An evening at Ronnie Scott's is always a game of two halves, but this pairing of saxophonist Iain Ballamy's enigmatically original quartet and singer Nnenna Freelon's flamboyant soul-jazz band uncovered more kinds of contrast than usual.
Where the Englishman Ballamy is deadpan, quietly surreal, melodically eccentric and understatedly skilful, Freelon, born in Massachusetts, gesticulates, dramatises, wails, implores and confides. Where Ballamy constantly pulls the rug out from under us ("This is a variation on I Got Rhythm, called I Got Rid of 'Em"), former gospel-singer Freelon washes in on a tidal wave of sincerity ("Thank you so much for being in the circle of this music"). Yet the gifts of both shine through - with the help of two fine bands.
Iain Ballamy's quartet moved from Coltraneisms to off-centre Latin-driven music in the opening set. Ballamy's expressive, faintly dolorous tone and zigzagging melodic style gave the Coltrane feature a character beyond the usual devotional exercises ("This is called Tribute to Alan Skidmore's Tribute to John Coltrane"). I Got Rid of 'Em began more confidently, drawing on Ballamy's talent for teasingly extended melody lines. Intriguingly, his tenor sound began to resemble that of Lee Konitz's alto, while pianist Gareth Williams played a scintillating break in the piece's straight-swing passages. Ballamy's tribute to the late Dudley Moore sounded like a tango crossed with a samba. And a reggae groove underpinned a lurching melody dedicated, the saxophonist insisted, to his gay cat.
Nnenna Freelon then took to the stage with a band designed to hit us between the eyes. It featured two keyboardists, two percussionists (traps-drummer Woody Williams and conga, flute and castanets player Beverly Botsford) and the sonorous Wayne Batchelor on bass.
Some of Freelon's material was drawn from her recent interpretations of the music of Stevie Wonder, and she pulled off some surprises with that. Her boldest departures, though, involved audacious reworkings of older standards. On uptempo music, Freelon swung between spine-tingling, gospel-drenched incantation, a quirky miaowing-cat take on scat-singing and scrupulous positioning in relation to the pulse. She turned 1920s swing hits into funk vehicles, and delivered Fly Me to the Moon with subtlety and a powerful charge of Motown in the phrasing. Judging by this performance, she deserves her steady progress toward diva status.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7439 0747.
