UK Jazz is everywhere, isn’t it?
Several UK artists - from Ashley Henry to GoGo Penguin - are signed to major labels, Nubya Garcia is September’s Jazzwise cover star and Moses Boyd is firmly a member of the BBC Radio family. Meanwhile, Blue Note Reimagined is expanding the global platform further for Wednesday night ravers STEAM DOWN and Nottingham’s sweetheart, Yazmin Lacey.
I cast my mind back to 2015 - the US had Obama at the helm and a cough on the bus didn’t make us duck for cover. Kendrick Lamar’s landmark record To Pimp A Butterfly proved that there was and is an appetite for Jazz in mainstream music. At the time, Shabaka Hutchings was wetting his whistle in preparation for Lest We Forget What We Came Here to Do and the word “Cykada” - unless you’re Polish - brought no associations to mind. Yet Jazz re:freshed, Tomorrow’s Warriors, Future Bubblers and NYJO had already been oiling the cogs for years. Call me sentimental, but I look on in awe at the educators and musicians who’ve established London as being just as significant as New York and Johannesburg on the hundred year timeline of Jazz. That’s why Tomorrow’s Warriors’ #IAMWARRIOR appeal is so vitally deserving. Spare what you can.
Amongst the stack of Guardian features over the last half decade announcing that Jazz is cool again (note: 2016 VS 2020), I wonder, “what’s next?”. Something is only new and newsworthy for so long. Are the days gone when Average Joe thinks of cravats and flapper girls when they hear that otherly word, “Jazz”? I like to think so.
Record of the week: Blue Note Re:imagined
Much like EZH, Blue Note classics have been reimagined for this upcoming compilation released on 25 September. UK Jazz stalwarts including Emma-Jean Thackray, Ezra Collective and Poppy Ajudha create modern adaptions of tunes written by titans; Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner amongst them. Worth a mention that the sleeve is sexy AF, too. Favourite track: Wind Parade (Donald Byrd) reimagined by Jordan Rakei.
What I’m consuming this week:
I’m enjoying listening to Oneness Of Juju prompted by Bandcamp’s best picks of the Summer’s reissues. I’m looking forward to checking out I Am Panda, the new album from Chiminyo, and reading Emma Warren’s comments on documenting culture as a radical act in The Quietus - you can order her pamphlet or download the audio book.
Before signing off:
I should point out the obvious; EZH is back, baby. It bowed out in 2018 after four years of articles, radio shows, festival showcases - from SXSW to The Great Escape (covered here by CLASH) - and my personal highlight, CHICAGOxLONDON. I was yearning to try some new things, and I did; I’ve been honoured to write for Downbeat, to become a Worldwide FM resident and - something I would never have predicted - host and edit an audio series for the City of London Govt.
Two years on though, I could still feel twitches of the metaphorical arm I cut off. I began planning a relaunch of the website in early 2020. Whether it was fate or severe procrastination - hey, I didn’t get it done in all of lock down?- I clicked that something didn’t feel right. Every week, I get a spark of dopamine when I see newsletters from Music Journalism Insider, The Professional Freelancer, ADDITUDE and Talking Travel Writing land in my inbox. If there’s going to be an EZH 2.0, shouldn’t it be, well, different? Much like the forthcoming Blue Note compilation, EZH has had a reimagining. And it looks like this.
It would mean the world if you could support the return of EZH, which will cover significant topics in Jazz and its offshoots, from socio-economical stories to new release highlights.
Now that EZH is back in the world as a newsletter, there are two ways that you can help; share the news on socials and subscribe.
Thank you, Tina x