EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL November 13–22, various venues, London
Sometimes dissonant, but played with a cosmic beauty
The UK jazz boom continues to flourish across 10 days of compelling livestreams
MARKALLAN;MONIKASJAKUBOWSKA/KINGSPLACE
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N an alternate timeline, 2020 was a banner year for UK jazz; following a long period of underground incubation, it was due to hit summer festival main stages and reach a place of broad public recognition. In our lived reality, of course, Covid-19 had other plans. But this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, 10 days of music and interviews broadcast via livestream from spaces across the capital, demonstrates that the scene’s energy can’t be contained so easily. “I hope this has given you your fix of somewhat live music,” beams Cassie Kinoshi, alto saxophonist and leader of SEED Ensemble, from the stage of the Barbican. SEED’s Saturday night show is a tribute to Pharoah Sanders – a living legend of free jazz, still playing in his 80th year – and their take on his catalogue digs into the dichotomy at the heart of his music: sometimes dissonant and avant-garde, but played with a generous, cosmic beauty. SEED’s Shirley Tetteh brings spikily explorative guitar to “Upper And Lower Egypt”, while special guest Shabaka Hutchings pops up with his clarinet for a stirring take on “Astral Travelling”, hanging around for a closing “Love Is Everywhere” sung by Richie Seivwright.
SEED also sneak in one of their own tracks, “Come Home”, which Kinoshi introduces as capturing “the feeling of being black British… of being in limbo”. It’s a theme that perhaps articulates why this current wave of British jazz feels so vital; not a high-art museum piece, but a conversation spanning cultures and generations, a thing of lived experience. Diversity breeds creativity, a creativity that’s very evident in a pair of sets livestreamed from Total Refreshment Centre, a sunlit studio space just off Stoke Newington High Street. Sarathy Korwar and his band – dressed in matching bootleg football shirts that read ‘Fly Immigrants’ – perform a thrilling set that draws lines between spiritual jazz and Indian classical music. Korwar is a limber presence behind the drums, weaving between tabla and western drumkit, while poet Zia Ahmed jumps in with spokenword lyrics that pick at the scab of colonialism and address what it’s like growing up brown in Britain: “Which part of England do you grow them leaves that make your famous English breakfast tea?/English like a cheeky Nando’s/English like cutting through your country as if it were a mango…” Emma-Jean Thackray grew up nowhere more exotic than Yorkshire, Cassie Sarathy Kinoshi Korwar withZia Ahmed
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where she learned to play trumpet in a brass band. Today though, she leads an ensemble blending Rhodes-powered grooving with a spiritual poise learned from Taoist philosophy. The lyric of “Movementt” – “Move the body/ Move the mind/Move the soul” – is delivered like a mission statement, while a rework of Cajmere and Dajae’s Chicago house classic “Brighter Days”, with Thackray singing and punching out the claps on a sampler, is full of joy.
That the UK jazz scene is in such rude health has a lot to do with Tomorrow’s Warriors, the not-for-profit organisation that’s fostered a young, multicultural wave of London musicians since the late ’90s. On Thursday night, it stages a showcase for two upand-coming female bandleaders, Mia Runham and Amy Gadiaga, though Tomorrow’s Warriors alumni pop up across the EFG Festival bill. Yazz Ahmed’s Thursday evening set from King’s Place finds Yazz Ahmed
