The Spirit Music Sextet and their Papillon album project has been billed as a test of Meshell Ndegeocello's jazz credentials. If it is, then this Blue Note Festival performance did more than pass Meshell with flying colours. This is the project that will blow away all the Philly and Detroit Experiences and inject welcome new life into a fusion genre too often dominated by the overly nerdy complexity of math-jazz musicians, churning out music for other musicians only. The Spirit Music Sextet is complexity with brains, balls and spirit. If Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew had been upbeat and funky, this would be it. Which made for a wonderful and above all deep live experience…

Meshell plays her fantastic vintage Fender Jazz Bass (our guess is a ‘71 model) laying down the tightest, funkiest and crystal clearest of foundation basslines, creating the theme to each song and throwing in short jams and variations, often with short staccato octave picks and working off that position. Barefoot and wearing loose sports fatigues, she closes her eyes and bobs her head back and forward in the ‘chicken move’ that has become the endearing trademark of many a funk bass player. Meshell doesn’t sing but mouths along silently to the bassline tunes, letting the bass sing majestically for her. She only takes to the mic to introduce the musicians and one or two songs, with her lovely sensual and paced deep voice that quite a few fans at the gig said they would have liked to hear more of.

The whites of drummer Chris Dave’s eyes show clearly, as he stares at the other band members in something that looks like an exhausted trance. But judging by how he shuffles and rimshoots his ways through the fusion round without breaking a sweat, it’s rather a stare of intense concentration. Tenor sax player Oliver Lake works hard to adjust his monitor sound, frequently asking for the volume to be turned up, as electronics kick in and he provides sporadic sax bursts over the funky-as-hell tight-as-you-like bassline, launching into a Fela Kuti-style Afrobeat brass theme. Veteran saxman Ron Blake keeps the brass section airtight, even as he launches into screeching and vibrant solos. The trumpet player stares fixedly into the air as he pushes out the last breath on the end of a song. DJ Jahi Sundance kicks of an early song with the intro to Pharoah Sanders’ wonderful classic Heart is a melody of time (Hiroko's song), before reverting to his role of dropping vocal tracks and background textures, jumping around in place like a boxer warming up ringside for the fight. On Heavy Spirits, a hip hop break beat vibe is brought by a heavy bass drop offset by floating glockenspiel keys. All musicians are deep in concentration, few smiles around, but the intensity of the performance and the passion and pleasure of each musician pervades the entire Blue Note concert tent.

The audience stand mesmerized, silently appreciating the music, except for a dreaded and bearded man in yellow trousers, a sleeveless white shirt and a green and white sports jacket who dances frantically and clearly inebriatedly, or doped-up’edly, as most of the onlookers agree. He is joined every now and then by other dancers who quickly move themselves to within a safe distance of his freak-out zone.

Freedom is a key word in this performance. It is remarkable how each musician gets to express himself or herself freely but combines so well with the others to create a magnificent whole sound that is not once lost. There are only occasional glimpses of an underlying rehearsal, as the band synchs into the end break of a long jam and Meshell mouths to the drummer : “hey, I did it right this time.”

After 90 minutes, Meshell thanks a cheering audience for keeping an open mind and listening to the music of the Spirit Music Sextet. The thanks should be the other way round… and the audience gives it vociferously by clamoring for the encore that they thankfully get. Oliver Lake kicks off with a swinging sax theme that sounds suspicially like it is going to lapse into a Jive Bunny tune, before the rest of the band kicks in for a downbeat funky hip hop vibe, with the DJ throwing in a vocal sample : ‘just another day in the hood…’.

To technique freaks and music students, this may be just another fusion ensemble. To music lovers and those who feel the soul of the Spirit Music Sextet, this is the fusion jam to end all fusion jams –and by far the deepest and most emotion-triggering funky fusion combo ever, with band members whose musicianship and technique are nothing short of stellar. We are eager to see whether the Sextet can capture the intensity of this concert on the forthcoming Papillon album. Why they are having trouble finding a label willing to put out the album – Verve reportedly turned it down but sold the rights to the Sextet musicians - is beyond us…