The Vampires/Lionel Loueke: The Vampires Meet Lionel Loueke review – seductive, genre-hopping creativity

Lionel Loueke, the gifted Benin-born guitarist and singer endorsed by Herbie Hancock in the early noughties, hasn’t let American fame hamper his footloose instincts – he’s tweaked genres with little-known Belgian world-jazz saxophonist Nicholas Kummert, and here with the Vampires, a playfully eclectic, decade-old Australian quartet. The references embrace reggae, classic Cuban son, high life, pre-electric Miles Davis and hints of Blue Note soul-jazz or Henri Texier’s cinematically scene-setting music, but Loueke’s openness to any destination he’s arrived at prevents it from becoming generic. A moodily reflective guitar curls through cymbal sizzles and double-bass nudges, while dolorous trumpet/woodwind motifs bookend the set. In between come warm vamps like a kind of introverted South African township music, reggae prefaced by bright horn fanfares expanding into wry postbop-tenor speculations and hooky Cuban groovers, which Loueke embroiders with a glowing, steelpan-like sound. The guitarist operates almost entirely as an ensemble player, yet he shapes the character of this seductive one-off at every turn.