Femi Kuti and the Positive Force

Every November, for around 10 days, the London Jazz Festival takes place at music venues all around London.  The festival is absolutely magnificent, its a wonderful opportunity to hear some absolutely top quality musicians from all round the world at very reasonable prices - and because its an annual event, you'd think I'd be able to sort myself out to find out in advance what's going on, so I can give myself the best chance at scoring some top seats for some brilliant gigs.  But alas, this is me we're talking about - and whilst I can make a fair stab of organising stuff in my job, I'm rubbish at it in my home life.  So again, the Jazz Festival arrives - and I manage to secure very cheap (£2.50 anyone?) tickets for the kids to some good gigs (its part of the 'New Audiences' programme), but I never manage to book anything for myself.

So last night I was sitting there at the Royal Festival Hall with 15 or so kids from school waiting to see Femi Kuti, son of legendary Fela Kuti, and as you do, I was leafing through the festival brochure - and kicking myself.  Absolutely kicking myself.  Why?  Because I discovered, whilst sitting there, that tomorrow night, Saturday night, Herbie Hancock was performing.  Herbie Hancock!  Wow, that would've been fab - and I say would've, because as we all know, the tickets would be sold out by now (and they were - I checked).  So what an opportunity missed.

But I'm determined not to miss anything else if I can.  So hopefully, fingers crossed, this week I'll get to see Take 6, Andy Sheppard (who wrote the Saxophone Massive thing I did last year) and maybe even Chick Corea... if I can get tickets, that is...

So anyway, back to Femi Kuti.  The concert was pretty good, my only criticism was that it went way too long (for me with my 15 kids who needed to be home at a reasonable hour).  Femi didn't come on until the second half, after the supporting artist Ayo, a French singer who was very good.  But anyway, when he got on - well, I obviously never saw Fela Kuti in real life, but from all accounts, he was very flamboyant, energetic, extremely talented performer - and this was how Femi was.  To be fair, I wasn't quite expecting all the dancing, and all the singing (and all the political stuff) but hey, it was still a very good concert.  He played both trumpet and saxophone, and really wasn't bad at either.  Oh and a bit of keyboard too.

So let's see if we can get to anything else in the Jazz Festival, eh?  Need to make the most of these opportunities while I can...