PROGRESSIONS: Lionel Loueke

Blue Note jazz guitarist Lionel Loueke plays The Workman's Club on Sunday 21st April, bringing a unique blending of traditional West African rhythms and scat/click singing style, with an American jazz style.

Loueke is a natural heir to a jazz legacy of earthy innovation and deep grooves stretching back to Miles Davis, through Herbie Hancock and into the hands of a new generation including Loueke and jazz/hip-hop artists like Robert Glasper.
"Loueke’s signature is one of limitless rhythmic invention and textural nuance, whereby a tapestry of string lines weaves around a voice replete with note bending whispers and muted flickers that make it sound like Harmon-filtered brass " JazzWise

Lionel Loueke was an undisputed highlight of Herbie Hancock’s last Irish shows. Steeped in the folklore of his native Benin, he beautifully presents African culture through the prism of jazz guitar. To hear Loueke in full flight is remarkable, as flowing lines with tasteful chromatic punctuation are heard over deep, magnetic African grooves that move effortlessly between meters, as he accompanies himself vocally with a hybrid of scat and African click language.

".... evocative African-choral textures spliced with a guitar sound that joins the jazz styles of Pat Metheny or John Scofield to the flowing phrasing of a kora." The Guardian

His recent album release Heritage is co-produced by piano great and Blue Note label mate Robert Glasper, and finds Loueke at the helm of a new lineup with a more electric sound. Still, Loueke’s gentleness, his gift for poetic melody, remains in the forefront.

To watch Lionel Loueke play live click here.