Pictured: Jazz Refreshed at Mau Mau, London (Photo credit: Zuri Jarrett-Boswell) 

Jazz Refreshed at Mau Mau Bar in London is a little bit special. Launched in 2003 by Justin McKenzie and Adam Moses, it has become one of the prime venues for hearing the most vibrant jazz acts, along with a variety of other styles including house, hip hop, electronica, soul, and latin.

Boyd told BBC Radio 3's Jazz Now: "It's kind of taking the idea of a club back. Adam and Justin are DJs and they sort of came out of the broken beat scene in London and that's a very British thing - broken beat, garage.

"When I speak to them they always emphasise there's been a great disconnect between the jazz musician and the people that dance to their music. And the perfect bridge is DJs...like Justin, Adam, Gilles Peterson, Floating Points, there are loads."

"It's very important to see how people respond to your music and DJs are that perfect thing."

There is a feeling among jazz artists that the public have not been paid the respect to make their own musical choices; rather they have been force-fed mainstream ideas of what is good music.

Moses Boyd warns: "Don’t underestimate your audience. 

“In the media, the perception is that the public don’t really know or have any idea of what is music and what isn’t. I think that’s wrong. They kind of devalue the audience. Nowadays audiences are a lot more astute than you think and are just tired of the status quo of boring music.

"That’s now where jazz comes in. When it’s good, it's something so pure and you can see it, because my generation have grown up understanding electronic music, and particularly in London with all the music you can hear. Audiences now are a lot more aware of what is good and what isn’t.”

Perhaps the media's failure can be attributed simply to language. In such a fertile scene of cross-pollination, writers can lose the ability to categorise accurately, or are too lazy to try.

"I have an issue with how that works", says United Vibrations' Kareem Dayes, "I don’t think we neatly fit into any category.

"That can be difficult sometimes for people trying to sell and promote what you’re doing. All we’re doing is a mix and it’s for anyone and everyone - anyone who’s into good music.

"When you listen to great music it crosses boundaries. It’s not stuck in one camp on the other. That’s what’s great about Miles Davis and stuff like 'Bitches Brew' - it kind of split the jazz community but crossed into other communities and other worlds, and it went outside of jazz.

"What we’re doing is heavily inspired by jazz, but it goes outside of jazz as well."

Dramatic Shift

Despite the shortcomings of the media and PR companies to find the correct descriptive terms, the message seems to be reaching more people. Al Ryan talks of a "dramatic shift" in the type of people now attending gigs and puts this down to the internet and smartphones: "It constantly amazes me. You go to a gig and you expect to see the usual demographic, people in their 40s and 50s but, slowly, it’s becoming younger and younger. I was on in Southampton recently and it was young and old.

"People aren’t closing their ears off to music like they once used to because, again, of the online presence. You can go on to your mobile phone and check out stuff, book a ticket and off you go. So, yeah, I think we’re definitely seeing younger people coming to it as well."

Theon Cross agrees the information age is accelerating the process of cross-fertilization: “I think jazz and hip hop is a big fusion that’s happening, making more young people aware of it. People like Kendrick Lamar who released an album last year called ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’, contains elements which will then bring in people and they’ll check out other things."

The third album by American rapper could indeed prove to be the tipping point for jazz. Released in 2015 to widespread acclaim, it is an ambitious mix of hip hop, spoken word and jazz across 16 tracks. This has, in turn, given rise to one of the contributors on the album and new star of jazz, Kamasi Washington, who told Pitchfork that people are now coming up to him at gigs complimenting the music and in the next breath asking what it is.

For Cross, Washington's status and natural star quality is changing perceptions. "I think a lot of bands are starting to think about presentation as well – how to present their music to young people. Kamasi Washington for example - it’s appealing. It looks cool.

"We’re in a different realm, I think. Just the fact that they have an artist like Kamasi on the Brainfeeder label just shows how it’s all fusing. The boundaries are just crossing each other.”

While the internet has provided people with more information, allowing them to make their own musical choices, Washington believes that the public have been overloaded with negative information which has made people believe they are not smart enough to "get" jazz, despite “starving for intellectual fodder”.

It is telling that Binker Golding has expressed disapproval of musicians who play up to the antiquated ways by dressing in retro gear and tinting their social media photos to look old. The implication is that they are not being true to themselves. And this, perhaps more than anything else, signals the subtle but important shift in perceptions and the new confidence imbuing the scene.

But it is not just the new fans; attitudes are also changing from within the structures of jazz.

Stigma

Despite heralded names such as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, jazz vocalists traditionally have not been accepted as being on the same level as musicians. Emma Smith was the first vocalist to be accepted into the jazz instrumentalist course at The Royal Academy of music simply on the strength of her vocal talent.

“It’s a stigma that’s been present particularly in the jazz scene for so many years. Particularly in the UK compared to America where they’re much more accepting of singers being bandleaders. Look at Betty Carter and artists like Cecile Mclorin Salvant, real proper, heavy duty, bandleading singers that are taking the lead.

"In the UK, it’s a bit more like “oh, it’s the singer - turns up to the gig and all she’s got to worry about is putting her frock on”. And it’s been years and years of that being built into people’s subconscious, but I think it takes singers like Norma Winston and Tina May [to change attitudes].

"But there are not that many people who are proper serious, studious, improvising musicians that just happen to be singers, but I think the more people making a stand for it, the more that stigma will reduce.”

There are signs of this already happening with 17-year-old female trumpeter Alexandra Ridout recently winning the  BBC Young Jazz Musician of the year award - a surprise because soloists are traditionally male.