Yussef Dayes Experience
Royal Festival Hall, London
⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

ANY ticket to one of Yussef Dayes’s renowned live performances is a two-for-one bargain, for not only do you get to see one of the world’s greatest drummers; you can also marvel at the host of sensational musicians drawn into his orbit.

Here, apart from the stellar regulars in his contemporary jazz collective – Rocco Palladino on bass, Elijah Fox on keyboards, Malik Venner on saxophone and Alexander Bourt on percussion – a full-house is treated to special guests of equally outstanding talent who have flown in for the occasion: Minami Kizuki, a singer and player of the sanshin, a traditional three-stringed instrument from the Japanese Amami islands, and Justin Lee-Schultz, a 19-year-old South African guitarist/pianist of quite exceptional dexterity and enthusiasm.

Contributing separately on two songs each, Kizuki and Lee-Schultz receive the first standing ovations of the night, after which the audience are on their feet for a long time at the end, too.

Musical virtuosity in itself is by no means a guarantee of enjoyment, but the beatific Dayes insists on putting his extraordinary drumming skills entirely at the service of the music – and his collaborators follow suit.

There is no self-indulgent doodling here; all the effort goes into exploring the melodies and channelling the vibe.

Contributing separately on two songs each, Kizuki plays on the magical song Amami, while Lee-Schultz gets stuck into Turquoise Galaxy, along with an extended, breathtaking interaction between Dayes and Bourt (on the congas), as well as in some labyrinthine, knob-twiddling keyboardism from Fox. These are both songs that feature on Dayes’s superb new album, Live From Mount Fuji (2026).

Venner, too, is capable of going right out there, but is always keen to return to the main groove as soon as possible.

Under it all, of course, is Dayes’s exciting drum work: so precise that if feels at times like the output from a pre-programmed machine, yet with so many ebbs and flows in tempo and such an instinctive feel for its surroundings that it never loses its human touch.

The drumming would be worth hearing just on its own, but in combination with such a collection of noteworthy musicians the output is twice as good – and the enjoyment doubled.

Live From Mt Fuji is available on bandcamp