Pic Major Zulu… Photo credit Natasha Killeen
When I last reviewed Major Zulu in November, 2022, on the occasion of her closing the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival at Foundry 616, she had a beautiful band of young jazz musicians with her. They included Roshan Kumarage (piano) and Dave Quinn (electric bass) best-known as members of Tom Avgenicos’s innovative quartet Delay 45, the great young drummer George Greenhill, and others. Three years on it was interesting to see that Zulu is now working with a backing band that takes a more rock-oriented (and much less jazz-oriented) approach. It’s as if she has now adopted a somewhat different genre.
The current band includes Marcus Longfoot (keyboards), Gervais Koffi (electric bass), Victor Jesus (guitar), Yanya Boston (drums), and Andy Gatfield (soprano & tenor saxophones). Some of these musicians are not new. Bassist Koffi for example is playing in Zulu’s 2022 YouTube performance of her great song Broken.
Don’t get me wrong; this was a band of gifted and obviously experienced musicians who played very well behind Zulu. But, in a nutshell the volume they adopted on stage was simply too loud for such a small venue, which seats at most 300 people. Frequently they drowned out Zulu’s vocals, to such an extent that I had difficulty hearing the titles of her numbers, as she introduced them, not to mention the lyrics of those songs.
The acoustics of The Lounge are excellent, as I know from attending and reviewing the monthly jazz concerts presented courtesy of Willoughby City Council, where carefully chosen musicians, well aware of the venue’s acoustics, invariably play within themselves, monitored by staff sound technicians who know what they’re doing. After the Zulu concert I would have liked to have discussed this with the sound technician but unfortunately they left quickly, making an interview impossible.
From the outset the sound level set for Zulu’s own microphone was maximally loud and, given the volume of the backing musicians, the sound technician would have been faced with an agonising decision: whether to turn her mike up, so she could be heard over the sound of the backing musicians. If that had been done, I believe the overall volume of the music would have been deafening. The obvious solution was to find a way to ask the musicians to manually reduce their volume, but I’m not sure there was a way of expediting this.
Whenever the sound balance for such a concert is faulty one has to be careful in analysing its causes. I’m fully aware that I can comment only on the sound where I was sitting. It’s entirely possible that, further from the stage, and in the body of the venue, the sound might well have been acceptable. In fact, given the warmth with which the audience reacted to Zulu’s performance this is highly likely. But I have to say that when the sound of the electric bass is so loud that it’s reverberating in one’s chest, this creates an unpleasant feeling in the listener.
A friend who saw me in the audience, but didn’t speak to me on the night, emailed me subsequently. I have no idea where she was sitting but her comment very much confirmed my thoughts: “The band spoilt it for me. They were too loud for her and the venue. She would be better in a larger venue if she could attract a larger younger crowd.”
More on Major Zulu’s performance below. Meanwhile, there was a very impressive opening act Cormac Grant, a folk-oriented solo singer/guitarist who did a half-an-hour curtain raiser, performing some of his own compositions and originals written by others. His voice was extremely pleasant, and the guitar fills which he inserted in the gaps in his vocal lines were splendid, as were his guitar improvisations. I felt that the rhythmic approaches he adopted throughout his performance were highly sophisticated.
From Newcastle, a city well-known for producing outstanding musicians (Andrew Dickeson, Nicki Parrott, James Greening, Warwick Alder and many others), Grant projected a pleasing aura of humility which augers well for the future. (Refreshingly he described himself as “a country mouse”). Obviously, like all aspiring young performers, he needs to find ways of enabling his own compositions to become better-known, but I certainly felt that he has all the raw material to make his way successfully in what is currently a very difficult entertainment industry.
Following Grant, Major Zulu’s signature qualities were immediately apparent as soon as she arrived onstage. In a nutshell she looks great, and has a tremendous stage presence; she knows how to move; indeed her movements are extremely hip. She wore a full-length, tightly fitting greyish black dress down to her feet, with sleeves which covered her arms. She wore a red and white striped scarf which covered her head. Her expressive hands were an extremely important part of her artistry.
The first third of her performance was, however, marred by the aforementioned sound balance problem, which, in a sense, rendered most of what I heard ineligible for review.
The highlights of her program occurred during the second third of her performance: her own composition Broken, a perceptive song which deals with her feelings following a failed relationship; the much-recorded Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse song Feeling Good, of which Nina Simone’s version is probably best-known; and the great Donny Hathaway song Trying Times.
Her version of the latter is now on YouTube, an anti-racism document filmed beautifully in black and white; in my view it’s a masterpiece. It effectively connects Zulu to current social issues which haven’t gone away, such as Black Lives Matter.
Mercifully, in these numbers the backing musicians played with restraint, bringing their volume down to such an extent that Zulu’s lyrics could now be clearly heard. Boston on drums now played off-beats and other rhythmic patterns on the rim, rather than on the snare drum itself. That reduction in volume, even if it was only marginal, was enough to bring the whole band’s volume down, given that it’s the drummer who largely controls the sound level.
It was as if the importance of these numbers to Zulu’s oeuvre required a more nuanced approach in the rhythm section. At these moments Zulu’s performance came alive, rendering the performance successful, indeed perhaps saving it. I wasn’t surprised therefore that an appreciative audience in the long run warmly applauded Zulu, undeniably confirming that she has a certain magic as a performer, which an audience senses.
One wonders why the musicians’ restrained approach I’ve just referred to, could not have been adopted earlier in the set, indeed throughout the whole performance. If that had happened, Zulu’s performance would have been inestimably enhanced. It might have been a veritable tour de force.
This performance took place at The Lounge, Chatswood, on Friday October 17. It featured Major Zulu (vocals), Marcus Longfoot (keyboards), Gervais Koffi (electric bass), Victor Jesus (guitar), Yanya Boston (drums), and Andy Gatfield (soprano & tenor saxophones).
