Blog

Météo Mulhouse Music Festival
August 27-31, 2019

Ken Waxman

“The soul that should go with funk was offered up with great effect at the Noumatrouff on Météo’s second night when singer Elaine Mitchener and her London-based septet presented what was billed as vocal classics of the avant garde.”

The soul that should go with funk was offered up with great effect at the Noumatrouff on Météo’s second night when singer Elaine Mitchener and her London-based septet presented what was billed as vocal classics of the avant garde. Following a hand-clapping Arkestra-like entrance from various corners of the club, the group provided a literate as well as lilting demonstration of Black Art. Vocal showcases personified intensity with a high-energy performance featuring poet Dante Micheaux intoning hard truths from the Jim Crow era to today’s brutality, and Mitchener’s vocal command, which ranged from lyric soprano to kittenish warbling to scatting syllable deconstruction. Instrumentally the music moved through equivalent pressurized permutations with Jason Yarde’s live processing of his electrified alto saxophone sometimes as prominent as Neil Charles’s walking bass line, boppish inserts from trumpeter Byron Waller, and timed rolls and stops from drummer Mark Sanders. One memorable detour featured pianist Alexander Hawkins creating a stylistic showcase of Blues and R&B-like shadings.