(Maceo Parker)

(Mulatu Astatke)

James Brown may no longer be with us, but thank goodness that Maceo Parker is still out there spreading the gospel. Forty years or more after he joined forces with the great showman, the saxophonist remains one of the sharpest and funkiest performers on the block. Although his all-standing show generated sauna-like conditions at the Pavilion in Bath, it was impossible to resist the perfectly proportioned riffs and the dynamic call-and-response vamps, all harking back to an era when R&B had yet to degenerate into cocktail hour bombast.

Another JB alumnus, Pee Wee Ellis, lent a helping hand as the leader capered through his set. And it was encouraging to see our own Dennis Rollins, trombonist and the leader of that cultured jazz-funk group Bad Bone & Co, slipping so comfortably into the line-up. Like Parker, Rollins instinctively understands how to balance showmanship with musicality.

Towards the end of a tireless two and a half hour performance, the leader briefly paid homage to Ray Charles, donning dark glasses as he crooned a few phrases of You Don’t Know Me. The likes of Kenny G have given pop fusion a dismal reputation: here was proof that the formula does not have to be reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Other jazz highlights in the Bath Festival programme include a collaboration at the Abbey tomorrow between the saxophonist Jason Yarde and the South African jazz-classical diva Sibongile Khumalo.

Of all the albums released so far this year, few have caused as much of a stir as the funk-tinged meeting between the Ethiopian band leader Mulatu Astatke and that London-based brigade of psychedelic renegades known as the Heliocentrics.

Astatke, a sophisticated all-rounder who served part of his apprenticeship in Britain alongside musicians of the calibre of Tubby Hayes, is as distinctive a figure in his way as the Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. Blending hypnotic pentatonic melodies with a fevered percussive backdrop, the Heliocentrics’ disc is sure to end up on many a reviewer’s Top Ten.

A live date last year generated no end of elation among those who were fortunate enough to have been present. Expectations were thus running high.

In the end, sadly, the evening at Koko was sabotaged by an appalling sound mix that reduced much of the music to a painful ambient shriek.

Revellers who forced their way to the front of the crowd seem to have had a better time of it; they would at least have been able to get a decent view of Astatke and his colleagues. But those of us at the back had to make do with an occasional glimpse as he hovered over a vibraphone that was scarcely audible above the roar of the horns. The ululating vocals on Masengo, the album’s haunting curtain-raiser, just about worked their magic. Overall, though, the circumstances conspired against the musicians. Astatke — and his audience — deserved better.

Maceo Parker tours to the Jazz Café, London, tonight and Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, tomorrow. www.maceoparker.com

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