Qwati is the result of a collaboration between South African alto saxophonist Ntshuks Bonga and Oxford-based pianist Alex Hawkins. Both have a love for the lilting sounds of South African music made popular by Abdullah Ibrahim and others and both also have a strong association with free improvisation. The result is a group that creates music from the sounds of South Africa and then injects a thick vein of free improv by allowing soloists to move into regions well outside the expected, tonally and harmonically.

In many ways the rolling bass lines and densely harmonised but rather linear tunes from South Africa make an ideal fermenting box for further ideas as soloists are not pinned down by a strict chordal structure.

Joined by Gail Brand on trombone, another player with a strong free improv background, Mark Saunders on drums and Andy Grappy on tuba Qwati played an evening of hugely uplifting music with a mix of original tunes, scored pieces and a delightful moment of Ellington/Strayhorn. Alex Hawkins is a pianist with such a powerful technique it is sometimes in danger of running out of control but here he was both intense and playful encompassing an extraordinary breadth of moods and approaches. His duet with Gail Brand in Star Crossed Lovers showed his love and respect for Ellington (or is it Strayhorn?). Brand is a great partner to Bonga. Both approach their solos with feistiness and yearning mixed with rough blasts of more extreme blowing. Grappy’s tuba lines, which gives the group the organic feel of a street band, were faultless while Mark Saunders played with his characteristic mix of driving precision and colour. Bonga’s alto moves between an almost straight interpretation of the tunes through to the honks and wails from the other side of his musical character. He has the often lost ability to arouse meaning and emotion without a welter of notes.

Qwati are soon to bring out an album including the group’s original horn player, the great Claude Deppa alongside Brand and Bonga with Oren Marshall taking the tuba slot. This is something to look out for along with Hawkins’s own new album shortly to be launched at the Vortex.