Matana Roberts – Live In London – Central Control – CC1014CD - ****

Conservatives view the sixties jazz avant-garde as a dead end.
In his Imagine documentary, Alan Yentob stared at John Coltrane's empty chair and explained his post-1965 output as a mistake caused by religion and drugs, the ungrateful Afro-American making a hat out of his invitation to the Conservatoire.
Four decades later the saxophonist Matana Roberts, in Dalston with a British trio, probes and deconstructs, bows her head to a bespoke spirituality, dovetails into moments of micro-melody, bleats bugle style like Albert Ayler, and chases the 'trane just that little bit further on Turn It Around, presenting an unassailable case for this music as a living form.

(27/2/11)