Theon Cross – Affirmations: Live At Blue Note New York

Never has the tuba swung, grooved, or funked as much as with the ultra-virtuoso British Theon Cross (of Sons of Kemet fame). I told you about the young man in my review of the Makaya McKraven concert at the last Jazz Festival in Montreal, in which he was the opening act (next time, he will have to have his own slot). I said: This guy is an amazing virtuoso. The nature of the sound from this instrument usually makes it difficult to understand what’s going on, but Cross apparently manages the impossible, and does so by flurrying notes faster than you’d think humanly possible.

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No deviation from this statement, especially since this album is captured at the Blue Note in New York, thus giving an exact idea of the live energy we heard in Montreal. We are regularly overwhelmed by the artist’s virtuosity, who rattles off notes at a speed, but above all with a surgical precision that would intimidate even a trumpeter! With Isiah Collier on sax, Nokos Ziarkas on guitar, and James Russel Simms on drums (all of whom have their moments of brilliance and creative heroism), Cross paints a series of pictures that are both very urban, very cool, but often also very atmospheric, almost ecstatic. In the midst of the funky strut, I sometimes hear Steve Reich or spiritual jazz. An intoxicating blend.

Theon Cross takes the tuba where no artist has ever gone before, and Affirmations: Live At Blue Note New York is the most undeniable proof, to date, of the indelible mark that the young musician can leave on all those who have the chance to hear him live.