Melting Pot Review

Melting Pot

I always feel a pang of guilty pleasure entering the Voodoo Rooms at certain hours of the day. Through the drizzle and across the shiny wet cobble stones, past the stray cats lurking, drunks slumped and waitresses smoking fly fags; beyond the industrial sized bins and second hand smells wafting from restaurant kitchens: the scene has more than a whiff of the golden age of gangsters and jazz music. 

Alas, the Moscow Mule drained before the show was blandly legal, and served by a bored T-shirt clad member of the iTunes generation. Nevertheless, the moody interior of the Voodoo Rooms is well chosen for an act like Melting Pot. 

The seven piece ‘Soul-Jazz-Funk’ band provides an adrenaline fuelled and raucous performance. Steele’s shrill and often hyperactive trumpet nicely balances out Subie Coleman’s smoky alto. Peppered with some impressive solos, especially from Steele’s animated trumpet, the group evidently take a great deal of joy in their improvisations. The show also remains accessible, with Jefferson Airplane and Shirley Bassey covers interspersed.

As with any artists who love their craft, it was impossible for the enthusiasm emanating from the stage not to infect the sweaty scrum of an audience, who by the end of the performance were baying for more. A solid and energetic performance.