When Howie B and trumpeter Jon Hassell played on Baaba Maal's Lam Lam, the final, experimental track on his 1998 album Nomad Soul, the context was still very much that of the exuberant and affecting Senegalese singer. Last Friday's concert in the Barbican's admirable Only Connect series was more like a super-restrained Hassell event. Or like eavesdropping on a late-night studio session.
The set, actually a four-way collaboration with Howie B on samples and sequences and John Beasley on Rhodes piano and synthesizers, was slow-moving and restrained, with each of the seven numbers staying in one tonality for most of the time and no announcements other than Hassell's brief eulogy for Matti Klarwein. He read this, clutching a scrap of paper, over a loop of goat-bells (recorded near the late artist's home) that evolved into a piece called Turkish Carnival. For anyone expecting Maal's usual supercharged performance, this was tough going, and quite a few listeners lost patience: there were plenty of empty seats by the time the ensemble played their encore. Yet several of the walk-outs returned with drinks, perhaps responding more appropriately to the chilled nature of the group's sound, or recognising that this first performance was more work in progress than polished performance.
That said, it was a pleasure to hear Hassell, both with and without his distinctive sound processing. And you have to hand it to Maal, who created some amazingly intense vocal lines and sounds over glitchy rhythms and electronic backdrops that didn't always gel. Crossover and Hassell's sneaky variations on Juan Tizol's Caravan were more effective for their sheer minimalism. Yet when Maal got up and stood centre stage to sing Djam Leelii the temperature lifted immediately. There was a burst of applause as the audience received a more flamboyant, ecstatic performance. Near the close of the song, Maal stepped back from the mic to stay in balance with his quiet electric friends. And then he sat down again. The remaining audience enjoyed it in that spirit, relishing the high spots and ignoring the longueurs.
