Sainkho to Perform in London Jazz Festival

If you want to ... explore the outer edges of jazz, hear the extraordinary Sainkho Namchylak (Cargo, November 14), the mountain-chanter from Tuva in Siberia. She can sing with operatic purity, plummet into an overtone-laden world like a distant didgeridoo, creak like a chain straining on a winch or flutter like a songbird. Namchylak appears here with the Moscow Composers Orchestra. The band features leading figures from the jazz avant-garde that resisted the former Soviet Union's cultural pressures for years, including Ukrainian saxophonist Anatoly Vapirov. Vapirov was once consigned to Siberia for his views, but he tirelessly pursued his vision of a mix of American free-jazz and local folk influences from Russia, Ukraine and Latvia.