Koko London, 1st June 2022
It’s a warm Summery evening in Camden. Or Camden lite really. We’re across the road from Mornington Crescent at Koko London, a building first opened in 1900 and once the famed Camden Palace, and a feeling a world away from the hustle and bustle of Camden Town ‘proper’. Just the sort of evening where a nice cold drink is asked for, if only a technical hitch hadn’t taken the venue’s payment systems down and they’d returned to taking cash. Damn you, cashless society.
But no matter, this is one occasion that the support acts are worth checking out too. That’s once they can get over the very real disbelief that they are opening for Patrice Rushen. That’s THE Patrice Rushen, virtuoso jazz pianist and soul singer, probably still best known for the irresistibly catchy Forget Me Nots. A single that reached the top 10 in the UK charts and placed well across various US charts, constantly sampled and propelled back into people minds in the mid 90s thanks to two hit singles that heavily sampled the work: George Michael’s Fastlove and Will Smith’s Men In Black, mainly keeping Patrice’s keys, original bass player ‘Ready’ Freddie Washington’s bass and that double handclap intact. In the years that followed, 4Hero and Musiq reworked ballads Wishful Thinking and Settle For My Love respectively. More recently Strut Records put out a compilation of her work on Elektra Records in the late 1970s and early 80s, and continue to reissue her back catalogue, but most of us here tonight hardly need a (ahem) reminder.
First act singer Lynda Dawn admits she wouldn’t exist if not for Patrice. Her jazzy, Latin and 80s soul tinged debut EP that makes up much of her performance tonight is testament to that. Lynda’s wonderfully honey coated vocals floating above it all. She’s quickly followed by ‘Jazztronica’ duo Blue Lab Beats, comprising NK-OK and Mr D, tonight with guest vocalist and a trumpet player. Channelling something of a Kid ‘n Play vibe in looks, mainly thanks to NK-OK’s high-top, musically there’s more a mix of J Dilla and afro beats. If things started a little late, thanks to the modest setups of the support acts we’re back to schedule. (What is this strange new reality I’ve entered where this sort of thing starts on time, I wonder to myself?)
It’s time for the leading lady herself to take to the stage with full band. “Let’s get the jubilee started early”, she says, the gigs timing the evening before our double bank holiday seems perfect. She fires into, what else, but her classic Elektra instrumental Number One. (Bizarrely once included on Mastercuts ‘Classic Rare Groove Volume 1’ release, it’s always struck me how a song on her biggest album release, included on B-sides too, could ever be considered ‘rare’ – yet the later 1984 release still commands surprising prices according to Discogs.)
Rushen debuted as an artist on Prestige at just 20 years old with the fusion album Prelusion, though looking close to a decade younger as the grand piano next to her towers over her tiny stature (which would remain the case for the rest of the 70s). It’s easy to call out her move to Elektra as her shift towards soul, but what’s interesting is how more organic that evolution is. Songs like The Hump and Kicking Back move very close to what was to come, and tonight she swings between eras. As the crowd sings along to the former, she jokes “You remember that one? Gosh you are old!”
She beams throughout the performance, as delighted as anyone to be out and performing for a live audience. There’s a genuine openness and rapport with the audience, as she gets us singing along, not that we need much of nudge. Later on she explains how she struggled with song writing during COVID, how music had been her sanctuary. (A whoop behind me recognising a Gary Bartz reference, even if that wasn’t intended.) She eventually found her way with A Song For A Brighter Day, and even manages to get us singing along with that.
Lyrically her songs fall very definitely into two camps. On one side there’s sincere uplifting songs (bum ba dop bop ba);. On the other, so many various-tempoed songs of unrequited love that you wonder why Wong Kar-wai hasn’t come knocking. Swinging into Settle For My Love gets an appreciative gasp of recognition from the audience, who tonight are a real mix of ages and backgrounds.
Rushen’s playing is as deft as ever, and her band as tight as you’d expect from someone who spent so much of her career as a music director as well as a musician in her own right. At points newer songs veer a little too close to 80s ‘smooth jazz’, in stark contrast to her fusion and disco-era records.
She occasionally emerges from behind her two full-size keyboards, taking to the front of the stage to sing another fan favourite (ie never officially released as a single), the much-sampled Remind Me. Mixing between eras she drops Haven’t You Heard, an early Elektra single that charted in the UK – it might not have made the Top 40 then, but you’d be mistaken for thinking differently tonight. It’s no surprise that she ends on her biggest song, Forget Me Nots, given an extended breakdown that suddenly shifts into an 80s Prince-y, Minneapolis vibe, complete with synth stabs, as she takes to the fore again, this time with a ‘keytar’. But wait, she clearly asks the floor manager if there’s time for one more, before rollicking into a bass heavy version of Roll With The Punches.
As the crowd applauds, I clearly see her genuinely thank the sound engineer for the night. Forget Me Not? We needed no help remembering, but this was truly unforgettable.