Ebi Soda (Norwich Jazz Festival)

I thoroughly enjoyed Ebi Soda’s relaxed, assured set at the Arts Centre last night. At their best the six-piece band are completely captivating. The high-point for me was a mesmerizingly unhinged piece of guitar playing by Conor Knight which eventually gave way to yet more virtuoso trombone playing from William Heaton. This occurred towards the middle of the band’s performance, showcasing the power in their playing that for much of the evening lay fairly dormant beneath a relaxed, ramshackle approach that really resonated with me. Any music which takes itself too seriously can leave itself open to accusations of pretentiousness, and jazz in general is perhaps more at risk of this than most genres.

But there seems little danger of this with Ebi Soda. The combination of instruments: in addition to the trombone and guitar: trumpet, keyboard, bass and drums, allows for a depth and flexibility of sound that the band make good use of throughout their performance. At times the contrast between the trombone/trumpet and the guitar reminds me of my favourite recent musical discovery: the Malombo Jazz Maker’s third album, ‘Down Lucky’s Way,’ originally released in 1969 but on such a small scale that one member of the band apparently remained oblivious to the fact, and did not see a physical copy of the album until it’s reissue two years ago. Another potential reference point is Polar Bear who I saw perform at the Arts Centre around ten years ago and who, I think, were fronted by two saxophone players. The combination of trombone and trumpet employed by Ebi Soda, particularly when combined with Knight’s authoritative guitar playing, opens up some excellent sonic possibilities. A number of the pieces played were apparently improvised, and these merge easily with the previously recorded/rehearsed material. All in all, and after a relatively slow start, I’m eased gently into the sonic world the band have created, before being bombarded with some of the theatrics mentioned at the start of the review. But while those theatrics are certainly the thing that captured my attention last night, in retrospect it is probably the band’s relaxed, unhurried approach that makes it most likely that I’ll explore their recorded output, or seek out future performances. They have a new album coming out – the enigmatically titled ‘frank dean and andrew’ – in September, and also speak hopefully about returning to Norwich later in the year, for the Wild Paths festival.