Music / Review
Review: Justin Adams & Mauro Durante, The Wardrobe Theatre – ‘A nod to southern gospel is thrown into the musical soup as the groove reaches its heady climax’
Justin Adams is enormously relieved to be back playing so close to home. Covid has bought cancelled tours and so this has been the first time to present his 2020 recorded album with Mauro Durante, Still Moving, to an appreciative Bristol crowd.
Adams has quite the history of cross boundary collaboration. He has bought his distinctive guitar style to a couple of the most notable global crossover bands of past decades with Jah Wobble and then Robert Plant. He’s co-led warmly received projects such as JuJu with Gambian griot Juldeh Camera and he’s been the go to producer for the likes of Malian blues pioneers Tinariwen.
Durante, on the otherhand, sings, plays violin and frame drum. He is one of the leading players in the Pizzica Taranta style of Southern Italy and leads Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino. He has toured for many years with Ludovico Einaudi; it was at one of Einaudi’s shows that the pair met and this collaboration was born over a decade ago now.
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Adams is an astonishingly versatile player. One moment he has us at Chess Records in 50s Chicago and then with a switch, we’re off to a West African desert. He can knock out a gritty RnB boogie with the best of them and then ease into an eerie, textured improvised mood piece. All of this is here tonight but drenched in Durante’s music of the Mediterranean. It is a heady fusion.
They hit their stride with Calling Up kicked off with a bluesy boogie that would not sound out of place on Led Zeppelin II. They have already found an intuitive rhythmic understanding as Durante’s percussion wills the groove from Adam’s guitar. A nod to southern gospel is thrown into the musical soup as the groove reaches its heady climax.
Durante takes lead on Italian song Amara Terra Mia. His vocals and violin soared while Adams sat back with his bluesy accompaniment. The first set closes with an oddity in this songbook with a dip back into Americana history with Little Moses from the Carter Family. Adams takes lead on this and again heads off into a hypnotic boogie at its conclusion.
Their two sets are met with a whooping applause from the Wardrobe crowd. Encore time brings the treat of Bristol based Gnawa musician Mohamed Errebbaa joining the duo in an estatic run through of the title track of their record. The first time this combination has played together following a hasty afternoon rehearsal and they find real joy in playing together. The crowd willing them on as the groove lifts us all.
Adams and Errebbaa have another date coming up at Bedminster’s Friendly Records next month. Miss them at your peril.
Main photo: Martin Siddorn
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