On a bit of a gig-a-thon at the moment. Having spent most of Sunday dashing round a desperately soggy London dodging marathon runners trying to find good photos to take amidst the awful weather, I met up with a nice bunch of people to go and see Soil & Pimp Sessions at the Jazz Cafe in Camden. Having seen it mentioned on Cool Hunting as well as being recommended by a friend it just managed to cross the threshold of “sounds interesting” for me to splash out. I’m not a big fan of jazz but I’m a huge fan of live music and there’s very few genres I’d have trouble enjoying just by listening to them perform right there in front of me. Regardless of this, though, the performance of these guys just blew my mind.
The band is a power jazz outfit consisting of five guys from Japan and, literally, their pimp. The band are drums, keyboard, double bass, sax and trumpet and play fantastically well honed songs with an incredible energy. The job of the “Pimp”, dressed in a white shirt and black jacket complete with silverware bling round his neck and a grey felt fedora, is to direct the crowd to pay their attention and adulation to the musicians as they complete frenetic technically jaw-dropping solos and improvisations. It’s awesome to watch and their pimp really plays the part, occasionally throwing out some lyrics or playing some percussion but mostly content to play the part of the idle guy collecting his dues for expertly promoting his instrument-playing whores. I’ve rarely seen a band play to a venue as small as this and yet command such an incredible reception. Clapping, cheering and the loudest call for an encore I’ve heard in ages. Phenomenal stuff and if you ever get a chance to see them, don’t pass it up – “but I don’t even like Jazz” is not an excuse!
A PV for one of their songs is available on YouTube for a bit of a taste. There’s a few listenable samples from the discography on their website too.
0 Responses to ““But I don’t even like Jazz”: Soil and “Pimp” Sessions in Camden”