It begins with a twisting, warbling, glittering wash of sound, flooding the Jazz Bar without announcement. It wreathes and distorts, shimmers and warps until it contorts abruptly into the squelching riff of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)‘.
Aki Remally is a Scottish guitarist who, alongside bassist Tom Wilkinson, keyboardist Richard Harrold, and drummer Jamie Graham, recreates the songs of Hendrix in a rich jazz-funk style. Accentuating the psychedelic and otherworldly elements in the original music, the band open out the melodies to make room for meandering solos, expansive grooves and flighty improvisation.
Remally attacks the heavier numbers with ferocity, tearing wildly through ‘Purple Haze‘ and throwing everything into the colossal might of ‘Red House‘. The softer pieces on the other hand, are rendered with extraordinary attention to detail, from the easy, soulful elasticity of ‘The Wind Cries Mary‘ and ‘Castles Made of Sand‘, to the pristine introduction to ‘Little Wing‘, recreated so faithfully as to be virtually indistinguishable from the original.
Wondrous though the likeness is, it’s especially thrilling when the band take the Hendrix song as a mere jumping off point and run wild. ‘Fire‘ is transformed from a fairly straight-forward rock and roll track into a raucous mesh of overlapping riffs, hard angles and gun-shot snares. A call and response breaks out between Remally and Harrold, wailing guitar contrasting with lightly scattered keys.
But the band save their most ambitious set piece until last. ‘Crosstown Traffic‘ occupies the final ten minutes of the gig, flying into one rhapsodic solo after another, before bursting into a scratchy funk groove. It’s an extraordinary volume of sound to come from just four musicians and Remally’s versatility is astounding. His guitar is at times a thick, coarse, gritty gush of sound, like dust whipped up in the wind, and in other moments as clear and smooth as ice-cold water.
In between songs, Remally is genial and cheerful with the crowd, taking the time to thank the bar staff as well as his own band. But as soon as the music begins he is absorbed in his craft, enraptured by the hazy, swirling textures and kaleidoscopic colours he and the band conjure up – and he takes the crowd right along with him.
Music acts at the Fringe are vastly overshadowed by the gargantuan programme of comedy and theatre, but small, independent venues like the Jazz Bar are showcasing some stellar performances. Without a doubt there is as much talent here in basement bars as in the concert halls of the International Festival.
Hendrix and Us has finished its run