Theres a real feeling of being alive. She pauses. Which is always something to aim for.

Photograph: JJ Lorenzo Dancer Valerie Ebuwa in Clod Ensemble and Nu Civilisation Orchestras version of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.

Photograph: JJ Lorenzo Unable to fully stage their celebration of the classic 6os album, Clod Ensemble are inviting audiences to a listening party for London jazz festival Lyndsey Winship Tue 17 Nov 2020 14.06 GMT Last modified on Wed 18 Nov 2020 08.20 GMT They had such great plans: a live band, 200 people young and old all dancing freely together, performers and audience intermingling in a rapturous, participative party of a show.

The event would have been Clod Ensemble s live staging of Charles Minguss classic jazz album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, with the Nu Civilisation Orchestra and a company of dancers leading the groove.

The project has been reborn as a listening party as part of the London jazz festival.

Its a chance to get engrossed in Minguss 1963 recording, a masterpiece of avant-garde ambition, interspersed with discussion from Willson and co-artistic director Paul Clark, along with Peter Edwards and Gary Crosby from the Nu Civilisation Orchestra.

In tandem with the music is a film featuring the dancers improvising in response to the score, all shot separately in the studio but collaged together in an occasionally psychedelic way.

Its far from a standard performance film or the at-home videos were getting used to.

I wanted to create a world thats beyond the domestic world, says Willson.

Photograph: Michael Ochs ArchivesGetty Images Watching the dancers responses really works to concentrate the mind on the music and help you get inside the reeds and rasps of the instruments, the sultry wail and forceful rhythms of this complex, richly textured piece.

The original idea to work with Minguss music came about some years back when Willson and Clark went to see Nu Civilisation Orchestra play it live.

It was a sit-down concert but everyone was itching to get up and dance.

When Willson discovered that Mingus had originally written the six-movement work as a ballet although it was never performed at the time it seemed natural to take it back to the dance floor.

Its soulful, its got loads of possibilities to move in many different ways.

Theres something a bit Bacchic about it, isnt there says Clark.

Its dirty and repetitive and wild and it has loads of catchy riffs.

The listening party audience is welcome to take a seat and get lost in sound and vision, but viewers are invited to dance if the mood takes them.

Clark laments the lost connection between jazz music and dancing, citing the faster and more challenging bebop of the 1940s as the nail in that coffin (although theres a definite re-emergence of dancing in the current London jazz scene at clubs such as Steam Down).

A lot of people watch more cookery programmes than cook their own meals.

Being a spectator rather than a participant is a hell of a lot easier.

But make that little bit of effort and the rewards are great.

From a muso perspective, a person who is trying to dance to music is the best listener, says Clark.

Theyre listening with more focus, more detail, and more sustained energy than most people who are sitting in a seat.

How could you resist The musics so sensual and visceral, says Willson.

Theres a real feeling of being alive.

She pauses. Which is always something to aim for.

Jazz Mingus