Shabaka

Through bands such as Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors, the London-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Shabaka Hutchings has helped redefine the sound of contemporary jazz, drawing on influences ranging from Afro-Caribbean traditions and spiritual jazz to electronica, ambient music and experimental club culture.

The Quietus has described him as a “genre-obliterating, generational talent”, while MOJO has called his music “a holistic, electro-acoustic world music that defies categorisation”. It is precisely this restless spirit of exploration that makes Shabaka such a singular artistic force.

At the beginning of 2024, Shabaka announced that he would step away from the saxophone to focus on composition and a range of flute instruments. The result was the critically acclaimed solo album Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace. In 2026, he returned to the saxophone with Of the Earth – an album entirely written, performed, produced and mixed by himself.

The record has received widespread international acclaim. The Times called it “spiritual jazz of the highest order”, while Rolling Stone described it as “a bringing together of everything that has got him here”. Pitchfork highlighted how Shabaka “brings his expansive jazz to life with colourful percussion and electronic production”, and The New York Times wrote that the music “blends creamy saxophone and twinkling chimes into a spiritual salve”.

Shabaka’s performances are living organisms in constant evolution – driven by collaboration, improvisation and a deep desire to reflect a creative mind in motion. At Storyville this afternoon, audiences can expect a concert experience that is at once meditative, explosive and profoundly human.

Shabaka Hutchings – flute and saxophone

Standing audience.

Concerts in our main program last between aprx. 60 to 90 minutes.
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