Soulful, questing and proudly earnest, tonight – headlining the main room at Ronnie Scott’s – Glasgow’s make a deep and stirring case for their unique take on spiritual jazz. 

Since forming during lockdown, the Scottish sextet led by composer and pianist have pioneered a sound that is both conciliatory and cosmic; mixing a heartfelt influence of cusp-of-the-Seventies spiritual jazz with the astral groove noir of D’Angelo or Dilla (notably, when not steering Mama Terra, Cafolla is putting the funk into Glasgow’s enduring Federation of the Disco Pimp outfit.) 

Tonight’s set draws from both debut ‘The Summoned’ and its 2026 successor ‘Inner Space’. ‘Best Laid Plans’, from that album, is a great leap forward: possibly the most assured piece in their arsenal so far. Rachel Lightbody’s remarkable soprano vocal pushes past the becalming piano vamps somewhere into the solar system. From the galactical, back down to Glasgow, then; even better is ‘Dear Green Space’, which Cafolla dedicates to his “love hate relationship” with his home city. An ambitious and moving solo best captures those ambiguities, in turns exalted, chalky, and graceful. Throughout, co-leader on tenor saxophone is outstanding, whose urgent playing brings an intensity and grit that helpfully complicates a spiritual sound that, in other hands, can sometimes go down too smooth. 

One of tonight’s clear highlights, though, comes beamed in from far outside of these Soho streets. seminal ‘Live-Evil’ was, explains bandleader Cafolla, a big band in his own development, not least its 25 minute climax ‘Inamorata & Narration’ by Conrad Roberts. On that track, the Antiguan-American actor’s rich voice pays tribute to Miles “fathomless music,” concluding the album with the message “I love tomorrow.” 

So Cafolla called him up. Roberts, who is still alive and well and living in Los Angeles, had some unpublished text from that Live-Evil era simply lying around. Recorded by Roberts, it became the Mama Terra track ‘Bliss (Words & Narration by Conrad Roberts)’. Tonight, balmy piano, brisk breakbeats and a profound sense of space lay down a soulful foundation for Roberts’ oak-aged vocal to resonate throughout the plush, red velvet interiors of Ronnie Scott’s. It’s a moment that sums up Mama Terra’s appeal: the celestial innovations of the early 1970s applied forcefully to our present moment.

‘Inner Space’ is out now.