Christmas is almost here again and with it comes one of the highlights of the season for jazz fans and lovers of Christmas Carols alike, Jazz Carols from Methodist Central Hall Westminster [MCHW]. Saxophonist Dan Forshaw, who leads the event, gives an outline of it history and gave some insights into the 2023 celebration, which will take place on Sunday 17 December. Interview by Bruce Lindsay.

Jazz Carols is a free event which has been running since 2017. Its inspiration goes back for sixty years to the start of the Jazz Vespers services organised by Pastor John Gensel in New York’s St Peter’s Church. Those services continue to this day (using a grand piano once owned by Billy Strayhorn) and the concept has been adopted at MCHW, which has run its own Jazz Vespers since 2015, a year after Dan Forshaw joined the staff. Forshaw had already presented jazz services at St Paul’s and other cathedrals including Coventry and Ely, when he was approached by the Reverend Tony Miles, MCHW’s Superintendent Minister, to put together a jazz service at the venue, particularly working on Martin Luther King’s speech at the Berlin Jazz Festival: “Dr King had been at Central Hall before travelling to Berlin,” Forshaw explained, “We wanted to put something together for Black History Month, brought in an actor to play Dr King and invited vocalist Juliet Kelly to join us. From that event grew two things: a monthly jazz vespers service inspired by those at St Peter’s and an album I recorded in 2016 and called Jazz Vespers.”

The Jazz Carols events started a year after Jazz Vespers and have been broadcast by Premier Christian Radio since 2019, although the covid outbreak meant that there was no 2020 event. Over the years, Forshaw has brought a range of singers and instrumentalists to the Jazz Carols, including, in 2018, Berlin-based saxophonist Birgitta Flick. “We performed her specially-commissioned arrangement of ‘Silent Night’ in commemoration of the end of the First World War,” says Forshaw, “We were also joined by the Director of Music at MCHW, Gerard Brooks, who’s the President of the Royal College of Organists. We’re very fortunate to have musicians who can cross stylistic boundaries — jazz, gospel, classical.”

MCHW has an established, traditional, carol service which this year takes place on 10 December and features organ, orchestra and choir. By contrast, Jazz Carols takes familiar carols and adds a jazzy edge. Forshaw explains a little of what can be expected this year: “We’ll play ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, ‘The First Noël’. We’ve got a new arrangement of ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’, from Alex Ferguson. I’ve written new arrangements of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’: jazz arrangements, but the melodies are still recognisably the same. We also have a new setting of the ‘Magnificat’, which has been created by Ike Sturm from New York: it’s the song Mary sings when she discovers she’s pregnant. It’s common in Catholic and Lutheran services but less so in the Methodist and Anglican churches. The beauty of doing the carols in this way is that people hear familiar melodies but in very different settings and arrangements.” There’s also plenty of opportunity for the audience to join in with the singing.

Balancing jazz arrangements with maintaining the recognisability of the melodies can be difficult, as Forshaw explains: “You’ve got to keep the melody there. I’m always fortunate to have really good singers who can carry those melodies. Often, the hardest thing is the keys. Sax players like to play in certain keys. Singers like to sing in certain keys and not always in keys I’d like to play in. You’ve got to remember that what we conceive as ‘traditional’ carols are very Victorian. The popularity of many of these melodies comes from King’s College’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which is over 100 years old. We’ll play around with intro’s and outro’s, we’ll put instrumental interludes in, show off our jazz skills, then go back to the standard vocal line.”

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Helping Forshaw to deliver this intriguing presentation will be vocalists Libby Key and Adenike (a regular at Jazz Vespers from 2017-2021, who’s recently been a backing singer for Jessie Ware), Lewis James on piano, Guy Dempsey on bass and Lewis Isaacs on drums.

Forshaw and his fellow performers will be showing off those jazz skills in a mixed programme that includes readings and a short reflection from Deacon Ali McMillan alongside a selection of popular carols and instrumentals all with a jazz twist. For a taste of what’s on offer, it’s worth checking out a 2022 recording of a selection of five Jazz Carols numbers, available on Spotify and Apple Music. The recording includes “Twelfth Century Carol” also known as “Personent Hodie,” in an arrangement by Forshaw that was inspired by Wayne Shorter’s own version on his Alegria album. It’s a powerful performance, driven by the double bass (played on the recording by Owen Morgan). In addition, there’s one of Forshaw’s favourite melodies, which has also been sung by the choir of King’s College and will be on this year’s Jazz Carols programme: “It’s called ‘Jesus Christ the Apple Tree’,” he says, “It’s a stunning melody, and we swing it!”

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Jazz Carols will take place at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, on Sunday 17 December at 6.00pm. Tickets are free but need to be booked in advance – link below. The time and date for this year’s Premier Christian Radio broadcast are to be confirmed

LINK: Jazz Carols Bookings (admission free)