Ezra Collective’s recent Mercury win was a victorious moment for the band and also a reminder that UK jazz is still thriving. But within the scene’s melting pot of musicians, is there a stylistic diversity that perhaps the word “jazz” is yet to fully encompass? That’s the sort of existential question Tim Doyle has been mulling over lately. One of the UK’s most exciting percussionists, the 32-year-old goes by the alias Chiminyo, and has named his latest EP series after a conversation about whether the scene was less about jazz and more about sharing a certain energy.
NRG 1 and NRG 2 are limited edition 12-inches, captured live, on the fly, by rotating musicians at Doyle’s late-night jam in London. Album two has a varied range of guests who play with the likes of Blue Lab Beats and the aforementioned Ezra Collective, as well as producer Nightmares on Wax and saxophonist Gary Bartz. It fizzes with energy, of course, and sonic referencespanning grime and dubstep and Doyle’s travels in Senegal, Morocco and beyond.
Doyle was already a gifted drummer. He studied jazz between shifts in a call centre in the New Forest before moving to London for a music degree. He is a member of the groups Cykada and Maisha, and as a solo artist uses a kit souped-up with contact mics to trigger loops and samples and create dense thickets of sound. But his new project marks him out as a free-spirited renegade who is keen to expand the limits of British jazz ever outward and keep its torch burning bright.
