Mama Terra

Peggy’s Skylight, Nottingham - There aren’t many venues outside of London that can really attract the big names when it comes to jazz, fortunately for anyone in Middle England, Peggy’s Skylight can and tonight, once again, they’ve excelled themselves.

Celebrating its eighth birthday any day now, Rachel Foster and Paul Deats, jazz musicians in their own rite, set out with the objective of providing Nottingham with an artist-led venue, dedicated purely to jazz - and you have to say they have down-right succeeded. Inside there are seven seated areas named after jazz greats, Billie, Dizzy, Duke, Ella, Monk, Satchmo, and of course Mingus, from whose 1961 composition ‘Peggy’s Blue Skylight’, the venue takes its name. There’s a middle eastern menu, inspired the tours of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong there, in the 60’s, and a reputation of being widely cited by many world-renowned musicians as being one of their favourite UK venues to play at. No wonder it was more than justified in being awarded ‘Best Jazz Venue – UK’, at the  All-Party Parliamentary Awards in 2021.

Tonight it hosts one of the biggest bands in jazz at the moment, as Mama Terra play a pre ‘album launch’ gig, so there’s more than a fair chance that we’ll get a sneaky peak as to what will be officially happening tomorrow night in London. It comes as no surprise then to find, when I get there, that there’s a very healthy queue waiting for the doors to open, and next to no interest in the solar eclipse that’s happening at the very same time.

It’s probably fair to say that Mama Terras feet haven’t touched the ground since 2023 when they arrived with their debut album ‘The Summoned’. The band, led by pianist and composer Marco Cafolla and saxophonist, Konrad Wiszniewski, have seen the kind of success others can only dream of.

With a polite introduction out of the way, the band make their way on stage and immediately launch into a trio of songs from said new album, Perpetuity, Best Laid Plans, with vocals by guest vocalist Gaia, (there was no mention as to where usual vocalist Ms Lightbody may be) but Gaia more than delivered when asked, and Dear Green Space, the latter being about Cafolla’s reimagined experiences of childhood innocence and teenage kicks growing up in Glasgow, rather than a tribute to a Scottish Comedy programme of the 2000’s with a cheeky play on words.

The set finishes with a quartet from ‘The Summoned’ and it’s the title track that really endorsed the quality of the musicianship from the two man brass section of Wiszniewski and Owers who ran riot throughout it - and the rest of the first set, for that matter - which produced a wonderful reaction from the audience. Neither did it go unnoticed that upright bassist Saunders delivered a huge, funky solo during Novo, and coming from a man that spent much of the night hidden behind those brass boys - it was a neat trick to pull when he’s a good six footer if he’s an inch. A special mention also has to go to drummer Hough who crafted some really neat play throughout the night, not least on Ruptura, which caused the band to take a step back whilst the magic ensued and left Nottingham in awe.

Set two, took over from where one left off, but with Cafolla getting quite emotional when telling the tale of contacting Conrad Roberts to ask him to reprise his spoken-word efforts from Miles Davis’s 1971 album Live-Evil, in a new track (Bliss) and when Roberts says yes and went a step further by gifting him some words that weren’t used on that original album for inclusion this time around, it produced the proverbial lump in Cafolla’s throat and took a good moment for him to clear before he delivered a faultless performance.

Between the two sets, the band covered pretty much all the tracks from the two albums, and confirmed what everyone knew, that Mama Terra have arrived, are a force to be reckoned with and haven’t really got started yet.

Mama Terra - Set One

1.       Perpetuity

2.       Best Laid Plans

3.       Dear Green Place

4.       The Summoned

5.       The Whale Dives Deep

6.       Novo

7.       Last Hour

8.       Ruptura

Mama Terra - Set Two

1.       Sunday

2.       Bliss

3.       The Observers

4.       Relativity

5.       Inner Space

6.       Incredulous

7.       A Mind Supreme

Mama Terra Tonight Were: -

·        Marco Cafolla (pianist and composer)

·        Konrad Wiszniewski (saxophonist)

·        Ross Saunders (upright bassist)

·        Doug Hough (drummer)

·        Mikey Owers (trombonist)

·        Gaia (guest vocalist)

You can find more images of Mama Terra, by clicking here...

Written in association with UK Jazz News