Alina Bzhezhinska’s Hip-Harp Collective hypnotise and heal at Jazz Cafe

Emulating the sounds of your heroes while avoiding all hints of ‘tribute act’ is no mean feat. This is only compounded by the harp’s idiosyncratic nature – still seldom-heard in jazz save for Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane’s iconic past explorations. Alice’s Journey in Satchidananda recently turned 50, as did Ashby’s Afro-Harping, and Hip Harp - after which Alina Bzhezhinska’s band is named - is a decade older still. And even the most evergreen of old records deserves a rework after having been played, sampled, and studied so many times over.

Especially when this comes in the form of a full-band live show, marshalled by an acclaimed interpreter of both Ashby and Coltrane (...John too). Bzhezhinska’s energetic harp-led quartet – featuring regular collaborators Tony Kofi (sax), Mikele Montolli (bass), and Adam Teixeira (drums) – attacked these albums with ample exuberance at Jazz Cafe, mixing in recent compositions (‘Meditations on Lockdown’) with stellar renditions of the old classics (‘Astral Travelling’, ‘Soul Vibrations’, ‘Action Line’).

Having seen her before, I’d be tempted to say that the freshness and inventiveness of her 47-string reinterpretations came as little revelation – but I think most of us in attendance on Tuesday were taken aback by the sheer rush of witnessing top-quality live jazz again. And not just the audience either: even the quartet initially seemed surprised at the vivid 3D nature of their on-stage predicament, with Bzhezhinska referencing the curious energy of the situation between songs.

Whatever nerves the setting may have summoned were soon transformed into groove-heavy jam enthusiasm (...perhaps a fitting microcosm for the lockdown aspirations of many musicians). Within moments, low-end harp tones were pushing Kofi’s spiralling soprano sax melodies forward – louder, higher, and wilder – with the crowd’s post-solo appreciation only becoming self-amplified by the novelty of hearing others around share in it too. This dynamic continued via Montolli’s direct, driving basslines (and a concise solo on ‘Los Caballos’), interwoven with Teixeira’s ever-crisp stickwork, spanning Cuba to India and beyond (I’m sure both Coltranes would have smiled at his scattering of raga-style tihai resolutions).

Cast in subtle, ever-shifting shades by roving stage lights, the harp’s smooth punch provided a fitting timbre to lead my first full-volume jazz show of the (hopeful) post-lockdown era. But, much as I marvelled at Bzhezhinska’s virtuoso array of rolls, cascades, and string-touch harmonics, the moment of maximum musical empathy came in seeing her just strum away at the strings with joyful abandon during the set’s close, half-watching her instrument while locked in appreciative focus of Montolli/Teixeira’s Blakey-like dual-drum segment. However, testing the constraints of lockdown may have been for London’s collaboration-hungry improvisers – sonically, socially, and spiritually – we always knew beautiful things would emanate from the capital’s collective woodsheds afterwards. Witnessing the scene reanimate like this is just the medicine.