Since 2005, the Jazz Festival has been causing a smooth stir in its discreet corner of Fulham at Imperial Wharf. And since 2005, I've failed to get a decent seat each time thinking that because I only 30 seconds away, I'll get a good spot every time. This year I took the oppurtunity to arrive early.
Was it worth the wait? It was.
With the autumn chill creeping in, I had the urge to surrender to the warmth of my home and other events like KR Live around the corner. But as soon as jazz festival opener Soweto Kinch and his band took to the stage, some of the warmth came back.
"I thought we were playing at the Imperial War Museum!" joked Kinch before launching into their opening piece with its notes gliding around the Boulevard.
From start to finish, Kinch and his band delivered and energetic and enthusiastic four-song set coupled with a string of well-crafted raps which not oiled the gears of the audience, but got them on their feet.
The kids at the front ("the leaders of Imperial Wharf!") were equally boistrous and when Kinch requested words from the audience to string together an improvised rap, 'loser', 'bacteria' and 'yoghurt' came up, generating roars of laughter and applause from the throng. Not really the kind of lyrics you would use in an archetypal rap.
Kinch seems like an expert in going with the moment and to say they wrapped things up with a whisper would be a mistake. With a grin etched on his face, they ended their stint with groove-induced Stroke the Hippo and very slowly, the crowd - both young and old - were on their feet and as the title suggests, stroking imaginary hippos.
Now that's how you end a set.
Watch a clip of Soweto Kinch open the Imperial Wharf Jazz Festival.
Nielsen Cerbolles
Imperial Wharf Jazz Festival was on 15 & 17 September at The Boulevard Imperial Wharf, London, SW6 2DQ
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