The flagship of the London scene will be Friday's headliner for the jazzers. The Comet Is Coming, fronted by the brilliant saxophonist Shabak Hutchings, recently announced they were calling it a day, scheduled for the end of the summer - but they've still been tempted to come to our festival.
Maybe the last, but definitely one of the last concerts of the biggest stars of contemporary English jazz will be in Bratislava!
The trio of saxophonist, drummer and keyboardist mix jazz and funk with electronic music and psychedelic rock: the result is almost cosmic jazz, inspired by greats like Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane.
The Comet Is Coming has been going strong for ten years, and was nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2016 for their debut album Channel The Spirits, released on The Leaf Label. The next two albums were released on the Impulse! label, and on their most recent tour, the originally club-based band also played festivals such as Coachella and Glastonbury.
The Comet Is Coming's most famous member is Shabaka Hutchings, a fantastic saxophone and clarinet player. Shabaka was also nominated for the Mercury Prize with the band Sons Of Kemet, who played an amalgam of psychedelic jazz-rock, and Caribbean-African music.
Hutchings also fronted the avant-garde jazz group Shabaka & The Ancestors, which has two albums to its credit, and last year released a solo, almost ambient album inspired by African music.
Drummer Betamax (Maxwell Hallett) and keyboardist Danalogue (Dan Leavers) are also prominent figures in London jazz - their collaborative, originally electronic project Soccer96, influenced by playing together with English jazz acts, has evolved into its own slightly experimental downtempo jazz.
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