Yin & Yang » Jazz Cafe

Wretch 32, Yasmin & Jodie Connor @Jazz Cafe

Yang — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:10:01 +0000

HMV‘s Next big thing festival is up for its second run between 4th and 13th February at 6 venues in London: Jazz Cafe, Camden Barfly, Heaven, The Relentless Garage and The Borderline- this time they’ll even be branching outside London and taking it to Birmingham and then Edinburgh. More info on the festival can be found here. At Jazz Cafe on Friday 11th February Wrest 32 will be performing live and supporting will be Yasmin and Jodie Connor, gig details after the cut.

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HMV Next Big Thing: Wretch 32, Yasmin, Jodie Connor
Date: Friday 11th February
Time: 19:00
Ticket: £10

Get your tickets here

Chaka Demus & Pliers @ Jazz Cafe

Yang — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:08:43 +0000

A pretty face and bad character, Dem the kinda livin can’t hold Chaka, follow me! Recognise the lyrics? Of course you do its from one of the best Reggae tunes ever made..in my opinion that is. On 29th July, the makers of “Murder She Wrote”, “Tease Me”, and “Twist & Shout” will touch down at The Jazz Cafe in Camden; you guessed right it’s Chaka Demus & Pliers.

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Jazz Cafe is quite a small performance space where artists and guests can enjoy a more intimate gig- which I think is more suited to artists like this. I have no doubt this will be a great night, I love reggae and this is defintely going to be one of those nights where people will be rediscovering their roots! Well what can I say: reggae music + black people + alcohol you know there is going to be a “whole leap ah whinin” and there is even a stage for showcase purposes! Tickets are only £20 and you should know where Jazz Cafe is..

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Dorian Concept @ Jazz Cafe

Yang — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:40:37 +0000

Friday at Jazz Cafe was packed out with music enthusiasts as Dorian Concept hit the stage. I won’t go into too much detail because we were lucky enough to have one of our friends Daniel (DJ/Producer) write a review on the night. This is the first I have heard from this genre but I gotta say I like it.. Read the review after the jump

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Amazing is probably the best word to describe Oliver Thomas aka Dorian Concept’s performance at Jazz Café. For those who don’t know he is an experimental multi-genre music producer and a genius keyboardist who came to fame on YouTube with his web cam recorded videos showing him improvising on a micro korg over different beats. His debut album When Planets Explode landed on the shelves in January 2009 with huge success in the scene. Since then he’s on the road to demonstrate live his unique keyboard playing technique and improvising skills for the masses.

I was going through Jazz Café’s monthly event list when I came across the add for this gig. Got my card out straight away to purchase two tickets as I really wanted to see this guy performing live after I saw those videos on YouTube. So got the tickets, of course the other one was for my girlfriend who I kinda surprised with it and I was just hoping that she’s not gonna execute me mafia style for taking her on a gig like this which’s not really her cuppa at all.

We got to the venue a bit after 11. The dj was already dropping garage and dubstep tunes to warm up the crowd, have to say worked really well as the dance floor was packed and my girlfriend started to shake away to some well known garage classics, execution postponed. Drinks promotion-vodka mixers/£1.90-just like on a student night, I preferred a couple of good old Coronas.

After a good hour on the dance floor the first act was due on stage, Blue Daisy and his MC. Took 20 minutes to eliminate all the technical difficulties meanwhile I started to have a bad feeling, and I was right. Unfortunately the crowd and the venue wasn’t the perfect place for this kind of experimental act as the crowd slowly started to leave the floor in the hope of it’s not gonna last long. Also Blue Daisy didn’t seem experienced on the gadgets and how to control those knobs so you won’t go deaf after 10 minutes because he killed your eardrum with some high frequencies punched up in the maximums. Thanks to the organizers who acted after 20 minutes bringing the Dj back in the booth and telling Blue Daisy to leave the stage. We got another 30 minutes of garage/dubstep for the enjoyment of my girl and then it was time for Dorian Concept to take the stage. He started of with one of his well known tunes leading on to classics like Tropical hands and Trilingual Dance Sexperience.

His performance was mind blowing on the keyboards, haven’t seen anyone playing like that before, specially someone who never really learned how to play. His improvising spots just came naturally in his set and kept you interested all the way during his show. He was rockin the crowd with his favourites and I think at this point the floor was most packed. Even my girlfriend said that it was nice to go out to listen to something different. As it was getting closer to 3am I was thinking about to make a move to be able to get a couple of hours sleep before I have to get up to get to work by 8am. Typical. Overall a good night, good venue(as we know), good warm up, awful first act, fantastic main act. All I can say is check out Dorian Concept next time he hits London, definitely worth it, at least once if you into the analog sound.

Last Night: Jay Electronica @ Jazz Cafe

Yin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:23:15 +0000

Last night, we popped down to Jay Electronica‘s first live gig in the UK at Camden’s Jazz Cafe. As always the main artist takes a hell of a long time to show up, it’s a common thing for these American artists but it was worth the wait as he tore it down in London Town. Before he came on there were a few support acts, one of which was Klashnekoff (remember him?) and some chick called Fatima. More after the cut.

The night started off real slow with some jazz/soul music playing whilst the support acts prepared to liven up the crowd. I’ve never been to this venue before so I was rather surprised to see how small and intimate it was. The venue was a bit strange for me; this following piece of information maybe deemed as unnecessary but I needed to piss and finding the damn toilet was like walking through a labyrinth. The toilet stunk like sh*t and was the size of a garden shed.

Anyway on came Fatima who in all fairness was a good singer but I couldn’t look past what she was wearing but that’s just me being me. She sang a few tracks and got the crowd going. She was decent. On to the next one! Klashnekoff, a grime sensation a few years ago but I don’t really know what happened to him since? I didn’t recognise him as I’ve never seen any of his videos etc, from his hoodlum appearance I assumed he was another kid from East London. He did put on a good show but really FLOPPED when he was debuting one of his upcoming singles. The dude hyped himself up and refused to spit one of his classics ‘Murda’ but then bad karma hit him when he actually stopped midway through his new song as he forgot his lyrics! Stick to Channel AKA dude.

After the 2 support acts, we had to wait over an hour and half for Jay to come on. I was starting to get worried that he was never going to show up! the DJ Benji B played some dope tunes as we waited for Elec-Hanukkah to show up but even then we weren’t given any information about the hold up.

Then at 11pm when the gig was meant to finish – Jay made it to the stage in a real smart and fresh suit, weird. He is different to any other rapper I have been to see, He’s an all round entertainer, such a funny and intellectual guy. He started off things with a series of J Dilla tributes which was real deep, even explained the story about work ethic of the late great Dilla when he was hospitalised. Unlike the usual patients who request a TV and some magazines, late great Dilla requested his equipment by his bedside so he can continue on his hustle. Anyway back to the gig, Jay asked the DJ to play some more JD beats and he spat a few bars. His lyrical imagery is up there with the greats – the crowd often went silent in awe of his lyrical talent. I was blown away to be honest.

He was real comedian – playing bartender to many by pouring them shots of Jack Daniels, even questioning the crowd’s football team allegiance before revealing to everyone that he’s an ARSENAL fan thanks to BBC’s Giles Peterson. He also playing with the crowd’s feelings by teasing us with such comments like ‘is Nas here?’ before he spat his rendition of Nas’s classic track ‘My World’. The song is dope, some of the lyrics are just wow;

“Me and my chick is like J-F-K and Jackie
They can’t wait to catch me in Dallas top down ‘n the Grassy Knoll and clap me
Kidnap my body”

At one point of the night, he asked if anyone in the crowd wanted to spit over the Waves beat. I expected someone amateur to come but this dude who was standing near me the whole night went on and OWNED that beat. Major props to him (pictured below)! I don’t think even Jay expected someone to go hard like he did. Lyrically he was fire, I actually thought he had been scripted to take on the mic.

Back to Jay, he didn’t do many of his own songs but the ones he did do, they were recited with blazing flow and fierce intensity. He often slowed it down and rapped accapella for which the crowd fell silent. To my surprise, many of the fans in the crowd were rapping along and knew most of the lyrics by heart. The only 2 songs I knew the lyrics to were Exhibit A and C. Those are the 2 songs which he chose to end the set with, both were delivered with crazy energy especially exhibit C. It’s my favourite hip-hop song so far this year, it was so good he spat it twice. I’ve added a video that I took on my phone of the Exhibit C performance and also a video below of the other songs (props to The Higher Plane).

“Drive up on the curb at a barbecue and hop up out the back like “whats up”
“Kill a nigga, rob a nigga, take a nigga, buss up”
That’s why when you talk that tough talk I never feel ya
You sound real good and you play the part well
But the energy you givin’ off is so unfamiliar
I don’t feel ya”

All in all, he was worth the wait. Hip-hop is very much alive and well.

Props to Def Danny Wood aka Danny The Scrabble King for the photo & jump on his flick.r for more from the show.

Yin.