Jazz hands at the ready: the annual EFG London Jazz Festival this week with a host of world-renowned artists and emerging stars coming to the capital.
There are all sorts of styles to be found in the 300-plus shows in over 60 venues: be-bop, swing, hip hop, spiritual jazz, experimental stylings and much, much more.
Do check out new festival hub The Jazz Social at Citypoint, EC2 for intimate live shows, artist signings and DJ sets, but if the programme seems a bit ovewhelming here are eight festival highlights to catch...
Friday 15 November
Opening Gala: Jazz Voice
A star-studded line-up of luminaries – among them Cherise, Tony Momrelle and American diva Carmen Lundy – celebrate that most versatile of instruments: the voice. Guy Barker and guest conductor Peter Edwards direct the EFG London Jazz Festival Orchestra through a programme of jazz, soul and R&B as cherrypicked from record labels including Motown and Blue Note. Expect surprises – oh, and a turn by ex-Homeland actor Damien Lewis, who happens to have a mean set of pipes.
Royal Festival Hall
Saturday 16 November
Marisa Monte
Brazil's queen of song has a way with melody, a voice that caresses each note she sings and a back catalogue spanning styles from traditional sambas to pop ballads. Famed for energetic live shows with arty lighting and adoring dance-and-sing-along crowds, the graceful fashionista and four-time Latin Grammy winner will celebrate her three-decade career with a selection of hits old and new.
Royal Festival Hall
Sunday 17 November
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
With the words 'Fela Lives' tattooed in giant letters across his back, there is no doubting whose son this is. The Grammy-nominated Nigerian singer and saxophonist has been fronting the late Fela Kuti's band Egypt 80 since he was a teenager, sprucing up Afrobeat – a mix of jazz, funk, soul and West African styles as political as it is grooveable – in the process. Armed with a new album produced by Lenny Kravitz and ongoing fury at the state of the world, Kuti will get you thinking while you dance.
Koko
Monday 18 November
Charles Tolliver Celebrates Max Roach @ 100
The leading drummer of the be-bop era, and very possibly of all time, Max Roach worked with Miles, Dizzy, Thelonious – and the American jazz trumpet wizard Charles Tolliver, 82, who will honour Roach's memory with renditions of some of their classic tunes. The New York-based likes of drummer Darrell Green and singer and tenor saxophonist Camille Thurman feature among a big band of UK heavyweights led by alto/soprano kingpin Tony Kofi.
Barbican
Wednesday 20 November
Roberto Fonseca
The Havana-born jazz pianist, Grammy nominee and one-time Buena Vista Social Club member has long had a love affair with France (even his suits and hats are made by French fashion designer agnés b). It makes sense, then, that his current live show celebrates the golden age of Cuban music as embraced by the Cabane Cubaine, the fabled Montmartre cabaret club that brought rumba, mambo and cha-cha-cha to 1930s Paris. Dance? I thought you'd never ask...
Cadogan Hall
Thursday 21 November
Nduduzo Makathini
Nduduzo Makathini is a pianist, composer and educator of Zulu heritage and the first South African artist to be signed to famed jazz label Blue Note, for whom he's made three albums. He's also a musical shaman who draws on the church, cosmology and ancestral traditions to reposition music – specifically, South African jazz music – as a source of spiritual healing. Deep, enchanting stuff.
Kings Place
Friday 22 November
Jamie Cullum
UK jazz's golden boy continues his charmed 18-year run, legacy of hard work, boundless energy and a palpable love for what he does. Nine albums in, with sell-out gigs in over 40 countries, the singer, keys player and erstwhile BBC broadcaster brings a stylistically diverse world class show enhanced by sharp one-liners and probably, some beatboxing.
Royal Festival Hall
Saturday 23 November
Ganavya
A New York-born, South India-raised and California-based singer and multi-instrumentalist, Ganavya has prompted double-takes with her acrobatic carnatic singing and knack for melding spiritual jazz and ambient electronics with South Indian traditions. She's worked with the late Quincy Jones and esperanza spalding, and blew away those who caught SAULT's 2023 live debut in London; her harp-accompanied appearance on Later... With Jools in June further expanded her fan-base. Prepare to be transported.
Union Chapel
EFG London Jazz Festival runs from November 15 to 24; efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk
