A regular LondonJazz reader has written to me:
“Hi Sebastian, Spotted a gig coming up on Thursday at the end of my road – http://www.myspace.com/e17jazz
Am sure you’re already in touch with them but thought I’d send the link through anyway. :-)”
Thanks Liz, that’s the spirit. Creativity and initiative are simply bursting in every part of London, quite likely at the end of your road too, and Walthamstow with its own jazz scene is no exception.
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The gig which catches my eye is byBlink (French saxophonist and Loop leading light Robin Fincker, ex-Royal Academy pianist/composer Alcyona and percussion genius and irrepressible energy source Paul Clarvis) on Thursday 26th March at The Plough in Wood Lane.
Here’s what MOJO magazine had to say about them: ‘Aerated, intrepid, the group reaches rarified heights of understanding and expression.’ Blink tour the UK and the continent, it’s a great working band of three fine musicians.
Check out Blink’s soundclips on their Myspace site.And if E17 is your part of town, get along to the Plough in Wood Lane and you won’t regret the fiver you spend to get in!
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Carlos Lopez-Real has written with more background: e17jazz is the newest of the London collectives and is somewhere between F-IRE / Loop on the one hand, and Way Out West on the other. From the former we draw some of our members and have stylistic similarities – myself, Brigitte Beraha and Will Collier for example have all released albums on the F-IRE label (mine’s out on 4th May in fact), while others such as bassist Dave Manington or pianist Alcyona are founder members of the Loop collective. On the other hand, with Way Out West we have in common the fact that we’re very much a geographically based collective and committed to nurturing a local scene… so we’re both a locally based, and also cutting edge.We’ve managed to be both because of the phenomenon of so many great jazzers moving to e17 over the last few years. 15/20 years ago Stokey was arguably where the heart of new British jazz was being forged, because of the large number of jazzers who settled there… inevitably people play a lot and hang out together as well as nurturing local gigs. Over time, of course, it just got too expensive so the jazzers (not the richest folk in the world) moved elsewhere. Now it seems a lot are ‘coming home’ to e17. the more of us there are here, the more it seems to attact others to come and settle.so just over a year ago I decided to harness the large pool of talent and create a new collective. we currently promote alternating Thursdays at two local pubs, as well as running a weekly jam session at a third. we’ve secured local arts council funding for a collaborative project with local asian musicians, we’re funded by PRS (performing rights society) and Jazz Services in terms of our current weekly program, we’ve collaborated with a local film club to produce an evening of original / improvised music to silent film, we’re promoting our first festival this August which will feature newly commissioned music for the debut of the e17jazz big band etc… so quite a lot happening, considering we’ve not been going for that long.