Endea Owens EIF review – 'Rising star showed off explosive talent'

Endea Owens at the Edinburgh International Festival | Endea Owens

Endea Owens

The Hub

★★★★★

Detroit-based jazz bassist and composer Endea Owens and her sextet, The Cookout (piano, trumpet, sax, vocals, bass and drums), closed the EIF in dynamic form at the Hub, supplementing their advertised set with farewell tunes. Opening with a recent band number, Where the Nubians Grow (2023), Owens launched into a gutsy, boisterous solo, leading into a driving reworking of Miles Davis’ So What, from the classic Kind of Blue album (1959). Then guest vocalist Shenel Johns lifted the roof with soaring soprano on a shuffling, swinging The Power of Love (Huey Lewis and the News, 1985), topped by a blistering alto sax contribution. 

This sextet do indeed cook. Alternating on stage for different songs, they improvised on top of their own numbers and standards with power, pace, poise and an injection of fiery, interwoven dissonance from trumpet and saxophone. Cycles, another original, was led off by virtuosic drummer Lee Pearson, followed by Dr Feelgood (Aretha Franklin, 1967), Owens’ reflective Black Matter, and an affecting Miss Celie’s Blues bass/vocals duet.

While Europe has a thriving jazz scene, rising star Endea Owens showed Edinburgh that when it comes to explosive talent, the USA is still where much of the action is.