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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
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Theatre
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London,
Jack Massarik's rating
Reader rating
Description: Trumpeter Robbie Robson's jazz-rock quartet play originals in the spirit of Miles Davis circa the Bitches Brew era.
Phone: 0207254 4097
Website: www.vortexjazz.co.uk
Email: info@vortexjazz.co.uk
Trains: Tube: Highbury & Islington 
, Tube / Bus: 30, 38, 56, 67, 76, 149, 243, 277, N38, N149, N243 
Extra info: Pub, Air Conditioning
Crazy names: Dog Soup is the brainchild of Robbie Robson
Latest contender in the crazy-group-name stakes, Dog Soup is the brainchild of youthful trumpet star Robbie Robson. He denies any conscious connection with North Korean cuisine, so let’s not stir up trouble for him on that account.
Certainly the sounds of his new band are entirely palatable, being inspired by his principal muse, the late great Miles Davis. Not the classic Miles of Kind of Blue, but the exotic, pompadoured, leather-trousered Miles who strutted the world’s stadium stages in the late Sixties.
That Miles, inspired by Jimi Hendrix and probably triggered by an artistic midlife crisis, had just plunged into a brand of electronic jazz-rock that was heavy but combined raw power with delicate lyricism in a way that still fascinates young trumpeters.
Robbie, a product of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and noted as a straight-ahead player of unusually clean articulation and fluency, has come relatively late to the electric-Miles stable. Others have raced under these colours for years, notably Eric Truffaz, Wallace Roney and Wadada Leo Smith and Nils-Petter Molvaer.
On last night’s evidence, Robson and his quartet aren’t adding anything startling to the genre but their teamwork and changes of pace were signs of taste and imagination. Perhaps a touch of electric Miles is a rite-of-passage thing, something every creative musician must go through. The players seemed aware that stylistically they will be moving on, but for now they are enjoying the ride.
“We’re doing mostly originals tonight but also a few Miles things we really have to play,” said Robson before a suitably dramatic version of Bitches Brew. Tim Giles’s heavy-handed yet precise drum patterns and Johnny Brierley’s brooding bass-guitar set a suitably edgy tone.
Robson, sampling and remodulating his trumpet tones, let his notes ooze in and out, their edges as hazy as Mark Rothko’s luminescent colour slabs. John Turville’s strangely distorted Rhodes-piano chords recalled Dali’s melted fob-watch. Be warned: Dog Soup before bedtime leaves you with feverishly vivid pictures.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
