Soweto Kinch Trio
Ronnie Scott's, London

SOWETO KINCH is in prime fettle during this Ronnie Scott's gig, with the searing narratives of his alto saxophone enhanced by the intensity of the sound — matured since I last saw him a few years ago — here underpinned by Will Glaser's crackling drums and the earthen vibrato of Nick Jurd's pulsating bass.

He begins with a scintillating unaccompanied horn passage, full of gradual ascents and audacious tumbling cadences, playing themes from his album Nonagram, which he has described as a succession of abstracts, shapes and “sacred geometry.”

Melodic lines burst from his tune Crossroads, as if garrulous conversation were breaking from his gut-wrenching, improvised patterns of sound and engaging with Jurd's fiercely plucked strings.

He raps and seeks audience support through What's It All For? which he describes as a message of “post-austerity angst,” a warning about those who seek to rule our lives. “Remember when the deaf lead the blind/They cut off your legs and leave you all behind.”

But his tune The Engine Drivers carries a truly impassioned message, with his introduction to it reminding the audience of the millions who really drive the economy and those who have suffered the mounting blows of recession.

As he blows with the resolute storytelling power of a griot of old, it's the sense of his powerful flow of sound and the raw energy of his river of notes that is most moving.

It's as if on the same small stage where for half a century the great saxophone artisans who have built the foundation of his sound — masters like Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, Archie Shepp and Rahsaan Roland Kirk — are all answering the testimony of his now-times breath.

Soweto Kinch's new album Nonagram is available from musicglue.com