Latest news with #Koleoso
France 24
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
Ezra Collective's infectious energy defies jazz 'elitism' to win new fans
Over the last two years alone, "EZ" has become the first British jazz group to win the prestigious Mercury Prize and have a Top 10 UK album with 2024's "Dance, No One's Watching." Its crowning glory came in March when it was named group of the year at the 2025 Brit Awards, an annual celebration of UK music. "Jazz, when I was growing up, was an expensive thing to tap into. I couldn't afford to get into most jazz clubs, I definitely couldn't afford a drink," drummer Femi Koleoso told AFP at his small music studio in North London, close to where he grew up. "Jazz felt like an upper class, elitist high art form... so we're just making people feel like this is for everyone," he added. The story of Ezra Collective, named after the biblical prophet, began around a decade ago when Koleoso and his younger brother TJ, a bassist, began playing in teenage jazz clubs, where they met keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones and saxophonist James Mollison. They were later joined by trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi. 'Temple of joy' "We learned jazz... but we fell in love with Afrobeat first. That was our first love, and infusing the two was the first sound," explained Koleoso. A decade later, the band, which will play at the Glastonbury Festival later this month, has incorporated other influences such as hip-hop, dub, reggae, Ghanaian highlife music and "most recently salsa music", he said. But jazz still "underpins" everything the band creates, added the drummer. Its danceable and inventive concoction has won fans far beyond jazz's traditional base, helped by the wild energy of its concerts where the charismatic Koleoso, like a preacher, exhorts the crowd to create a "temple of joy". One of the leading groups in an insurgent jazz scene, driven by a new generation of musicians, the quintet surprised everyone by winning the prestigious Mercury Prize for their second album, "Where I'm Meant To Be", released in 2023. The victory "finally acknowledges a golden age for UK jazz", said Guardian music critic Alexis Petridis. "A lot of us have a similar origin story in that a lot of us met in these youth clubs," which, according to bassist TJ Koleoso, have helped make London "the best place to be born in the world" for aspiring young musicians. 'Free-for-all' The thriving community owes much to the "Tomorrow's Warriors" programme established by Gary Crosby and Janine Irons. Attempting to address the lack of diversity in jazz, they founded the programme in 1991 to provide young people with free spaces to practise, learn to play together and meet artists. It has fostered numerous talents such as Nubya Garcia, Kokoroko, and Ezra Collective, and the band's members now give lessons or donate instruments to the city's clubs, which have seen their numbers dwindle amid spending cuts. "This moment right here is because of the great youth clubs, and the great teachers and the great schools that support young people playing music," Femi Koleoso said at the Brits in March, as his band triumphed against music giants such as Coldplay and The Cure. Devout Christians and fans of Fela Kuti and Arsenal Football Club, the brothers grew up in the north London neighbourhood of Enfield. "I grew up next to a Bangladeshi family, my best friend in school was Turkish, I'm Nigerian, my best mate is Ghanaian and (there's) Jamaicans everywhere you go," said Femi Koleoso. "That kind of melting-pot" has inspired "everything I wrote and created", added Femi Koleoso, who also toured with top group Gorillaz in recent years. When Ezra Collective takes to the stage, "the first part of the song will be played accurately" but "the moment the last note of the first part of the song is done, it's just a free-for-all, just see what happens, and long may that continue," said a smiling Femi Koleoso. "I don't know if AI could be doing that gig," added TJ Koleoso, addressing the debate about technology. He insisted that "real, authentic things survive" such upheavals.
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Reopen these youth clubs': Ezra Collective's Femi Koleoso on nurturing young artistic talent
After the high of a record-breaking night at the Brits where his band, Ezra Collective, not only became the first jazz group to perform live but also scooped the best group gong, Femi Koleoso was quickly brought back to earth. At the Jubilee Youth Club in Enfield, north London, where he volunteers, the drummer and band leader was trying to teach kids how to flip pancakes, dealing with flying batter and banter only 48 hours after he was on stage in front of thousands. 'I had 100 kids trying to celebrate pancake day without killing themselves,' he said. 'It was just a mess.' Koleoso and the rest of Ezra Collective, who formed at Tomorrow's Warriors jazz youth club in Camden and have been at the forefront of the British jazz scene for nearly a decade, are big believers in youth clubs. 'This moment right here,' said Koleoso during the group's acceptance speech, 'is because of the great youth clubs and the great teachers and schools that support young people playing music'. The group wanted to use their platform to speak about the importance of clubs, which have been in decline for more than a decade. The number of local authority-run youth centres in England slumped from 917 to 427 between 2012 and 2023, while council spending was reduced by 75%. Unison claims more than 1,000 have shut since 2010. Koleoso says the clubs that have closed should be reinstated to create a 'network' that will spur the next generation of Britain's artistic talent. 'The dream is we reopen a lot of these youth clubs and pay people salaries so that they can work full-time with these children,' he adds. 'Some of you teach music, some of you teach them how to produce. Some of you teach them how to draw. All different types, all different shapes, all different sizes.' Koleoso argues that we need to broaden our understanding of what constitutes a youth club. It's not just a 'town hall, table tennis, a couple of biscuits', he says. He cites the example of Arsenal's football academy and the Lee Valley Athletics Centre, which was built in the lead-up to the London Olympics in 2012 and was state of the art. 'They had a thing where if you wanted to train you could,' Koleoso says. 'At the last Olympics half the team seemed to come from my school.' He watched as local athletes Chijindu 'CJ' Ujah and Desiree Henry competed for Team GB. 'All of these Enfield kids represented Team GB,' he adds. 'I just wish someone said: 'Do you know why that happened? Because of that one building'. It's not that deep.' Ezra Collective also practised together at the Southbank Centre's Kinetika Bloco, a long-running youth music charity that introduces children to brass, woodwind, steel pan and other instruments. When Ezra Collective performed live at the Brits, playing Little Things with Jorja Smith, they brought Kinetika Bloco's current cohort of young talent, out on stage with them. The closure of youth clubs is often linked to rising violent crime and other forms of antisocial behaviour. But Koleoso thinks there needs to be more nuance in the debate, and an understanding that youth clubs don't just reduce violent crime but are places where creativity can thrive. 'If I didn't have that youth club, would I have just gone around shooting people? Probably not,' says Koleoso. 'I'm not saying it saved me … yes, I was born into a very working-class life, but I had mum and dad at home. My state school was cool. 'My narrative is different … I saw my future compared with the people around me that didn't have that youth club experience. I was so long-sighted with everything.' The band try to visit different youth clubs wherever they tour, popping in for sessions before sound check and gigs in the evening. Koleoso regularly volunteers at his local youth club, which was thrilled about his Brits success. But this year's messy Shrove Tuesday celebrations might be the last for the drummer. 'I probably won't do pancake day again,' he admits.
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ezra Collective's Femi Koleoso: Giving a young person a trumpet can fix problems
Femi Koleoso of jazz group Ezra Collective said giving a young person a trumpet can help to fix 'so many of the problems that face greater society in the UK', when he collected the group of the year Brit Award. 'I'll bang this drum a bunch of times and I'll continue to do so until the entire country gets it', he said during Saturday's ceremony. 'This moment right here is because of the great youth clubs, and the great teachers and the great schools that support young people playing music. 'the solution lies with giving a young person a trumpet. the solution lies with giving a young person a saxophone.'@EzraCollective with a perfectly-put speech as they accept Group of the Year 👏 #BRITs — BRIT Awards (@BRITs) March 1, 2025 'The reason we continue to bang this drum is because so many of the problems that face greater society in the UK, where we're unsure of how to fix it, but the solution lies with giving a young person a trumpet, the solution lies in giving a young person a saxophone. 'Because when you do that, you give them a dream, an aspiration and a goal.' He then gave a shout-out to some youth clubs and schools. Ezra Collective became the first jazz group to win the Mercury Prize in 2023 with their second studio album Where I'm Meant To Be. The five-piece collective is made up of Koleoso, bassist TJ Koleoso, keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, saxophonist James Mollison and trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi. The group released debut album You Can't Steal My Joy in 2019 and followed it up with Where I'm Meant to Be, released in November 2022 on Partisan Records.
