Wednesday March 5th 2025 Granby Winter Garden 6-8pm
For many in the nineties, jazz was viewed as an obsolete, uncool music, a genre loved by out of touch white men with deeply questionable taste. And yet, by 2019, a new generation of UK jazz musicians were selling out major venues and appearing on festivals line ups around the world. How has UK jazz regenerated its image so totally in twenty-five years? And how did it ever become uncool in the first place?
André Marmot's UNAPOLOGETIC EXPRESSION: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE UK JAZZ EXPLOSION traces the history of the current UK jazz renaissance back to the genre's roots as the ‘unapologetic expression’ of oppressed peoples, shaped by the forces of slavery, imperialism and globalisation. Marmot places this new wave within the wider context of a divided, postcolonial Britain navigating its identity in a new world order. These artists have crafted a sound which reflects the nation as it is today – a sound connected to the very origins of jazz itself.
Drawing on interviews with key musicians of the movement such as Shabaka Hutchings, Moses Boyd and Courtney Pine, UNAPOLOGETIC EXPRESSION captures the radical spirit of a vital British musical movement.
Join us at Granby Winter Garden on Wednesday, March 5th from 6-8pm where André will be in conversation with Ni Maxine, award-winning British Neo-Jazz Singer-Songwriter.