These are difficult times for the pop and jazz stages, but Nate Smith is not bothered by that. The American jazz drummer sold out the Amsterdam Tolhuistuin effortlessly on Monday (six hundred tickets) and will also play in a full Bird in Rotterdam on Friday. A young, enthusiastic audience has embraced his hybrid form of jazz, funk and rap, as can be heard for example on the two albums with his band Kinfolk.
And live it turned out to be even more festive than on record. Where the last Kinfolk album succumbed a bit under the weight of the guest musicians, Smith kept everything smaller live, despite the sometimes full-blown seven-piece band.
Band members such as Jon Cowherd on the Fender Rhodes and saxophonist Jaleel Shaw were immediately given the space to excel in the Tolhuistuin, while Smith himself kept everything tightly under control with his rhythmically brilliant, but never bogged down in demonstration sport.
They underlined during the concert that Smiths Kinfolk can be called one of the most exciting new jazz bands. That had started very straight forward: theme, solo and through; good, but there was also something missing to really make it go wild. But there was rapper Kokayi, who came to shake things up with vocal fireworks. His contribution was exactly right and was followed by another welcome guest: singer Amma Whatt.
From jazz to hip-hop and steaming soul, the performance reached a spiritual climax when Whatt took on Shaw’s soprano sax. Standing still was no longer an option, Nate Smith had made the audience dance with his Kinfolk, as you rarely experience during jazz concerts. And meanwhile he kept looking for less obvious rhythms.
Nate Smith + Kinfolk
Jazz
23/5, Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam; 26/5 Bird, Rotterdam; 10/7, North Sea Jazz Festival, Rotterdam.
