Sekoya, June 26th, Gastown

The Jazz Fest is great. The streets shut down and stages ares set. @ years ago, at the Gastown stage, I saw the Herbaliser for free. Last summer, the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra rocked David Lam park out on the seawall in another amazingly free show in the sunshine. I just got back from Whistler and just happened to check Kia Kadiri + Bullfrog (who just played the Commodore last week, I think). I also took my dad to see Keb Mo.

But this year, Sekoya will stick out in my mind. I actually got to see two of their performances in last years festival but things are a little bit tighter in our city's nu-jazz-broken beat-spoken word-future soul brew this season.

The crew are actually across the nation for their first tour as we speak but left the city a little sumthin, sumthin before they parted . With Alvin Cornista on sax (with great crowd control skills: getting the sittin-downers to move on up and make space for those who wanted to get down), Kent Wallace on trumpet, Dan Kearley on the labtop, Jackito on percussion, Nino Dipasquale on drums, Chris Gestrin on keyboards and.....fronted by the Amazing Amalia Townsend, Sekoya is a total performance package for that ass and soul.

Amalia is quite a presence on stage. She does it all: writes great songs, sings them dam well, shakes the booty with abandon, and most importantly, defines herself like a dictionary. She's the kind of thing that has to been seen to realize....keep your eyes on these guys.

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