the writer at least—in the sonic imagery of the track; a cool and understated cut in which Henry’s keys effervesce throughout. London shares similar themes, minor key stabs placed alongside a shuffling four-to-the-floor drum pattern keep the track swaying, with de Clive Lowe’s oscillating synth passes sounding like the whoosh of late night traffic hurtling down the Westway. The title track, Crisis & Opportunity is as close as the album gets towards Spiritual Jazz, with Henry offering up some intense dialogue at the start of the track, veering off into pan-classical modes at times before all of the album’s constituent members come together for a soaring crescendo, drumrolls underlie supple hornwork, de Clive-Lowe’s beeping, arpeggiated synths toying with the listener like an aural late night down at Peckham arcades.
London and the wellspring of new British Jazz talent that has come through over the past decade or so is perhaps a reason why Myele might find himself in the capital currently, certainly fertile terrain for new and experimental producers/composers at the moment and one of the worlds’ most forward thinking Jazz centres (with all due respect to the Americans, naturally.) For listeners and aficionados of the new wave of British Jazz, this album certainly fits very well within that pocket without trying to ape similar releases or follow a prescriptive benchmark of what the new London sound should be like. It’s a recording made by a pretty special group of musicians—with Manzanza and his drums at the helm—an exiting and complete piece of work with deft rhythmical complexity, tonal sophistication and meaningful playing, and a thematic attachment to London and its neighbourhoods at it’s core. Crisis and Opportunity Vol. 1, in the opinion of this writer, is one of the top new Jazz releases of the year, showcasing an outstanding talent and his cast of merry men, some of the top players on the scene currently.
Keep your eyes out for an instore event, date TBC, with Myele Manzanza coming to Soul Brother for an Album Q/A and instore signing of the second incarnation of Crisis & Opportunity (Volume 2). This should happen in late November / early December but might be delayed due to manufacturing delays of the record in question. We will keep you duly updated.
Buy the LP HERE
Check out the full album underneath
Myele Manzanza – Big Deal 2 (Bigger Deals)
Myele Manzanza – Portobello Superhero
Myele Manzanza – Brixton Blues
Myele Manzanza – London
Myele Manzanza – Crisis & Opportunity
