The EFG London Jazz Festival turns 30 this year, and is celebrating with its biggest ever line-up: 2,000 artists in over 70 venues across the capital. Artists of international renown, and pending stardom. Singers and musicians who swing and groove, scat and soothe. Icons. Visionaries. Grammy-winners. Boundary-leaping experimentalists. Elders who’ve sessioned with departed greats. Musicians who remind us of the roots of jazz - in the blues of New Orleans, in West African music and culture – and of jazz’s role as protest music.
Here are such disparate genres as Afrobeat, drum’n’bass and Turkish psychedelia, their inclusion underlining the ability of jazz to absorb and adapt. Jazz has never been dead; it just changes shape, and moves forward.
Here, too, are orchestras, improvisers, free shows and an online exhibition; new commissions, new venues, pop-up performances and BBC broadcasts. Below are 12 shows not to miss...
Jazz Voice
The Festival’s traditional opening spectacle celebrates that most unique of instruments – the human voice – with a line up featuring eight differently gifted soloists: jazz singer Dana Masters; slt-country diva Amythyst Kiah; Carroll Thompson, the Queen of Lover’s Rock; Grammy winning crooner-turned-Beat-poet Kurt Elling and more. Each backed by the EFG London Jazz Festival Orchestra under the baton of Guy Barker, whose detailed arrangements bring out the best of the singer, and the song.
Royal Festival Hall, Friday November 11
International Anthem presents CHICAGOXLONDON
When London’s young jazz scene began its stellar rise several years ago, it did so in parallel with a like-minded community of innovators in Chicago. Modelled on previous happenings at Dalston’s Total Refreshment Centre, this takeover explores these trans-Atlantic links, pitching the likes of Mancunian sax hero Alabaster de Plume alongside Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and soothsayer Angel Bat Dawid and Jeff Parker, longtime guitarist for cult quintet Tortoise. An avant-garde smorgasbord.
Barbican, Saturday November 12
Ron Carter Quartet
There are jazz gods and then there is Ron Carter. The rangy American is the most recorded jazz bassist in history, featuring on albums by the starry likes of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and A Tribe Called Quest between forging a spectacular solo career. He has won three Grammys, been elected to the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame and in this, his 85th birthday year, continues his elegant, groove-laden roll.
Cadogan Hall, Sunday November 13
The Bad Plus
Formed in 2000 in Minneapolis, contemporary jazzers The Bad Plus conjured a buzz from the get-go, splitting from tradition by re-working countless rock and pop standards - by Blondie, David Bowie, Nirvana, Aphex Twin - with instrumental flair and breathless post-punk fervour. This show (and Tuesday’s, also at Ronnie’s) finds them in their current iteration as a dynamic sax-guitar-bass-drums quartet, armed with a new studio album and a bunch of bold originals.
Ronnie Scott’s, Monday November 14
Abdullah Ibrahim
Solo concerts by the great Cape Town pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim, now 87, border on religious experiences. Packed auditoriums listen, transfixed, as melodies and phrases blend with a profound spirituality and what feels like the turbulent history of South Africa itself. Born under apartheid, against which jazz was an act of resistance (listen to his 1974 anthem Mannenberg and see what we mean), Ibrahim is both freedom fighter and musical genius. Expect awe.
Barbican, Tuesday November 15
Native Rebel Recordings: The Brother Moves On, Chelsea Carmichael, CoN & KwAkE
This showcase for Native Rebel, the new UK label founded by British/Bajan reedsman Shabaka Hutchings, is noteworthy for the singular brilliance of Johannesburg collective The Brother Moves On – whose frenetic, sometimes dreamy mix of groove, jazz, funk and sociopolitical fire relies on massed male vocals sung and chanted in languages including Xhosa and Sotho. London-based saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael and UK jazz/hip hop duo CoN & KwAkE support.
EarTH, Tuesday November 15
Camilla George
Alto-saxophonist Camilla George, who I called “the golden girl of jazz” in 2017, has gone from strength to strength as a bandleader and producer as well as a composer and instrumentalist. Her new third album Ibio-Ibio celebrates her Nigerian heritage – particularly, her Ibibio people’s emphasis on community and togetherness – with a winning blend of Afrobeat, hip hop and jazz, aided by some of the hottest names on the London scene.
Jazz Café, Wednesday November 16
Nubiyan Twist
Leeds-born, London-based Nubiyan Twist have a patchwork of influences: funk, reggae and hip hop. Afrobeat, Ethiopian jazz and Ghanaian highlife. All of which the 10-piece present via harmonic horns, electronic flourishes and a solid Brazilian/UK rhythm section, and front with different vocalists including rising star Ria Morgan and singer, rapper and dynamo K.O.G, aka Kweku of Ghana. More guests will be announced. But the party is guaranteed.
KOKO, Thursday November 17
Lady Blackbird + Doom Cannon
There’s a lot of hype surrounding Los Angeles-based soul-jazz diva Lady Blackbird, and rightly so. Her debut album Black Acid Soul was a sleeper hit of last year, a haunting collection of songs that channelled greats Billie Holiday and Nina Simone and came backed by a band that included Miles Davis collaborator, pianist Deron Johnson. Live, she’s an enigmatic presence, with a take-no-prisoners attitude and backlights filtering through her peroxided Afro.
Barbican, Friday November 18
Melody Gardot
Born in Philadelphia, based in Paris, self-described as “a citizen of the world”, singer Melody Gardot has won global acclaim for her astonishing alto voice, an instrument as pure and vulnerable as it is powerful and defiant. This London first sees Gardot performing her fifth album, 2020’s Sunset In the Blue, an album of torch songs made with producer Larry Klein and arranger Vince Mendoza and drenched in romantic sentiment. Prepare to swoon.
Royal Festival Hall, Saturday November 19
Don Cherry Tribute featuring Kahil El Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Neneh Cherry & more
The late Don Cherry was an American trumpeter and world music fusionist whose solo catalogue and work with trailblazers Sun Ra, Albert Ayler and, especially, avant-gardist Ornette Coleman helped changed the face of jazz. Among those celebrating Don’s life and legacy are his son, pianist and multi-instrumentalist David Ornette Cherry, his singer/rapper daughter Neneh Cherry and his grand-daughter, artist/spiritual jazzer Naima Karlsson.
Barbican, Sunday November 20
Emma-Jean Thackray: It’s A UK Thing
South-east London’s Emma-Jean Thackray is a modern-day renaissance woman, a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ as at home with a symphony orchestra as she is fronting a live band - as she’ll do at this club night celebrating homegrown UK dance music. From acid house to broken beat, drum’n’bass to UK garage, Thackray and her musicians - and special guest DJs - have it covered. A Movementt [sic], she calls it, for body, mind and soul.
Village Underground, Sunday November 20
