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Gilles Peterson talks to Rob Ryan about this year’s Cross The Tracks Festival

Gilles Peterson [Ben Teo]

IF you want a paradigm of how far jazz has come in the past few years, you only have to look at the career of Ezra Collective, who have blazed a trail from youth clubs, through word-of-mouth gigs in east London, to filling Ronnie Scott’s, selling out Wembley Arena, winning the Mercury Prize, a Brit Award, scooping two nominations for Jazz FM gongs and playing up the bill at this year’s Glastonbury. That’s not counting that prime signifier of mainstream acceptance – a spot on BBC’s The One Show.

I recently spent an hour with BBC Radio 6 and Worldwide FM DJ Gilles Peterson at his Stoke Newington studio. He was one of the early supporters of Ezra and its contemporaries and is on the bill with them at Cross The Tracks (“London’s jazz, funk, soul, and hip-hop festival”) in Brockwell Park on May 25.

It might seem a way away, but tickets are selling fast, because headliners include not only Ezra (your best chance of seeing them if you haven’t got a Glasto ticket) and Gilles but also the truly wonderful fellow Mercury winner, Michael Kiwanuka.

Having talked about how the UK jazz scene is still buzzing at the moment, in no small part thanks to Ezra and their ilk, I asked Gilles about a couple of less familiar individuals on the bill.

First of all, Nala Sinephro, who is Belgian but based in London and plays harp and synths. He has said that seeing her at the Barbican was one of the best shows of last year.

“Nala’s gig at the Barbican was spectacular. What’s interesting is that she doesn’t slot into easy categories. It’s for the kind of like-minded people who like electronic and experimental music as well as jazz – she isn’t so far away from Apex Twin but she also very much in the spirit of Alice Coltrane and the UK jazz thing as well. It’s just another side of what’s been growing for the past few years – right now, you can’t really categorise stuff.”

If you need convincing, have a listen to Nala’s cosmic electronica vibes on the albums Space 1.8 and Endlessness.

Also on the bill are Free Nationals (Anderson Paak’s kick-ass backing band), Jordan Rakei, Seun Kuti (son of Afrobeat icon Fela) and Cymande, all representing a different corner of Gilles’ constituency (he didn’t curate, but a partner of his did). I asked him about another relative newcomer that isn’t yet a household name, Lynda Dawn.

“She is a bit like Minnie Ripperton – who used to work in the office at Cadet/Chess back in the day before she got spotted,” he said. “Lynda used to work at the House of the Barnabas in Soho Square, at the top of Greek Street.

“That’s when I first met her. But she was doing music on the side all the time, putting all her resources into recording. I think she’s quite special, something different. She started off a bit like Patrice Rushen, very 1980s, and then when she came up with this latest record [11th Hour] , it was wow. It’s like Gamble and Huff or you know, The Jones Girls, which nobody is really doing.”

Listen and buy on Bandcamp: https://lyndadawn.bandcamp.com/album/11th-hour

What about his own set on the day? Does he have a standard set list that he pulls out for festivals?

“No. I should have. It would make life a lot less stressful. I’m just not ready for that. So, I’m still kind of approaching my DJ sets like I’ve always done, which is quite free. Although I’ll admit that not quite knowing how I’m going to begin a set until five seconds before I start, that can be scary.

“But there’s also a lot of ground to cover. I’m 45 years into to my career. I mean, some people remember me from Dingwall’s, or they like my Cuban or Brazilian albums, or the Talkin’ Loud era.

“And some people enjoy what I am doing at the moment. Getting all that in 90 minutes is really hard. So, I need, like, I need five hours. That’s what I tend to get booked for.”

Will he be doing five hours at Cross the Tracks?

He smiles. “I might have to settle for three.”

• Cross The Tracks (https://www.xthetracks.com) is on Sunday May 25 at Brockwell Park, Brixton.

• Gilles Peterson has a three-hour programme on BBC Radio 6 on Saturdays at 3pm and a four-hour one on his own Worldwide FM on Thursday mornings – see https://worldwidefm.net/collection/gilles-peterson He also plays at and co-curates the We Out Here festival in August in Dorset (https://weoutherefestival.com/). More on that at a later date

Gilles has long been a champion of the fluid and dynamic British-Bahraini trumpet/flugel player Yazz Ahmed, who has an ambitious new album out called A Paradise in the Hold (Night Time Stories). It is inspired by folk music from her Middle Eastern homeland, and it reminds me of some of the late trumpeter Jon Hassall’s Maarifa Street projects – jazz that features interesting Arabic scales, tones and timbres.

The record has no fewer than five vocalists, including the always intriguing and adventurous Brigitte Beraha, who performs an improvised vocal duet of aquatic sounds with Randolph Matthews on the splendid Mermaids’ Tears. Ahmed is on top form throughout.

Buy it on double vinyl – it’s a stunning, highly tactile package (visually think of a more legible version of Kip Hanrahan’s A Thousand Nights and a Night series) that you simply can’t duplicate with CD or streaming.

She brings the album and her large ensemble to the ICA on March 29. Tickets: https://www.ica.art/live/yazz-ahmed

Sadly, this clashes with another interesting concert by The Casimir Connection, which has a new album called Reflections (Caliban Sounds). The music for this group is composed by saxophonist Diane McLoughlin and the line-up is completed by pianist Alcyon Mick, who has always impressed in whatever setting I have seen her, Kit Massey (violin/viola) and Tim Fairhill (double bass).

No, it’s not strictly jazz, more what used to called Third Stream (classical meets jazz) but there is a strong jazz sensibility in how the individuals listen and react to each other. As the album title suggests, this is plangent, emotive and expressive music, full of space and light.

McLoughlin says it deals with “uncertainty in times of loss and war”, which seems appropriate for this particular moment in history. Listen especially for her beautiful soprano sax, an instrument that in the wrong lips can be harsh and abrasive, here tamed into a thing of beauty.

The Casimir Connection is performing at St Mary’s Church, Primrose Hill on March 29, which should provide an appropriate setting and acoustic for such delicate, well-crafted music. Details: https://thecasimirconnection.com/

Diane McLoughlin is also part of the Alison Rayner Quartet, which performs full-on, swinging, melodic jazz (and beyond). It has a new album out Sema4 (Blow The Fuse Records) which was recorded live at the Vortex in Dalston. The group is made up of Diana, bassist Alison Rayner, guitarist Diedre Cartwright, pianist Steve Lodder and drummer Buster Birch, all of whom make their personalities felt through playing and composition. Together their hive mind produces cohesive yet free-wheeling music with that happily encompasses jazz, Latin and rock and, thanks to the live feel, always fizzes with vigour and vitality.

Simin Tander [Dovile Sermokas]

Also pushing at the boundaries of what constitutes jazz is Simin Tander, a German-Afghan singer, whose elegiacally atmospheric and beautifully produced album The Wind (Jazzland) draws on songs and poetry from Afghanistan, Norway, Spain and beyond.

Her highly flexible, keening voice is full of powerful yearning and emotion one minute, sultry and breathy the next, with the occasional outbreak of keening heartache.

Kudos to her band, especially Swiss drummer Samuel Rohrer, who often plays like he’s on an ECM session channelling the late, great Norwegian percussionist Jon Christensen.

Again, it ventures outside the jazz envelope into world music, but listen without prejudice, as one local lad once said.

If you like your vocal jazz more conventional – and with a hefty dose of southern roots – try singer-songwriter Robin Phillips’ Return from the Source album (repmusic), which is inspired by a motorbike ride from Chicago to New Orleans. He was, in fact, retracing the journey that jazz made up the Mississippi, with added side trips by him to the likes of Muscle Shoals studios.

The original songs inspired by that epic trip are smart, infectious, funky and Philips is backed by a raft of great musicians – oh, and he can play that piano.

The album is launching at the Pizza Express Soho on March 26. I expect there will be a party at the pizza when these tunes are allowed out into the world.

More details: https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/robin-phillips-return-from-the-source

Wealthy group call for tax on the rich ‘that could raise £460m a week’

‘Patriotic Millionaires’ with their battle bus in Westminster [Gokhan Goksoy-VR Agency]

BRIAN Eno joined fellow multi-millionaires outside the Houses of Parliament this week to demand more tax from the government.

The legendary musician was on a battle bus with the “Patriotic Millionaires” campaign on Tuesday. The wealthy group are calling on the government to introduce a two per cent tax on wealth above £10million.

This could raise £460million a week for our country’s finances, they say.

Mr Eno told the Extra: “I don’t like the thought that half of the population are struggling and I don’t think there’s any need that they should be struggling. There are plenty of people that are quite well off, like me, that would be happy to share their money a little bit more than they do.”

He added: “It’s obvious to me there’s a feedback loop involved in wealth where if you get a little bit rich you’re very likely to get richer. It works the other way round with poverty. There’s not the trickle-down theory that people used to believe in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Anti-war campaigner Mr Eno is celebrated for his ambient music and electronica and also produced music for artists including U2, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel and Damon Albarn.

A popular argument against taxing the mega-wealthy is that it would drive investors out of the United Kingdom.

Mr Eno said he doubted that would happen. “I don’t think that’s true. I think some people will leave as there are some people who are mean-minded, to the extent that they would rather live in some shit-hole country than pay an extra few thousand quid a year rent. So there are those people,” he said.

Brian Eno: ‘…it’s so small-minded to think that the only thing that matters is the number you have in the bank’

“Frankly I’d be bloody pleased if they f****d off and went and lived there – excuse my language – but rich people really piss me off a little bit because it’s so small-minded to think that the only thing that matters is the number you have in the bank.

“Don’t we love life because we love seeing everyone else enjoying it as well?”

Green industrialist Dale Vince, who was also on the bus, said he didn’t think the reforms would drive people away. He told the Extra: “Most people who live here like living here for a lot of reasons and it’s not because we’re a low-tax zone or something like that. I think if you don’t want to pay your fair share of taxes then you should go.”

He added that the tax they are calling on would have no impact on how they spend their lives day to day.

Mr Vince explained: “It can’t make a difference. If you’ve got 10 mil in the bank, property, whatever it is, and you have to pay 100,000 tax, what do you go without?

“I think there’s an imbalance in our tax system. The more money you have the less tax you pay. I think that’s wrong. We have extreme poverty in our country.

“Our tax system was written by rich people for rich people.”

This single tax reform would affect only 20,000 people, or 0.04 per cent of the British population, and would deliver huge investment potential. It’s more than enough to tackle the £22billion “black hole” the government says it inherited.

Julia Davies, an impact investor and entrepreneur, said: “Cuts are not the solution, they will only inflict more pain on people who have suffered years of austerity and hardship on top of creaking public services and infrastructure.

“The government can boost its budgets without taking a penny away from the public and vulnerable people, by increasing taxes on the super-rich.”

Seven out of 10 millionaires in the United Kingdom support higher taxes on the super-rich, the group said.

Revamped pub that’s perched on the edge of the Regent’s Canal is back with a glorious renovation

Cured mackerel with blood orange at The Constitution

THEY threw quite a bash to celebrate the first birthday of The Constitution – a revamped pub that is back from the brink.

Built in 1858, The Constitution is the last free-standing pub in Camden. As the manager says: “It’s been an iconic venue – since forever …”

Perched on the edge of the Regent’s Canal, this handsome and historic building is the last relic of an area once called Agar Grove Town.

The pub shut abruptly in February 2020 then lay empty for four grim years.

But fair play to the brewery Young’s, who have invested in a glorious renovation.

The ground floor is vast, with a swooping wood-panelled bar and walls dotted with framed photos that evoke the spirit of traditional pub culture. In one photo, a young Prince Charles is pulling a pint. There are charming black and white photos of pubs through the centuries; a wall of ornate gilt mirrors; a grandfather clock in one corner.

Downstairs you find a cosy cellar bar. Outside, stairs link the canal towpath to a large, decked beer garden, then a spiral staircase offers another route up to the terrace bar and dining room – a suntrap of gleaming glass with a handy retractable roof.

Restoring a pub from scratch like this offers a golden opportunity to capture the spirit of the times.

The Constitution still feels like a boozer. Looking around, the customers represented all walks of Camden life, with some popping in for a best bitter and packet of crisps.

But the food and drink menus are cranked up a notch or two.

A glass of house wine is just £6; but you can splash out on a bottle of Barolo or sip a glass of manzanilla sherry from a fashionable bodega.

The food menu includes fish and chips and burgers – around £18 – but some ingredients hint at loftier ambitions: a sea purslane butter with the steak and chips or a dash of artisanal malt vinegar.

The chef here is called Jay Bond and he’s the real deal.

We started our meal on the roof terrace with a visually stunning dish of cured mackerel with blood orange and a chilli vinaigrette.

Hot croquettes are filled with lamb and draped with a single anchovy, then carefully plated on a green lake of leek velouté

A vegetarian dish of charred Hispi cabbage is a clever creation, nestling on a bed of whipped feta with a tangle of pickled fennel and butter beans spiked with harissa.

The new spring menu is well priced at £18 for two courses; £22 for three.

Dishes include mussels with smoked bacon and Young’s beer and a Yorkshire rhubarb and Bramley apple crumble with lashings of custard.

This dog-friendly pub also offers Sunday roasts, quiz nights, Margarita Mondays and other events.

The Constitution was crying out for an owner with deep pockets to revive its fortunes. It took a while – but it’s a job well done.

The Constitution 42 St. Pancras Way, NW1 020 8104 1966 www.theconstitutioncamden.co.uk @constitutioncamden

Music fans are set for a rare chance to see guitarist Ian McKean and Bones & The Aft

Bone & The Aft will be playing the Hope and Anchor

IF you’re a rock music fan and have lived in Camden for the last 40+ years, the chances are you would have seen the brilliant Kentish Town guitarist Ian McKean play locally.

From rock and roll punks Twenty Flight Rockers to indie rock legends Balaam And The Angel and glam rockers Bad Detective to pub rock favourites The Runner Brothers, Ian, from Queen’s Crescent, has played just about every famous venue in the borough.

And next Sunday (March 30) locals will get a rare chance to see his latest band, Bones & The Aft, when they play the famous Hope And Anchor pub in Upper Street, Islington.

According to their growing following, the band who have released four albums but only play a handful of selective gigs a year, they are London’s best kept secret.

They are also almost impossible to pigeon-hole, forging such a unique sound augmented with breathtaking theatrics that they possibly have created a new genre of music.

To give you some idea of their sound, in the mix they have elements of the experimental rock of Captain Beefheart, avant-garde sax, spacey synth, flute playing, all set to the type of socially conscious poetic lyrics that suggest a modern day Ray Davies.

Ian McKean

Ian, a school guitar teacher by day, said: “I formed the band with my best mate John Bently, who I’ve known from school, and we really wanted to create something different that not only sounded interesting and fresh but was also visually stimulating.

“Some people have called it art-rock but I really don’t like putting a name to it. It’s certainly nothing like any of the rock bands I’ve played in over the years as it’s not beat driven but powerful and moving in an audio-visual sense.

“The theatrical element is an important part of the show and brings to life John’s lyrics which are inspired by the grittier side of London life – the have-nots rather than any high life clubbing scene.”

The band, which also features John’s son Arthur on sax, clarinet, bass and synth, Joe Tebb on drums and Mikey Kirkpatrick aka Bird Radio, have earned a growing cult following but until now have been selective in the venues they play.

“Our shows are as much about a theatrical performance as they are a rock gig and we like to create an atmosphere and ambience that our audience can immerse themselves in,” added Ian.

“As such we like to play venues that can add to that atmosphere and recent gigs have taken place on Sir Francis Drake’s famous ship, The Golden Hinde; the Tate Gallery, and various churches in central and south London.”

The stirring music and powerful lyrics can swing from pathos in describing the plight of the homeless and asylum seekers one minute to a rib-tickling Dickensian-style penchant for characterising the mundane and the bizarre. And generally all of it is inspired by London life.

I’ve seen the band several times now and the buzz around them is that pretty soon they’re going to get the big break. Catch them while they’re still playing great venues like the Hope And Anchor.