On Super Sonic Jazz the cauldron is bubbling full of musical influences

At the Grammy Awards they came up with a new category for it: best alternative jazz. In other words, boundary-blurring modern jazz with influences from soul, African grooves, hip-hop, dance and sometimes even classical, made by headstrong musicians who are more than happy to tear down the fences placed around genres.

It is precisely that multicolored source from which the fairly broad Amsterdam music festival Super Sonic Jazz draws, four days in Paradiso and also a show by the electronic jazz trio Mammal Hands in the De Duif church building. The cooking pot of Super Sonic Jazz is bubbling with musical influences, just like at like-minded festivals such as Transition, Rockit or of course the mothership North Sea Jazz. The minds are wide open, among both artists and the undisguised eager audience.

The program of Super Sonic Jazz – the festival takes its name from a 1950s album by the eclectic musician Sun Ra and his Arkestra – was attractive this year: style mixers with stumbling rhythms, new names to keep an eye on or ‘just ‘ festively danceable. Sometimes they were extremes.

Kara Jackson’s somewhat austere guitar performance full of ragged, subdued folk forced silent listening – what a special performer she is with her dark, curly sound. While the more extravagant funk-soul of the rising star Durand Bernarr with his jaunty dance steps was just looking for a reaction. The tasty but not very challenging afrobeat of the many-member British collective Kokoroko led to a collective rocking. Singer Gaidaa from Eindhoven only got the energy in the main hall to the back with her personal soul songs in her ode to her mother country Sudan. A sea of ​​lights became her moment.

The neo-soul sound of the British Yazmin Lacey in the upper room of Paradiso was delicious – for those who managed to get in there. With her latest, very well received album Voice Notes, with songs like ‘Bad Company’ and ‘Legacy’, the singer should definitely have been given a place on the main stage. What a lot of disappointed people were now standing on the stairs. With a glass in her hand, a radiant look and a cashmere-soft voice, Lacey was one of the tone setters of Saturday. Not every song had the same tone, but it did result in a relaxed atmosphere.

The groove jazz of American trumpeter Theo Croker, full of symbolism, spirituality and a bit trippy, was also a crowd pleaser. Although Croker started off a bit quietly because, in addition to his trumpet work, he was also busy with his sampler. He had two microphones: one for a clear trumpet sound, the other distorted into rich, long echoes. In addition to the trumpet, he was far too busy with his sampler, which was distracting and slowed down, until drum buddy and rapper Kassa Overall joined the performance and brought energy.

The American jazz drummer, rapper and singer Kassa Overall’s own show at the top of Paradiso was also really misjudged in terms of appeal. His jazz and hip-hop blend literally had a lot of impact in the overflowing room, with two percussionists in addition to his own drumming, including multi-instrumentalist Tomoki Sanders – child of jazz hero Pharoah Sanders, who passed away last year. Trumpeter Theo Croker, horn player on Overall’s albums, also participated.

Overall himself is a bit of a poser, who always jumps up from behind his drums as quickly as possible live to come to the front and rap. He is also a constant instigator of solos with shouts, such as in ‘Sounds of Silence’. The artistic depth lies in the fact that he lyrically dares to look his depression in the mouth: jazz, raps plus mental health is his sum total. This results in songs like the slightly jazzed up ‘Prison and Pharmaceuticals’ where you shout “back on the Prozac” over breakbeats.

But the way he turned himself inside out with a falsetto voice in the very gradual churning of ‘Darkness in Mind’ with the band made an impression.