Lekan Babalola’s Sacred Funk 4tet, Music Spoken Here, The Marr’s Bar, Worcester, 13/03/2025.

Lekan Babalola – percussion, vocals, Kate Luxmoore – clarinet, bass clarinet, vocals,  Thomas Marsh – double bass, Jon Brown – guitar

Tonight’s performance was the final event in Music Spoken Here’s hugely successful Upbeat! series, which has featured four consecutive performances by drummer led bands. The shows featuring Jas Kayser’s Chums, Louis Hamilton-Foad’s Impossible Conversations and Miranda Radford’s quartet had all been well attended and all delivered some excellent music.  Each one has been reviewed elsewhere on this site. Tonight’s show featuring the Sacred Funk 4tet, led by percussionist Lekan Babalola, followed in this tradition with another heartening audience turnout and some top quality and highly distinctive sounds that drew on a variety of musical traditions.

The Birmingham based Sacred Funk4tet is led by the Nigerian born percussionist Lekan Babalola, who moved to London in 1980, initially to study engineering but who ended up pursuing an artistic career, initially as a film director and later as a musician.

Babalola and Luxmoore’s ‘Piece Talks’ interview with MSH instigator Dave Fuller, which can be accessed via the MSH website and Facebook page, was particularly illuminating. Here we heard that Babalola’s father was an accordionist who played his instrument in church, which is where the young Lekan began to develop his own interest in music, being drawn towards the drums. After absorbing the influence of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti he later became interested in jazz drumming after moving to London and seeing Art Blakey perform at Ronnie Scott’s and later joined Blakey’s Jazz Messengers as a percussionist. He has also cited the influence of Kuti’s drummer, the late great Tony Allen (1940-2020) and Gaspar Lawal, the Nigerian percussionist who has worked as a session musician with the Rolling Stones, among many other leading names in rock and pop.

As a session musician on the international music scene scene Babalola played all genres of music, including rock and punk, but was drawn increasingly towards jazz. Among those with whom he has worked are saxophonists Pharaoh Sanders and Charles Lloyd, vocalist Cassandra Wilson, the late Sean Oliver, once the bassist of Rip, Rig & Panic and singer songwriter Terence Trent D’arby.

It was during his time in London that Babalola met clarinettist Kate Luxmoore, who is now his wife. Luxmoore had trained as a classical clarinettist but had decided that the classical world was not for her and decided to find other musical avenues to explore, beginning with traditional English folk music. She later studied improvisation at The Guildhall and began to diversify into jazz and world music, the latter a term she detests due to its tendency to ghettoise non-mainstream music.

Luxmoore worked in one of Babalola’s bands before they became an ‘item’, the pair subsequently instigating the Yoruba Project, of which the Sacred Funk 4tet is a part. Sacred Funk actually began as a big band, its members including trumpeter Christos Stylianides and electric bass player Colin Peters, but has now scaled back to a quartet.

It’s not just a question of economics, the smaller line up features double bass rather than bass guitar and Babalola plays a variety of percussion rather than a conventional drum kit, a move partly inspired by Lawal. These adaptations allow more opportunities and space for Luxmoore’s clarinets to be heard. The line up of the Sacred Funk 4tet is fairly fluid with founding member Reuben Rogers alternating with Jon Brown in the guitar chair. Occasionally the group has played with both guitarists, an interesting experience for both band and audience. Bass duties have been shared between Josh Vadiveloo and Thomas Marsh and it was the Brown / Marsh version of the band that we were to enjoy this evening.

In his work as a solo artist Babalola explores the music of the Yoruba people, who originated in the Yoruba Empire, now part of modern day Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso and Benin. Simultaneously a religion and a culture the coming of the slave trade saw Yoruba migrate to Cuba and the wider Caribbean, Brazil, and the USA. The rhythms of Yoruba music inform Cuban Salsa, Brazilian Samba, Trinidadian Calypso,  New Orleans Jazz, Delta Blues and Jamaican Reggae. They also represent the foundations of rock and roll and hence all Western popular music.

Babalola explained that the English speaking colonies banned slaves from playing the drums, other than in Congo Square, New Orleans, and that in the American south and Jamaica those rhythms were then transferred to the guitar. Drums continued to be played in the Spanish and Portuguese ruled areas. All those genres listed above may sound very different now but they all have the same roots.

The bulk of tonight’s performance was sourced from Sacred Funk 4tet’s 2024 album “Tales of Orisa”, a suite of traditional Yoruban music centred around the Yoruban creation myth. The ‘Orisa’ are the spirits created by the Great Creator, who descend on a golden chain from heaven to create the earth. Each spirit or character has their own role to play and the suite introduced us to each of them.

Things commenced with “Baba ile lo lefun”, a song for the ancestors that featured the joyous sounds of Luxmoore’s clarinet, dancing with great agility around the jangling West African rhythms of Brown’s guitar, the performance also including solos for guitar and double bass.

Next we were introduced to “Elegbara”, the Trickster, introduced by Babalola’s various percussion, including the cajon. Luxmoore moved to bass clarinet, an instrument on which she exhibited a similar fluency and agility. The performance also included a vocal chant from Babalola and Luxmoore. Announcing duties were handled exclusively by Luxmoore, who explained that this song is always played early on in the set to prevent Elegbara, the Trickster, creating mischief later on.

Unaccompanied percussion introduced “Ogun”, the Blacksmith, whose, sharp tools clear the path for the other Orisa to follow. Again this featured Luxmoore on bass clarinet as Babalola’s rhythms made it easy for the listener to trace the migration of the Yoruba rhythms to Cuba, where the Yoruba religion and culture still continues to exert a significant influence. I also noted that the late South African bassist and composer Harry Miller (1941-83)  named his record label, Ogun Records, after the blacksmith spirit.

Following Ogun was “Obatala”, the sower, an old man with snail shell of seeds which he plants upon the earth. As befitted the age of its subject this was a slower tune that featured Babalola on djembe as he underpinned Luxmoore’s lugubrious bass clarinet melodies. With the addition of guitar and bass Babalola moved back to cajon as Luxmoore embarked on a bass clarinet solo, scattering life upon the earth.

The pace increased once more with “Sango”, the Spirit of Thunder and Lightning. Cajon and double bass replicated the rumble of thunder prior to a series of exchanges between Brown’s guitar and Luxmoore’s clarinet, with the impressive Brown eventually emerging as the featured soloists.

Next “Osoyin”, The Herbalist, sent to plant the trees, a gentler piece featuring the intertwining melody lines of clarinet, guitar and double bass with Babalola providing commentary from the drums, this time in the role of colourist. Luxmoore’s airy clarinet melodies were complemented by a melodic bass solo from the excellent Marsh, a bandleader in his own right. Marsh’s 2024 performance with his own quintet in Ross-on-Wye is combined with a look at his debut album “What’s Wrong With Rain?” here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/thomas-marsh-quintet-corn-exchange-jazz-club-the-corn-exchange-ross-on-wye-herefordshire-15-02-2024

There’s a feminist strand to the Yoruba creation myth as the works of Osoyin and Obatala were destroyed by flooding and other natural disasters. It was only after they accepted the help of “Osin”, Mother of the Sweet Waters, that the Creator’s master-plan got back on track. A loosely structured intro depicting the earlier chaos was superseded by joyous melodies and vibrant rhythms signifying the bringing of life. Brown’s guitar solo was followed by a lively series of exchanges between guitar and clarinet, with Luxmoore’s playing sometimes reminiscent of North African and Middle Eastern music. The influence of Yoruba spreads far.

The first set concluded with “Yemoja”, the Goddess of the Sea and a deity described by Luxmoore as “another kick-ass lady”. Elements of both Cuban and Brazilian music could be heard in a performance introduced by unaccompanied percussion and which later featured Babalola’s vocals.

This had been an excellent first set featuring music that was simultaneously exotic and accessible, recognisably in the jazz tradition but also representing something else entirely. The audience responded enthusiastically to the energy and vibrancy of the music and the technical brilliance of the playing. In addition to all this we’d learnt a lot about Yoruba culture along the way, and the journey was only half completed.

The second set began with the final number of the suite and “Ibeji”, The Twins. Like the opening number of the first set this featured Luxmoore’s clarinet dancing above the brisk rhythmic grooves variously created by percussion, guitar and double bass, with Marsh and Luxmoore the featured soloists. Interestingly saxophonist Xhosa Cole has released an album called “Ibeji” that sees him collaborating with a variety of drummers and percussionists, among them Lekan Babalola.

The rest of the set examined various aspects of the Yoruban diaspora, beginning with an interpretation of the jazz standard “Caravan”, a tune much loved by the members of the quartet. Introduced by the leader on percussion, subsequently joined by Marsh’s double bass groove and Brown’s guitar chording it took a while for the familiar melody to emerge, stated by Luxmoore on bass clarinet. Solos came from Luxmoore, Babalola on cajon and Brown on guitar, prior to a vigorous double bass and percussion workout. A fascinating treatment of this most versatile and adaptable of standards.

“Lori Oke Jordani” was a Babalola original taken from his album “Aladura Songbook”, introduced by the composer and with Luxmoore on bass clarinet taking the first solo. Brown had changed his Godin guitar for a different model, this producing a more distorted, rock guitar like sound as he soloed. The closing section also featured Babalola’s vocals.

Brown returned to the Godin for a version of John Coltrane’s “Equinox”, again introduced by Babalola and with Luxmoore continuing on bass clarinet as she stated the theme and took the first solo. Brown followed on guitar and Marsh at the bass.

“Banyan Tree” was a song from Jamaica based on the mento rhythm, which also has parallels in jazz swing and Ghanaian Highlife. Ushered in by Luxmoore on clarinet this lively and vibrant piece included a solo from Brown on guitar and a dialogue between Babalola and Marsh that evolved into a double bass solo. In their Piece Talks interview Babalola and Luxmoore explained that 2025 is generally accepted as being the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Highlife genre.

One of the highlights of Sacred Funk 4tet’s career was playing at the Havana Jazz Festival and getting a great reception from the Cuban audience. Luxmoore’s composition “Havana Sun” was written to commemorate that experience and was introduced by the composer’s clarinet in conjunction with Marsh’s bass only. As guitar and percussion were added the music quickened in pace and incorporated solos for clarinet and guitar. It was appropriate that Brown should feature, having been the guitarist on that Havana gig.

The set concluded with another Luxmoore composition, “Tales of Diaspora”, which would perhaps have represented a good title for tonight’s performance as a whole, and particularly the second set. It’s piece that Luxmoore’s own band have performed with three gospel singers and featured the composer’s lithe bass clarinet soloing underpinned by a lattice of lively rhythms courtesy of percussion, bass and guitar, with Brown also emerging as featured soloists.

SFQ’s performance was given a great reception by an appreciative Marr’s Bar audience and after a little prompting from Dave Fuller they returned to play a deserved encore, Luxmoore’s composition “Per Cwcem”. This was introduced by clarinet and guitar and featured a powerful bass and percussion groove that underpinned the ensuing clarinet and guitar exchanges and Luxmoore’s subsequent solo.

What a great end to the Upbeat! series, this was a hugely enjoyable evening that was both entertaining and educational, and which featured some exceptional writing and playing. Prior to the event I wasn’t quite sure what I would make of Sacred Funk 4tet but this was a performance that exceeded my expectations and really opened up my eyes with regard to Yoruba culture. An excellent night all round.

My thanks to all four musicians for speaking with me during the interval and after the show and to Kate for verifying the details of the set list. Marsh was the only one that I’d seen play before, the other three all represented exciting new discoveries.

IAN MANN

Dave Fuller of Music Spoken Here offers his own take on tonight’s event here;

What a delightful close to our Up!Beat series last week, with the incredible Sacred Funk Quartet, bringing music steeped in ancient West African Yoruba tradition to life in a truly inspiring performance. Headed up by percussionist Lekan Babalola, the quartet featured Kate Luxmoore on clarinet and bass clarinet, John Brown on guitar and Thomas Marsh on bass. On occasion, Lekan and Kate added vocals to the arrangements.

The first set, taken from their 2024 album ‘Tales of Orisa’, opened with ‘Baba Nile Lolefun’, a song for the ancestors, followed by Elegbara - ‘the trickster’ that featured Kate on bass clarinet with added vocals from Kate and Lekan. Kate advised after playing that Elegbara is best played early in the set to avoid mischief later on. The set then proceeded to unfold the the story of the Yoruba creation myth of the Orisa (spirits) through a series of songs, as the great creator in the heavens sends his children down a golden chain to create the earth.

The story starts with ‘Ogun’, the blacksmith, wielding a sharp knife to clear the path for the future. Then ‘Obatala’, the icon of creativity is sent with a giant snail shell full of sand to form the earth, followed by ‘Sango’ (thunder and lightning) and ‘Osanyin’, the herbalist that plants the trees. The efforts of these men are thwarted overnight, with them repeatedly recreating the earth and it being found in ashes the next morning, until they call upon ‘Osun’, the mother of the river, to bring her sweet waters to the earth. The set ended with ‘Yemoja’, the goddess of the sea.

The band returned after the break with ‘Ibeji’, completing the entire ‘Tales of Orisa’ album, before the first cover of the evening, the jazz standard ‘Caravan’. ‘Lori Ike Jordani’, taken from Lekan’s 2023 Aladura Songs Book, featured John Brown with effective use of a distortion pedal. The Jamaican ‘Banyan Tree’ was followed by two of Kate’s compositions - ‘Havana Sun’ (used in our promotional video for this event) and ‘Tales of Disapora’ from an album of the same name recored with Kate, Lekan and three Birmingham gospel musicians as KLLB that can be found on YouTube and Apple Music.

Considering the incredible turnouts we’ve had for our first four shows this year, tonight’s crowd was closer to last year’s average in number but matched the enthusiasm and appreciation that our wonderful patrons show for every performance and were rewarded with an encore, although the title was not announced. Look out for Ian Mann’s review on thejazzmann.com as he’ll no doubt have all the details!

DAVE FULLER

 

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