There's a buzz that accompanies a Kamasi Washington show: a sense that something big is about to happen. Yesterday afternoon, as improvising London collective Steam Down tore it up on the outdoor stage - its edges swarming with tweens hoping for a sighting of Meltdown's guest programmer ("Is H anywhere?") - the Los Angeles saxophonist and bandleader turned the Festival Hall into an avant- jazz cathedral.
This is the centenary year of both John Coltrane, the high priest of spiritual jazz, and Miles Davis, the magus of fusion, and Washington had come to celebrate these two departed giants. The double Grammy winner sees both as two sides of the same Afro-futurist coin: Coltrane the blazing ascent toward the heavens, Davis the cool expansion across the earth. Their influence on his music is palpable.
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