Taking place on Friday 13th to Sunday 22nd of November 2020, the festival is being held both live and digitally, with over 100 live shows and 50 live streams, you will be spoilt for choice.
"Living in Two Worlds" is the appropriate theme for this years event, reflecting on 2020 and its challenges in the music industry. 2020 has also been a significant year for the Black Lives Matter movement. Jazz music has been shaped and developed by Black Culture so a focus for the festival is to highlight its support for cultural diversity and opportunity. They are actively continuing to learn and make changes as well as helping support others in their understanding. There will be a series of conversations around Black Lives Matter, that is insightful and challenging but also important to listen to.
At the festival, there will be a mix of live concerts, creative engagement projects, webinars, interviews and archive broadcasts. As well as all this, there will be Jazz Yoga, where the audience will stretch along to bass player Shri Sriram at Islington Assembly Hall, and family events to excite and inspire the younger ones such as musical storytime with Juliet Kelly. Performances will mainly be by musicians from the buzzing UK jazz scene, however, the rise in virtual concerts has made it possible to watch much loved international artists through live streaming, which is a bonus for jazz fans. As well as global acts, an event can now reach a larger, international audience and can be enjoyed from afar making it more accessible than ever before and is great publicity for artists. So we can thank the pandemic for something.
There is so much to listen to, watch and dance to at the festival from old to new artists on the scene. We run through just a small snippet of what to expect both live and from home and the lowdown on where to go!
What Venues Are Hosting Events?
Cadogan Hall
606 Club
Jazz Cafe
Oliver’s Jazz Bar
Art Cafe
Crazy Coqs
Kings Place
Pheasantry
Milton Court
Spice of Life
Pizza Express Jazz Club
Pizza Express Holborn
Riverhouse Barn Arts Centre
Kings Place (Hall One)
Kings Place (Hall Two)
Green Note
Ziggy's World Jazz Club
Spicejazz Soho
Hampstead Jazz Club
Barbican
Karamel
Cafe OTO
Omnibus Theatre
Shoreditch Town Hall
Vortex Jazz Club
Duke Street Church
The Post Bar
Club Inégales
CLF Art Cafe
Queen Charlotte Hall Richmond
Artis Blackheath
ClerkenwellARTSlab
at The Betsey Trotwood
Be There
13th Nov - Jazz Voice at Cadogan Hall
13th Nov - Dinosaur at Kings Place (Hall One)
14th Nov - BBC Young Jazz Musician 2020 Final at Cadogan Hall
16th Nov - SooJin Suh & Kit Downes at Pizza Express Holborn
19th Nov - Jason Yarde’s ACOUTASTiC BOMBASTiC at Kings Place (Hall Two)
22nd Nov - Kansas Smitty’s House Band at Jazz Cafe
Or Enjoy From Home
14th Nov - Tigran Hamasyan
15th Nov - Take Five Presents: Glasshopper
16th Nov - Linda May Han Oh
19th Nov - ‘Expect the Unexpected’ Club Inégales + Multiple Artists
20th Nov - Jazz 625
21st Nov - Orphy Robinson’s Virtual Jazz Club Band
Masterclasses
Sunday 22nd November is the day for masterclasses. Starting with Peter Edwards, a British pianist, composer and band-leader who composes and arranges music for large ensembles, will be teaching a crash course of compositions with a live Q&A. After that will be a masterclass on ‘Improvising on Instinct’ by English jazz guitarist and composer, Rob Luft joined by Swiss-Albanian jazz singer and composer, Elina Duni. Denise Devenish, a trained professional counsellor will be hosting a wellbeing session in association with Help Musicians to explore mental health in the performance industry.
Talks
ARTicle 10, named after the Human Rights Act: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.”, are hosting a series of talks called ‘Conversations in the Era of Black Live Matter’. The topics include Revolutionary Versus Reactionary, In What Language? and Our Generation & Their Institution, hosted by Kevin Le Gendre and joined by six special guests for an insightful and important discussion on racism and the need for change in the industry.
All That and More...
The full programme of ‘What’s On’ can be found on the EFG London Jazz Festival website.
