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“It’s everything man... I’m gonna sound like such a narcissist! It’s total control. Total freedom.”
It’s not difficult for Moses Boyd to articulate what he loves about being a jazz drummer. The MOBO award winner for Best Jazz Act of 2015, as one half of the Binker and Moses duo, is warming to the theme.
“I’m almost like the dictator but also the democrat. I decide, subtly, good musicians can tell, and know, that I’m the glue that holds it together, along with the bass player.”
For many in the younger demographic, jazz has been associated with something old-fashioned and incomprehensible, especially when compared with the modern zeitgeist of thunderous beats and low end thump. In recent years, sales in the UK have been declining(1); in America, embarrassingly dropping below children's music in popularity(2).
But is this notion itself becoming old-fashioned? There is talk of a new, vibrant edge emerging in the UK, a raw, fervent energy bubbling upwards and outwards, traversing into other other genres such as grime, hip hop, and future funk, embodied by artists such as Boyd.
BBC Radio 3 believe so and have put their weight behind a new show, 'Jazz Now'. Co-presenting alongside saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch and trumpeter Al Ryan, is acclaimed 25-year-old jazz singer Emma Smith.
“I feel that we’re on the brink of a new chapter in the jazz scene here in the UK", she says, "and it is coming from young people. They are exploring genre-blending and craving a different kind of expression and experience.”
Ryan, a bandleader and broadcaster for a number of years, agrees: "The stuff that these people are coming up with is just extraordinary; the talent that is emerging as well. Definitely there's a new movement under way which is very exciting."
Kinch has vowed to shake things up and for Mark Gilbert, editor of Jazz Journal, the BBC's decision to include him is a healthy sign: "It's my feeling that one of the great attractions of jazz - musical dissent, the sound of surprise, if you like, is something that's been in short supply in recent years and that shortfall is paralleled too often in critical commentary."
But what is the depth of this revival and why now?
In this feature we examine the forces conspiring to create the conditions of this rebirth. We ask who are the artists driving this and what is it about jazz music that warrants such passion? Indeed, are we looking at the rise of a new, enlightened age in which jazz ascends to the top of the musical food chain? Or is this simply the upward turn of another cycle?
Witness the reawakening of jazz...
(1) BPI Report 2014