On the penultimate night of the Dean Street Pizza Express's week, presenting largely unknown vocalists or those not usually found in a jazz club, the London Bangladeshi singer Sanchita Farruque performed a soul repertoire with the British teenage trio Ko, formerly the Bradley Webb Trio. The group was back on the strength of its persuasive show with Amy Winehouse in the same venue in March.
Like Winehouse, Farruque is a singer who inflects a fundamentally soul-based sound with the nuances of a strong personality, a little jazz agility, and a contemporary Londoner's multi-ethnic input. Singing with Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu's group at the Rhythm Sticks Festival in the summer, Farruque was also obliged to join the acrobatic intricacies of Indian microtonal singing to her appetite for wailing Western soul (her full-on sustained notes can blow you out of your seat), which opened a bigger window on her considerable potential.
But on a delicate and defiant account of God Bless the Child in Saturday's performance, the singer certainly confirmed a mature confidence and creative authority at low volumes and on standard material as well as in hyperdrive.
Farruque followed a typically eclectic set by the trio Ko, a group that refreshingly breaks contemporary jazz and postbop rules by letting the pulse rather than blizzards of notes do the work - more like the laid-back, groove-all-night feel of a D'Angelo band. Farruque then sang soul of all vintages - a little overwhelmed by the group on what should be the confiding opening of Son of a Preacher Man, compelling in the clearer spaces of two Erykah Badu songs, urgent and funky on Des'ree's Love Will Save the Day. Only occasionally, and late in the set, did the band veer off into uncharted improvising waters - with some vivacious thumb-slapping bass from Pete Cochrane, accelerating polyrhythms from drummer Webb and an unexpectedly long, howling synth sound from Sam Beste that turned into rhythmically choppy keyboard funk. It was a departure from the road map that could have been risked a little more.
