Change is afoot in London’s nightlife scene: jazz is thriving. It’s made it on the airways, too: at tomorrow’s Mercury Prize, a jazz influence can be found in a quarter of the nominees (Ezra Collective, Raye, and Olivia Dean — who all hail from London — take from jazz, blues and soul).
Meanwhile, some of the capital’s most exciting emerging talents are found on the jazz scene. Take south London-based Ella Knight, the 25-year-old singer who founded Madame Jazz as an events platform for young women. “There are many amazing jazz communities and events in and around London,” says Knight. “But the percentages of women on these stages are very small. Madame Jazz aims to abolish this ideology.”
