Colectiva and David Mrakpor raise the roof at second Brick Lane Jazz Festival

Tightly packed into a few small venues around the old Truman Brewery in London’s Shoreditch, the Brick Lane Jazz Festival has now enjoyed a successful second year and is hitting its stride as a gathering of the most innovative musicians in London’s burgeoning urban jazz culture.

It’s a matter of talent, of course, but also inclusivity: more youth, more women, more ethnic diversity – because these are attributes that keep the music fresh and interesting. This year’s headliners included Reuben James and Ashley Henry, but the emphasis was on breakthrough acts like Tenderlonious, Jas Kayser, Rosie Turton and Poppy Daniels. Equally unsurprising was the presence of Tomorrow’s Warriors, the deserved beneficiaries of this year’s profits.  

Having worked in a similar field for 20 years, Jazz re:freshed curated their own stage at Ninety One Living Room, compered by co-founder Adam Moses. With wit and humour, he warned the audience not to talk during the performances, and patrolled the venue to make sure they didn’t. He also urged them to purchase their music through Bandcamp rather than stream it, so that the artists feel the benefit rather than Daniel Ek.

Warrington’s own Chelsea Carmichael (pictured above) drew on her 2022 debut album The River Doesn’t Like Strangers for her set here. With a strong, clear, urgent tone on the tenor saxophone, she was accompanied by Twm Dylan on bass, Tom Potter on drums and Nikos Ziarkas on guitar, who conjured up edgy soundscapes from his effects board: chilly urban swirls and raging storms. The band took no prisoners from the outset, with galloping drums and Arabic scales, sometimes against a blizzard of electronic noise. When Carmichael played unaccompanied, it was reminiscent of Sonny Rollins on the Williamsburg Bridge; with the band, the sound was often 70s-style hard rock, Ziarkas even quoting ‘Voodoo Chile’ at one point.

The sextet Colectiva are not merely female-led but entirely female in composition. Adam Moses announced that he had booked them for their ability to get the party going, and he was not wrong. Their particular forté is salsa, complete with montunos and harmonised Cubano vocals, but there’s more to it than that: complex rhythms and the occasional abstract passage made their set something more than simply dance music. All are fully-fledged virtuosos, particularly charismatic trombonist and founder Viva Msimang and alto saxophonist Allexa Nava. The rhythm section (Eliane Correa, piano, Alley Lloyd, bass, Lilli Elina, percussion, and Lya Guerrero, drums) pulled off some acrobatic twists and turns.

The stand-out gig of the weekend, as far as your correspondent was concerned, was a thriller featuring David Mrakpor and Friends. Taking a break from Blue Lab Beats, the multi-instrumentalist revealed his rootsier side: less electronica, more contemporary jazz. And it has to be said that from the first note, one felt oneself in the presence of genius. Everything he played was beautiful: hip and melodic, steeped in the tradition, but super-cool and ultra-fresh too. From the off, the band played for half an hour without a break, beginning with Mrakpor’s looped electric bass, over which he teased a gorgeous solo, then sat down at the piano and soloed on that. The band was so tight, it was difficult to tell what the cues were that enabled them to start and finish with such knife-edge precision, but somehow, they did it. Abel Addington on bass, Daniel John on drums and Joao Caetano on percussion were all astonishing, particularly Caetano, whose solos raised the roof.