overjazzed

Yesterday, and I say this with only a few moments to spare, I went to Kings Place for the first time in ages. Astute readers of this post will remember that Kings Place is a concert and arts venue in the basement and atrium of the Guardian headquarters, and that it's great for intimate classical music events.

What you readers won't remember – simply because I haven't told you – is that Kinds Place does all sorts of other events as well. The Guardian, as well as Nature whose headquarters are just down the road, frequently delegate or invite speakers for political or scientific talks or panel discussions. Jazz is often on the musical menu, as is folk and world music.

Sometimes it seems as if Kings Place were trying too hard to broaden their appeal, to cover everything in a widely dispersed attempt to draw the cultured Londoner to their building that's shiny but nevertheless rather hidden in the morass behind King's Cross railway station. It's sometimes hard to tell where their focus lies.

But that can be a good thing. I like the concert hall with its coffered ceiling that seems to float on two dozen square posts of the lightest wood. The seats are comfortable, the wine selection at intermission is respectable, and the restaurant upstairs, slicing up happy cows from a farm in Northumberland, a special treat. With schedule as broad as it is, I can go to Kings Place no matter what musical mood I'm in.

Yesterday, and now that's two days ago already, I went to see Mali Latino, an effort by British Latin jazz pianist Alex Wilson. I didn't know the Latin jazz part of the equation when I bought the tickets. Mali Latino sounded reasonably close to Congo to Cuba, my reference for successful world music, and it would have a kora in it, played by Madou Sidiki Diabaté. (And how can you go wrong with a name like this?)

I was expecting a fusion of West African and Latin melodies and rhythms, the results swinging madly from gentle to riotous. However, the show, for most of its two hours, was nothing like what I had expected, and the fault lay with the jazz. On stage stood a jazz band garnished with Malian ornaments, playing loud Latin-influenced slow jazz with Malian accents.

As is bad tradition at Kings Place (and I had already forgotten about this), sound amplification was completely over the top. During the first song, getting increasingly frustrated, I was about to shout out that I couldn't hear the kora over the clamor of the damn drum kit when I realized that I could hear it loud and slightly distorted - from a speaker high above my right ear. However, this (sort of) relieve was only short-lived. When the piano kicked in, the kora was completely drowned out. And anyway, any mastery of instruments – and there was plenty – got drowned by a deluge of metallic drums.

It was a shame. The piano, the kora, the balafon, the congas, even the trombones were played with utmost virtuosity, but they didn't quite get the exposure they deserved. The singer, a colorful woman with a voice to wake up the dead, fought hardest to wrest the musical character from the drums. In the end, it felt as if she had succeeded. Encouraged by the wine consumed at intermission and maybe hungry for the experience they were promised, the audience rose from their seats and danced in the aisles. The singer, smiling broadly and swaying her body like an instrument, screamed her song with angry pleasure, relegating jazz to a dark corner of the stage. It was the best moment of the show, but it only came seconds before the curtain fell for good and it showed, once again, how an obvious opportunity for greatness can easily be missed.