A festival curated by DJ Gilles Peterson, named after the UK jazz compilation his label Brownswood Recordings released in 2018, and featuring almost all of the artists on their roster, might seem like a vanity project. Yet the last two years have seen this output spawn something far bigger than one man. The result of years of work by grassroots organisations such as Tomorrow’s Warriors and Kinetika Bloco training up a new generation of musicians, it has created that most sought-after of cultural phenomena: a “scene”.
This scene is largely rooted in the twentysomethings of south London who have a predilection for saxophone solos, Afrobeat, Dr Martens and Dickies. And they are all out in force for the inaugural We Out Here festival at the idyllic former Secret Garden Party site in Cambridgeshire.
Saxophonist Binker Golding represents this new school of London jazz players. He delivers a pared-down set of songs taken from his forthcoming album Abstractions of Reality Past and Beautiful Feathers. His keening melodic lines are as intricate and impressionistic as the title, with pianist Sarah Tandy providing rock-steady backing. Golding’s longtime collaborator Moses Boyd also plays a sun-soaked set of Afrobeat and electronic textures, including his breakout dance floor track Rye Lane Shuffle, while pianist Joe Armon-Jones explores dub-jazz with vocalist Asheber wielding a wooden staff and delivering excoriating verses on the Grenfell Tower fire.
Just as Peterson made his name through open-minded DJing residencies in the 90s that covered house music and hip-hop as much as jazz, at We Out Here there is also much to be seen outside jazz. This includes a large broken beat contingent, featuring Marc Mac of pioneering group 4hero, DJ Shy One and producer Ahadadream all providing fizzing, energetic sets to keep the dancers going, while newcomer Skee Mask delves deep into fractal breakbeats, firing percussive missives in the pouring rain.
Nevertheless, the most gratifying moments of the festival are still the appearances of the jazz greats, proving the lineage that has made this recent revival so potent. Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids take up the afro-spiritual mantle exemplified by Sun Ra with a set that features keytar, spoken word and a beautiful doubling between Ackamoor’s sax and a bowed violin. Free-jazz heavyweight Gary Bartz closes the festival with vocalist Dwight Trible bringing his free-association compositions to life, his honeyed baritone conversing with Bartz’s tender tenor.
Where other scenes have capitulated to branded commercialisation or been relegated to dinner party music, the diversity of this new jazz generation, matching and continuing the legacy of their forebears, feels like a genuine, communal movement that will continue to defy commodification.
