Yazz Ahmed
Award-winning trumpeter and composer, Yazz Ahmed, continues her exploration into electronic soundscapes in partnership with producer, Hector Plimmer, and percussionist, Ralph Wyld.
Following their successful collaboration on 2018’s La Saboteuse Remixed, Ahmed joins forces again with cutting-edge producer, composer and DJ, Hector Plimmer, to present an evening of new arrangements of each other’s music, re-imagined for this trio. Featuring her long-time associate, the virtuosic vibraphonist Ralph Wyld, the evening will include improvisation, live sampling and trippy grooves, all exploring the possibilities provided by the immersive d&b Soundscape system in Hall Two.
Hey Yazz, welcome to Kings Place! We loved your performance tonight. Please tell us about yourself.
I’m Yazz Ahmed, I’m a trumpet player and composer, and the music I write is reflective of my mixed heritage. My Dad is Bahraini, and my Mom is English, so I like to mix Arabic scales and rhythms with jazz and western sounds.
Could you tell us a bit about your composition for tonight’s show? What inspires you?
So for this project at King’s Place, I put together a new trio, with Hector Clemmer, who is a composer, producer and drummer. We met when I was looking for producers to remix some tracks from my 2017 album, The Saboteuse. He remixed one of those tracks, and since then we’ve kind of had a creative relationship together, and I thought, let’s try it live.
It’s been a really nice sharing experience. Half the set is his tunes, and half are mine. We had to think, how do we make this a collaboration. We had to think about putting our personalities into each other’s pieces, it was a new experience. It gave us the chance to experiment and try some new things out. Hector brought in some new electronics, which was fun as he got to interact in a very different way to how we normally would. And using the Soundscape system was an absolute delight, you know, we could be very creative.
“Tim Hand, our sound engineer, had fun placing the electronics, the clean sounds, and the backing tracks, where they go, and how they move when the audience is listening. We tried to create something very hypnotic, something very immersive, and something that puts everyone in a spell.”
As a jazz artist, in terms of room acoustics and your performance, how does the King’s Place space measure up with the addition of Soundscape?
As a trumpet player, I prefer to play in rooms that have a lot of natural reverb. The trumpet is a kind of glorious instrument. It’s used in churches; in the army it’s a call. So it helps to have a room that really projects that sound. King’s Place Hall Two is a really nice acoustic but for me it doesn’t have enough reverb for the trumpet. So having this sound system really helps with carrying my sound and bringing the best timbre out to everyone in the room.
“I’m so grateful to King’s Place that they let us use the venue a week before. We had a real opportunity to take advantage and use the sound system to its limits and this was a really wonderful experience. We were able to think about making the audience feel they are part of the performance; we had the opportunity to think about all those little details and improvisations weaving into each piece.”
What would you tell other artists that are considering using immersive technology to enhance their live performance?
I always think it’s important to make the audience feel the music, you know, deep in their heart. And I think experimenting with a surround sound system does that, it’s such a treat. Music is a very emotional artform, and I think more people should experiment with sound, to really have that connection with the audience.