Home » Jazz Articles » Live Review » Mark de Clive-Lowe at Nublu 151

3

Mark de Clive-Lowe at Nublu 151

By

View read count
Mark de Clive-Lowe
Nublu 151
Winter Jazzfest
New York, NY
January 10, 2019

New York City's Winter Jazzfest is about nothing if not cross-pollination. This guiding principle crystallized at every venue, but perhaps nowhere so psychosomatically as at Nublu 151, where Mark de Clive-Lowe spearheaded late-night jamming of a decidedly electronic persuasion. Trading in his jazzier hat, as worn with such humility in his recent Heritage, for that of DJ, he promised the dance floor the creation of "a record in real time." What resulted, however, was something far beyond the arbitrary measurement of minutes or hours, spilling over as it did into a grayer amalgam of house, improvisation, and techno.

Surrounded by an array of drum pads, sequencers, and keyboards, from which wires extended like veins into the laptop at the heart of a sprawling biomechanical organism, MdCL shuttled high spirits and melodic lines through an ever-changing loom of bass lines and soothing chord progressions. A crowded dance floor left little room for the venue's disco ball to thread its reflections, careening instead across rhythmically attuned bodies in search of that perfect groove. MdCL delivered on this promise and then some, welcoming a train of special guests to the stage that included a dynamic appearance by Brooklyn rapper John Robinson. Riding the tactile musical flow around him, Robinson spouted adlibbed wisdom with unfiltered honesty, as if holding a mirror to the battered face of history as it now stands.

MdCL kept things real throughout by engaging the room with his upbeat personality and respect for those willing to share his creative journey. It's a spirit that's always animated the flesh of his artistry, made all the more vibrant in a live setting, in which each shift brought about top-flight collaborations. At the center of it all, he kept his cool as much as brought it, and flipped a sonic coin that landed on heads every time.

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Mark de Clive-Lowe Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

Near

More

Jazz article: Bark Culture At Solar Myth
Jazz article: Hingetown Jazz Festival 2025
Jazz article: Hayley Kavanagh Quartet At Scott's Jazz Club

Popular

Read Take Five with Pianist Irving Flores
Read Jazz em Agosto 2025
Read Bob Schlesinger at Dazzle
Read SFJAZZ Spring Concerts
Read Sunday Best: A Netflix Documentary
Read Vivian Buczek at Ladies' Jazz Festival

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.