Jazzwise: artists to watch in 2017

Indeed, with our own island set to become increasingly isolated, it’s time to dig out your favourite desert island discs (and a bottle of your favourite brew) and look to music, and in particular jazz, as a beacon of passion and creativity away from the bickering and bigotry that is becoming the new normal. Below we have asked leading jazz writers, concert promoters, club owners and jazz panjandrums to contribute thoughts on who will inspire, illuminate and ignite the year ahead.

Kevin Le Gendre, Jazzwise, Echoes, BBC Radio 3 Jazz Line-Up
Young Swedish guitarist Susanna Risberg was a highlight of this year’s Umea festival. A brilliantly expansive soloist with a rapier attack, the Berklee graduate could make a real impact if she translates her live shows into a coherent studio recording.

Richard Williams, Artistic Director of the Berlin Jazz Festival, thebluemoment.com
Every time I hear Anna-Lena Schnabel (pictured above, left), a 27-year-old alto saxophonist and composer based in Hamburg, I’m astonished by the emotional impact of her playing. She’s an original.

Paul Pace, Ronnie Scott’s Club, Spice of Life
Alto saxophonist Camilla George with her post-bop CGQ purveys a focused passion and charm, while recently evolved power quartet TriForce connect to a contemporary audience with their heady fusion of hip-hop, funk and spiritual jazz.

Eddie Myers, The Verdict Jazz Club, Brighton
So many great artists played at New Generation Jazz this year that it’s hard to pick, but pianists Joe Armon Jones and Ashley Henry (pictured above, right) really shone . We’re excited to hear what Zeñel are going to do when they visit us in Brighton in 2017 – a hip, cooking, super-talented trio of players who aren’t even old enough to vote yet!

Mike Flynn, Jazzwise
Young saxophonist Camilla George is not just a confident soloist but a gracious bandleader too, fronting her own quartet with cool authority. Also playing with great poise are her bandmates, with artful pianist Ashley Henry already causing a stir and Daniel Casimir’s wickedly stylish bass-playing is sure to make him one of the most in-demand low-enders around.

Jon Newey, Jazzwise
Whether with Nerija, Gary Crosby’s Groundation or the Arun Ghosh band, guitarist Shirley Tetteh is fast developing a highly individual sound and approach, inspired as much by Robert Wyatt and Ambrose Akinmusire as well as the usual jazz and prog guitar suspects.

John Fordham, The Guardian
The young Welsh double bassist and composer Huw V Williams’s debut album Hon (Chaos) was a very striking debut for him this year – a sophisticated but pungent merger of freebop, Laura Jurdlike lyricism, morphed Cuban grooves and a lot more. Young Manchester drummer-leader Johnny Hunter’s conjunction of 1960s hard bop, post-rock and middle eastern music on his While We Still Can (Efpi).

Spencer Grady, Jazzwise
Fire, water and spirit. Biblical essentials to throw off the 2016 jip, the source material of US saxophonist Jeff Lederer who, with his Brooklyn Blowhards, aims a harpoon straight to the heart by joining the dots between Albert Ayler and Herman Melville.

Steve Rubie, 606 Club
Guitarist Rob Luft has, in a very short time, established himself as a fluent and creative player with an impressive versatility. He has become a regular at the 606 with artists ranging from Gareth Lockrane and Byron Wallen to vocalist Luna Cohen. I see him as being a mainstay of the UK scene for many years to come.

Mike Hobart, Financial Times and Jazzwise
Binker and Moses: Lean and articulate MOBO-winning sax and drum duo with clear aesthetic, they deserve all the praise. Also check Yusef Kamaal: drummer Yussef Dayes and keyboardist Kamaal Williams head-up a killer band that keeps jazz contemporary, funky and relevant.

Jez Nelson, Somethin’Else on Jazz FM
Mansur Brown is a young South London guitarist and a member of ‘new fusioneers’ TriForce. He’s got chops to die for. Currently plays a few too many notes, but is going to be amazing!

Andy Robson, Jazzwise
Sometimes you can big someone up too soon, but Rob Luft’s guitar is straining at the leash to get heard more widely, especially in the Big Bad Wolf band. From Björk to Derek Bailey, that’s gotta be good.

Peter Quinn, Jazzwise and The Arts Desk
A previous winner of the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, Dallas-based Ashleigh Smith possesses a lustrous alto and a style that’s infused with R&B and funk. Her aptly-named 2016 debut, Sunkissed (Concord Records), also reveals a gifted songwriter.

Roy Carr, Jazzwise
He may well have a number of albums to his name, but New York saxophonist Donny McCaslin’s involvement in the making of David Bowie’s Blackstar amounts to much more than an artistic (and commercial) achievement. Hopefully it will attract a much wider audience to the all-encompassing jazz community.

Steve Mead, Manchester Jazz Festival
Keep an eye on Manchester saxophonist Kyran Matthews. He leads a local platform for airing new jazz compositions – The Manchester Jazz Collective – with his energetic playing, astonishingly mature writing and tireless organising.

Tony Hall, Jazzwise
The UK’s Quentin Collins and Brandon Allen are a world-class frontline team, as are Steve Fishwick and Osian Roberts. In the US, watch out for pianist-composer Victor Gould and the remarkably talented Pedrito Martinez.

Rob Adams, Glasgow Herald, Jazzwise
Glasgow-based pianist Fergus McCreadie has been on the radar since his mid-teens. Great ideas and the skill to bring them to fruition in any situation – solo, trio, big band – mark him out.

Jan Granlie, editor salt-peanuts.eu
Look out for the Danish/Swedish/ Icelandic/Norwegian band, Horse Orchestra, based in Copenhagen and their second album, Four Letter Word. Here you get everything from Fletcher Henderson to Sun Ra and free jazz, played by seven young men with a lot of interesting ideas and lead by piano player Jeppe Zeeberg, one of the most talented, young Danish jazz musicians today. A marvellous band!

Peter Bacon, the jazzbreakfast. com, Jazzwise
Birmingham Jazz Orchestra, formed by trumpeter Sean Gibbs to play bespoke material, comprises the richest cream of this city’s young musicians. Exemplary ambassadors for Birmingham and for jazz.

Robert Shore, Jazzwise
Norwegian singer-songwriter Jenny Hval and her album with Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and Kim Myhr, In The End His Voice Will Be The Sound Of Paper, is maybe the first of her projects to have troubled Jazzwise’s reviews pages. It’s a great invitation to check out her back catalogue of experimental art-house folk-tronica.

Nick Hasted, Jazzwise, The Independent
Moon Hooch: This Brooklyn trio’s self-described Cave music – you could also call it rave-jazz, or hammering, improv-heavy House – is following GoGo Penguin in further breaking down the barriers around jazz to a young public losing its wariness, by returning the music to the dancefloor.

Dan Spicer, Jazzwise, The Wire
Mancunian guitarist Anton Hunter is a key figure in quintet Sloth Racket, and half of the duo Ripsaw Catfish. Now his own 11-piece ensemble Article XI demands to be heard.

Jane Cornwell, Evening Standard, Jazzwise
Yussef Kamaal are longtime friends, drummer Yussef Dayes and multi instrumentalist Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu). They channel their raw energy into tracks influenced by Monk, Goldie, 1970s jazz-funk and the city of London itself.

Helen Mayhew, Jazz FM
I really enjoy the playing and writing of young guitarist Tom Ollendorff, recent graduate from the Royal Welsh College of Music And Drama, and recipient of a 2016 Yamaha Jazz Scholarship, definitely one to watch and listen out for.

Alyn Shipton, Jazz Now, Jazzwise and The Times
Guitarist Billy Marrows – winner of the 2016 John Dankworth Prize for Composition, and leader of an octet that is exploring ideas mingling Asian Gamelan music with what he describes as the “grooves, harmony and improvisation” of contemporary jazz.

Brian Glasser, Jazzwise
Racking up acclaim over the past few years, Laura Jurd is boldly going where no woman has gone before – especially with her band Dinosaur, but with other diverse collaborations too.

Tony Dudley-Evans, Cheltenham Jazz Festival and Birmingham Jazzlines
Elliott Sansom, a young pianist from the West Midlands and recent graduate from the jazz course at Birmingham Conservatoire. He was a finalist in the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year competition. Also check the Stoney Lane label, set up in Birmingham by Sam Slater to reflect the burgeoning local scene.