When saxophonist Kevin Haynes first started singing spiritual Afro-Cuban 'praise-song' during reharsals, other jazz musicians thought he was mad. Of course, Haynes was just a few years ahead of everyone else.
Born in Paddington to Trinidadian parents, Haynes has been visiting Cuba regularly for more then a decade. Studying the island's rythms and also its religion - including the syncretic Afro-Catholic form of Santeria and the more Africanised, Yoruba-rooted Ifa. It's part of his feverish study of the West African diaspora, looking at Africa's cultural links with Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Jamaica, Trinidad and Haiti. Haynes 's resulting musical project is a throbbing mixture of jazz improvisation and Afro-Cuban rhytms, recorded with his pulsating bata drum section. It 's 'Latin-jazz' which does not sound anything like the estabilished funky fusions of say, Dizzy Gillespie or Eddie Palmieri, nor does he borrow from Blue Note's 'Afro-Cuban' canon. Instead Haynes takes the deepest, trippiest, most 'African' elements of Cuban rumba and guaguanco, amd marries it to some pretty extreme, heavy duty modal jazz solos (featuring pianist Bennet Mac Lean and bassist Neville Malcolm). At points it sounds more like Randy Weston's African escursions, or Cedric Brook's rasta-jazz incantation or even Fela Kuti's Afrobeat.
Groupo Elegua's two albums, this year's 'Ori Ire' and 1997' debut 'Tomorrow's Path' are excellent snapshots, but to really appreciate the music you have to see them live, where they can rip up dancehalls and raise the roof off the most polite jazz bar.