Joe Lovano Village Rhythms Band, Ronnie Scott’s

Saxophonist Joe Lovano, one of the giants of contemporary jazz, puts his Afrobeat-inspired Village Rhythms Band through their paces over two nights at Ronnie Scott’s.
The group, which features Liberty Ellman on guitar, Abdou Mboup on harp and percussion, long time collaborator Otis Brown III on drums, Matthew Garrison (son of Coltrane bassist Jimmy Garrison) on electric bass, Tim Hagans on trumpet and Lovano’s wife Judi Silvano on vocals, was launched last year and appeared at the Blue Note Jazz Festival. It’s origins stretch back to 1980, however, when a young Joe Lovano played with a group of visiting Nigerian musicians at a late-night jam in his home town of Cleveland, Ohio. The saxophonist, along with a band of fellow Clevelanders, flew out to Lagos in Nigeria the following year, hung out with Afrobeat father Fela Kuti, and staged a collaborative performance in the city’s Tafawa Balewa Square.
The experience clearly had a lasting impression Lovano, and 35 years later he’s revisiting Afrobeat-jazz fusion with the help of this star studded new outfit. Expect driving grooves urged on by boisterous percussion, freewheeling sax flights and intricate guitar work redolent of kora (West African lute) playing.
We last saw Lovano at the 2014 EFG London Jazz festival when he featured in an astonishing Barbican finale alongside trumpeter Dave Douglas and the Sound Prints quintet, playing knotty originals and fresh takes on compositions by Wayne Shorter. This is going to be a whole different ballgame, but like everything Lovano does, it has the potential to be jaw=dropping.