If you don't have a clue what the London jazz festival is, the pre-concert Freestage in the Royal Festival Hall bar often brings you up to speed pretty fast. Friday night saw the opening of the 12th festival, a 10-day, 120-gig extravaganza, bringing together elegant, abrasive, classically familiar and just plain ornery jazz-inflected music from all over the world.
The Freestage saw the fuse lit in the early evening by America's Youngblood Brass Band - which sounded like the legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band might do if Eminem was on vocals, and joined sousaphone-burping trad, hip-hop, Cuban music, blues and vintage Blue Note bluesy swing. Old men smiled knowingly and swung a leg, young women clutching baffled babies gyrated, curious commuters drawn to the rumpus jostled for a view. There wasn't much improvisation, but as an injection of jazz spirit into an idiomatic mix unmoved by any jazz orthodoxy, it was a near-perfect overture for the festival.
In the Festival Hall, the cutting edge repertory company Future Sounds of Jazz followed a short set by the American laptops-and-poetry duo of Vijay Ayer and Mike Ladd. Ladd intoned a series of solemnly impenetrable post-9/11 poems on media mindgames, while the gifted Ayer mixed acoustic piano free-improv with the Godzilla's-heartbeat drum patterns and whoops and whistles of the electronics. Ayer's open reworking of McCoy Tyner chording and lava-flow free-jazz melody provided a glimpse of his formidable skills, but both performers would probably have communicated more in a smaller space.
A 13-piece Future Sounds of Jazz then delivered a tight, vocal-centred, rhythmically intricate fusion, set against world-politics back projections triggered by the music. The energetic density still left space for the bold percussive impressionism of pianist Matt Bourne, David Okumu's fierce guitar lines and some delicious Wayne Shorter-like sidelong lyricism from saxist and principal arranger Jason Yarde.
Singer Bembe Segue suggested Tania Maria's melodic agility: the themes were fresh and urgent, there were bursts of free association from randomly selected trios within the ensemble, even a little Basie-like swing. "Are we ever allowed to mention jazz and the future in the same sentence?" asked one of the visual displays behind the band. They made the affirmative answer to that pretty clear.
· The London Jazz festival continues at various venues until Sunday.
Details: www.serious.org.uk
