Cassie Kinoshi' SEED Ensemble - Driftglass

The Guardian 80

Kinoshi is at home with a 10-piece ensemble of young talent, fusing African, Caribbean, dance grooves and 60s Blue Note
(Jazz re:freshed)

The players on this heartfelt and accomplished brew of African, Caribbean and urban dance grooves, R&B and 60s Blue Note-ish ensemble harmonies are mostly young Londoners. But they often sound like old souls, and with roots in varied places, like so many of the culturally sharp-eared newcomers currently revitalising UK jazz. Driftglass composer Cassie Kinoshi also plays alto sax in the prizewinning jazz septet Nérija and Afrobeat band Kokoroko, and composes in many guises, but her 10-piece SEED Ensemble feels like her truest home.

This album’s title comes from writer Samuel R Delany’s image of glass fragments washed by tides – which Kinoshi adopts as a metaphor for how the tides of improvisation and performance make compositions: “Evolve, grow, ebb and flow over time.” She regularly exposes her imaginative originals to that kind of process, and it shows.