Brothers TJ and Femi Koleoso — the bass player and drummer of jazz quintet Ezra Collective respectively — were walking up Wembley Way last month to see their beloved Arsenal play in the Carabao Cup Final. “We were approaching the stadium and Femi just turned to me, just like, ‘We can do this, man,’” says TJ, 30. By “do this”, Femi wasn’t referring to Arsenal’s chances of winning the game (they lost 2-0 to Manchester City — “terrible match”, says TJ). He meant that their band could, one day, perform a concert at Wembley Stadium, the 90,000-capacity venue of choice for the likes of Oasis, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. “I said, ‘You’ve been like this since day one,’” continues TJ. “We’d go and watch a gig in [small Camden venue] Koko and Femi would say, ‘We can do this, man.’ Then we’d go to the [bigger] Roundhouse and he’d say, ‘We can do this, man.’” Readers, Ezra Collective did both — and plenty more besides.
Femi, a year older than his sibling, admits that venue inflation occupies his mind. “I look at the O2 and think, ‘One day’, and I look at Wembley Stadium and think ‘One day’. I don’t look at it and think ‘Flatline. We won’t get there’ You can’t not look at [Glastonbury’s] Pyramid Stage and think, ‘One day’. Otherwise, what’s the point?,” the drummer and band leader says. This next-level plotting has probably been “the biggest thing that’s allowed Ezra’s jazz music to burst out of the jazz club”, says TJ.
That, and their infectious playing. Ambition is nothing without the performance chops to back it up and, luckily, Ezra Collective are one of Britain’s most exciting bands. Their fusion of Afrobeat, calypso, jazz and hip-hop finds form in joyous live performances, where carnival meets cardio workout. Accolades have flooded in, with Ezra Collective torpedoing George Foreman’s maxim that “Boxing is like jazz — the better it is, the less people appreciate it”. Ezra were the first jazz band to win the Mercury Prize (in 2023) and they were named best group at last year’s Brit Awards. Famous fans abound. In 2018 they played at the late Quincy Jones’s birthday party in Switzerland. In 2024 Barack Obama named Ezra’s single God Gave Me Feet for Dancing as one of his songs of the year. Last summer they supported Stevie Wonder in Hyde Park.
I ask all five members — the Koleosos are joined by James Mollison on tenor sax, Ife Ogunjobi on trumpet and Joe Armon-Jones on keyboards — what their biggest “pinch me” moment has been. “For sure, opening for Stevie Wonder,” says Armon-Jones. “I still can’t really believe that it happened. Basically the greatest musician and the greatest songwriter that ever lived. What an honour.” Femi agrees, while TJ picks Quincy Jones’s party, largely because the band, who shared the stage with artists including rapper Mos Def, were still unknowns back then.
Mollison picks a different moment: playing with DJ Fred Again during his rammed Ally Pally residency in February. Mollison’s performance was preceded by him watching the MC Flowdan perform one of his all-time favourite songs, 2007’s iconic dubstep track Skeng, right in front of him. “To see that track live, not just as an observer but as an equal contributor, was honestly one of the biggest ‘pinch me’ moments I’ve ever had.” For Ogunjobi, the highlight has been global travel. “It’s mad to think that music you make in your bedroom in London can travel so far and mean so much to different people all over the world,” he says. Ezra Collective are living the dream.
Despite eyeing Pyramids and stadiums, this month has also been about reflection. It’s 10 years since Ezra Collective’s first EP, Chapter 7, was released. To celebrate, they played a hot-ticket show at tiny Hackney venue Colour Factory last weekend with guests including award-winning saxophonist Nubya Garcia and Sons of Kemet co-founder Shabaka Hutchings. I was there, and it was broiling celebration. At its best it showcased virtuosic improvisation. Imagine Jimi Hendrix with 10 hands.
Jazz has too often been elitist, exclusive and expensive, says Femi when we meet in a Camden studio two days before the show. But jazz’s roots were anything but elitist. “It was built by inclusivity and community by working class people,” Femi says. Jazzers from the late Art Blakey and Charles Mingus (“a stray gangster”) to contemporary stars like Robert Glasper taught him that “jazz is the most perfect form of expression of the reality you’re living”. And so Ezra Collective reflects the sounds of contemporary London.
My reality is funky house raves and pirate radio. That is the package that Ezra Collective came in
“I’ve got Nigerian parents. I love grime music. I love Afrobeat. My reality is not middle-class elitism or wine that costs £30 a cup. My reality is [now-closed venue] Black Grape in Tottenham, funky house raves and pirate radio. That is the package that Ezra Collective came in,” says Femi. But Ezra’s net is wide. Keyboardist Armon-Jones was born in Oxfordshire and went to Eton. It’s a refreshing, modern and inclusive mix. The most moving track on their 2024 album Dance, No One’s Watching is the slow-burning and aptly-titled closing number, Everybody. Instruments join one-by-one before coalescing to a goosebump-inducing crescendo. It sounds like a manifesto. Armon-Jones says that, since Chapter 7 came out, jazz has reclaimed a younger audience. “It’s been a beautiful thing to witness. It’s a natural return to what jazz was originally,” he says.
Ezra Collective formed in 2012. Femi and Mollison played in Tomorrow’s Warriors Youth Ensemble, a band linked to a south London organisation of the same name. Victory in a Cheltenham Jazz Festival competition won the band a support slot for US trumpeter Terence Blanchard at Ronnie Scott’s. TJ and Armon-Jones joined around this time, with Ogunjobi arriving later. London in the Olympic year of 2012 was a place of hope and opportunity. “It was the best of London. One of the things that came with the Olympics were so many opportunities to play music. There were all these bandstand stages. You’d have Dizzee Rascal playing the big stage in Hyde Park and, right near the car park, there was Ezra Collective playing. The sun was shining and there was no traffic, everyone loved each other… What a time to be alive,” says Femi, a touch wistfully. “Everything worked, transport worked,” says TJ with a more matter-of-fact brand of nostalgia.
The collective had a “beautiful naivety” about performing, says TJ. They’d simply turn up anywhere — pub or club — and give it their all. Not that audiences were universally appreciative. At one early show at Manchester’s Deaf Institute, the band were relying on merch sales for petrol money home. But someone swiped some goodies. “It was like Trainspotting. They might have thought they stole the jumper but they actually stole our petrol, like something out of Mad Max,” says Femi. Still, side hustles such as wedding gigs gradually fell away as Ezra Collective became, as Femi puts it, the whole dream. Now this dream has its own side hustles: Femi has been the touring drummer for Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz and is a BBC Radio 6 Music DJ. The others are equally in demand.
Key to Ezra Collective’s story is the tale of the Koleoso brothers. Their parents moved to the UK in the early 1990s, settling in Enfield, and worked their way up their respective professional ladders: their mother became a palliative care nurse and their father a haematologist. TJ explains that his parents packed a suitcase, travelled to a country “that they’d never seen” and just figured it out. “There’s a deep, deep work ethic,” he says. Because childcare wasn’t affordable, their father would take them to his hospital in Stanmore. They’d occupy themselves while he worked. They have happy, vivid memories, and their inherited work ethic explains their “bouncing gratitude from the stage”, explains Femi.
Their parents remain their biggest fans. Their father “only wears Ezra merch, pretty much”, says Femi, while their mum was recently upset that she missed out in the ticket ballot for the Hackney show. “I was, like, ‘Babes, I reckon we can probably sort that out,’” laughs Femi.
There was another huge inspiration: their music teacher at Enfield Grammar School, Malcolm Escott. He mentored them, introducing TJ to the work of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers (“obsessed”, says the bassist) and loading an iPod of Femi’s with music from Radiohead, Sly and Family Stone and The Meters (“heaven”, Femi recalls). I email Escott. He says that the brothers combined “natural musical ability” with a “real hunger” to listen, learn and develop. “I had no doubt they would make it, but I must admit to surprise at the level of success given the jazz label. It makes their rise even more impressive,” he says, adding that he’s “immensely proud”. Ezra members give back — they regularly donate instruments to their old schools.
If there’s something that this Great Britain gave me, it was music education — it’s no surprise that we just churn out Adeles and Olivias and Rayes and Amys for fun
The decline in music education in UK schools is a huge concern. It’s falling at both GCSE and A-level stages, with clear ramifications. “You starve a country of its soul one music lesson at a time,” says Femi. “If there’s something that this Great Britain gave me, it was music education. Clapping and singing He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands. This country was built on them assemblies, bro. It’s no surprise we gave the world Elton John. Of course we did. He learnt in school. It’s no surprise that we just churn out Adeles and Olivias and Rayes and Amys for fun,” Femi says. Six British acts are being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, TJ says. “Why doesn’t anyone connect that to He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands? That’s where it started,” says Femi.
Talk moves to the recent Clapham Common “link-ups”, a social media phenomenon that saw several hundred youths descend on businesses like Marks & Spencer and McDonalds on Clapham High Street, causing havoc. The anti-social behaviour whipped up something of a moral panic. Femi’s first observation is that “the discourse around it was almost more interesting than what the kids did”. In other words, many commentators blamed the mayhem on the fact that many of those involved were black. Wrong, says Femi.
“When it happened in Sydney this year, when they were all white middle-class children, it was not a race issue. There’s a real kind of collective amnesia about the past,” he says. The link-ups, he says, were a result of “pent up energy that doesn’t have a good place to express itself”. In other words, the participants lacked other, better things to do. “Let me tell you the kids that weren’t there. The children that play for Fulham Academy football team, they weren’t there. The children that are doing tennis lessons and trying to get a spot at Wimbledon, they weren’t there. The child that was at chess club probably wasn’t there. The child that was at Tomorrow’s Warriors playing the clarinet probably wasn’t there. What you’re seeing is ‘idle minds is the devil’s workshop’,” he says, quoting the proverb. What’s lacking is opportunity.
Could you imagine if we got those Clapham kids in an orchestra?
“When I saw those kids moving in Clapham I actually thought it was beautiful. I looked at all these beautiful, strong, black, aggressive, passionate young people. Can you imagine if you could get them in an orchestra? Can you imagine if you just opened Westminster for a day and told them they could have their own Commons debate [and] just shout at each other and come up with solutions? Can you imagine the genius things you’d hear? Can you imagine what would happen if you taught all of them how to play chess — what would happen to the country and the way we think about chess,” he says. I quote his comments fully because their compassion and sense are striking. At their heart is a rallying cry for City Hall and Londoners to step up. Offer help not condemnation. It’s Ezra all over. Following Clapham, London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan announced £30 million of funding for late-night youth clubs in all 32 London boroughs. It’s a start.
Ezra Collective is not a democracy. “Democracy doesn’t work,” says TJ bluntly. “We’d still be in the pubs, bruv!” says Femi. Although decisions are put to a band vote, it’s the drummer who guides things. He “leads by example”, says Mollison. Femi has “always been the one who can see how far we could go even when there was no clear path for the kinds of things we wanted to achieve”, the saxophonist says.
The responsibility can weigh heavily. “It’s not a position I’d wish upon anyone,” says Femi, a touch surprisingly. “You end up becoming the most unpopular person in the band. When it goes right, we are great. When it goes wrong, you are the problem. You know, I’ve been in bands where I’m not the band leader, like Gorillaz. It’s far less work. It’s far more fun.”
In fact, Albarn took Femi under his wing for a while. “The weight of band leader is something we had in common. He was able to advise through that process. Now, he” — Albarn supports Chelsea — “just emails me every time Arsenal lose.” His inbox must have been busy of late.
And what of the future? Ogunjobi says that in a decade’s time, Ezra will still be making music. Says TJ, “We’re gonna keep squeezing the lemon till there is absolutely no juice left.”
There’s also venue inflation to think about. In June, Femi will watch Gorillaz perform at Tottenham Hotspur’s cavernous stadium. The drummer will be there “to dance, to cry, to sing my favourite songs but also to work out how Ezra Collective would take it down if we ever got a shot at it”. Always plotting, always planning. To which there can only really be one response. They can do this, man.
Ezra Collective headline the Love Supreme Jazz Festival, Lewes, on July 3; lovesupremefestival.com
