Scala, King's Cross
Jaga Jazzist aren't a jazz band, but they're not exclusively any other kind of band either. The 15-year-old Norwegian collective is guided by a jazz/improv sensibility and cool skilfulness that allows all its clamouring influences (electronica, drum'n'bass, prog-rock, classical and free jazz) to mix and remix organically.
The Scala was rammed for the Norwegians' latest UK trip, launching their afrobeat-influenced One-Armed Bandit album – on a stage packed with keyboards, vibes, guitars, saxes, traditional brass and pulsating, orange-lit drums, around which the shadowy musicians moved like wraiths and unleashed sounds from glockenspiel-like chimes to elemental electronic roars cushioned by deep brass.
The show's most arresting moments were when the band stretched its broadest sonic range, rather than sustaining a drums-and-keys drone – as in the opening storm of keyboard sound, with Martin Horntveth's exhilarating drumming and the stately deep counterpoint of trombone and tuba beneath it. A contrastingly jumpy theme of racing percussion and organ chords broken by dead halts was followed by a whistling, high-keys melody, a spooky, shivering synth drone against ominous low percussion, and an evocatively hymnal and richly orchestral passage that became a vehicle for the gleaming trumpet lines of Mathias Eick.
Though the band revisited some of its early material (such as Going Down from the Livingroom Hush album), the new repertoire, taking in Wagnerian rhetoric, Steve Reichian loops, prog struttings, jazz harmonies and thumping club-grooves, dominated the show. It confirmed just how much life this uniquely independent ensemble has left in it.