Shabaka

• Gent Jazz
  Friday 10•July•2026
  16:45•

"You've gotta keep it moving with music, and that's what typifies all the heroes of the music that I really respect", as multi-instrumentalist Shabaka Hutchings was once quoted in Jazzwise. His greatest musical hero is John Coltrane — and you can feel it in every note he plays. Like Trane, Hutchings embodies innovation and radical thinking, composing without boundaries and giving the music exactly what it needs, even if that means constantly reinventing himself. As the driving force behind Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors, he has been central to the London jazz renaissance of the past decade.

Like Coltrane, Hutchings is a saxophonist, although in recent years he has explored other wind instruments and also music production, leading to introspective, meditative, almost spiritual solo work under the moniker Shabaka. On his new album Of The Earth, however, he returns to the saxophone, crafting "a genuinely experimental record, with more than a dash of cheerful craziness,” as The Wire puts it. With this latest gem, he is heading to De Bijloke. Expect as much punk energy as reflective contemplation, as much tranquillity as electrifying commotion from this unparalleled virtuoso.

For fans of: Kamasi Washington, John Coltrane, Makaya McCraven, Sons of Kemet, Nbuya Garcia, André 3000