EFG London Jazz Festival 2019

EFG London Jazz Festival returns with hundreds of shows throughout the capital, promising to lift our spirits with its genuinely ambitious and exciting programming, with fresh thinking and innovative collaborations. Running from Friday 15 to Sunday 24 November, 2019’s iteration of the much-loved festival features everything from jazz icons playing the biggest stages to fledgling greats serenading intimate bars.

Read on for our pick of the must-see performances...

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Jazz Voice – opening gala

The festival’s grand opening gala brings together a selection of its hottest acts in a triumphant celebration of vocal jazz music. Liverpool-based singer Jalen N’Gonda takes to the stage, fresh from his warm-up stint for Beverley Knight, as well as multiple Grammy-winner Cécile McLorin Salvant and the ever-popular Corinne Bailey Rae, whose own show at the festival has sold out. Backed by the punchy London Jazz Festival Orchestra, the singers will be treating the occasion as anything but a mere warm-up.

WHEN: Friday 15 November, 7:30pm

WHERE: Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall

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Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner

Barely pausing for breath from the night before, Salvant ditches the cover of the big band to expose the full brilliance of her vocal craft with just a piano for accompaniment. She joins Sullivan Fortner on keys to present her latest album, The Window, neatly entwining her own creations with modern reinventions of the Great American Songbook – think Stephen Sondheim, Arethra Franklin and Richard Rodgers. It’s as if the Miami-born maestro wants to address the rumours head-on: that she is the finest jazz vocalist of her generation.

WHEN: Saturday 16 November, 7:30 PM

WHERE: Barbican Centre

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Judi Jackson

No stranger to London audiences, Judi Jackson has already wowed the capital over the past two years with sell-out gigs at Ronnie Scott’s, XOYO nightclub and the Jazz Café, Camden. The singer counts Wynton Marsalis and Snarky Puppy director Michael League among her mentors, although their esteemed instruction has certainly come at no cost to her individuality. By turns funky and dreamily introspective, Jackson gracefully delivers on the full spectrum of musical emotion.

WHEN: Sunday 17 November, 7pm

WHERE: Islington Assembly Hall

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Herbie Hancock

The prize act of this – or any – year’s festival, Herbie Hancock has been playing and shaping jazz for over half a century. The legendary pianist takes to the Barbican with a five-piece band, performing hits from the full breadth of his career in jazz, funk, electro, soul and R&B. It’s hard to know what to expect from a man who’s collaborated with everyone from Miles Davis to Kendrick Lamar and Stevie Wonder to Joni Mitchell, but you’d do well to get your hands on some tickets.

WHEN: Sunday 17 November, 7:30pm

WHERE: Barbican Centre

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Chassol – LUDI

For something out of the ordinary, catch French pianist and composer Chassol at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Chassol’s latest project, LUDI, is a musical film inspired by Hermann Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game. Compelling visuals welded to a live instrumental performance from the composer himself explore the concept of play and its significance in our lives. In light of the artist’s glittering track record for experimentation – most recently in successful collaborations with Frank Ocean and Solange – LUDI’s UK première could yet turn into an ‘I was there’ moment.

WHEN: Tuesday 19 November, 7:30pm

WHERE: Southbank Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall

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Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox

For a troupe that shot to fame on YouTube, the musicians of Postmodern Jukebox certainly know how to put on a live show. The musical collective’s vintage reworkings of modern hits (by Lady Gaga, Wham! and Radiohead, among many others) never fail to please, and its rotating musical line-up means no two gigs are the same. Glitzy, eclectic, tongue-in-cheek… and you’ll know all the lyrics – what’s not to like?

WHEN: Wednesday 20 November, 7:30pm

WHERE: Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall

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Georgia Cécile

Georgia Cécile makes her London Jazz Festival debut at the Pheasantry, Chelsea, rounding off a memorable year that’s seen her touted as ‘One to Watch’ by Jazzwise magazine and voted Best Vocalist at the 2019 Scottish Jazz Awards. It’s not hard to see why: Cécile combines silky vocals with a commanding stage presence and has built a songwriting partnership with pianist Euan Stevenson that is beginning to bear rich fruit. Their stripped-back trio set should be well matched to the intimacy of their cabaret club surroundings.

WHEN: Wednesday 20 November, 8:30pm

WHERE: The Pheasantry, Chelsea

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Têtes de Pois

A brewery named London Calling Sweden hosting a band called Têtes de Pois – not the most obvious of fits, and yet it’s the sort of mish-mash this dynamic young group relishes. Formed in 2016 by students at Leeds College of Music, their instrumental seven-piece plays a definitive cocktail of jazz, hip-hop and Afrobeat and has performed with Glastonbury 2019 stars Ezra Collective. The ensemble serves up a tight yet fresh sound that’s sure to put you in the mood for a great night on the Bermondsey Beer Mile.

WHEN: Thursday 21 November, 8pm

WHERE: London Calling Sweden

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Eliane Elias + Vinícius Cantuária

Eliane Elias and Vinícius Cantuária, two stars of the Brazilian jazz scene, take to the stage in a joint recital that commemorates the 60-year anniversary of the development of bossa nova in their home country. Elias, a pianist and singer with multiple Grammy awards to her name, presents tracks from her latest album Love Stories, contrasting nicely with the rock-infused multi-instrumentals that have defined Cantuária’s career pioneering neo-Brazilian music. Together, they’ll prove there’s a lot more to bossa nova than The Girl from Ipanema.

Gold Culture Whisper members can redeem a free pair of tickets

WHEN: Friday 22 November, 7:30pm

WHERE: Barbican Centre

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The Black Peril by Soweto Kinch

Oxford University history graduate, alto saxophonist and BBC broadcaster, Soweto Kinch graces this year’s London Jazz Festival with a characteristically cerebral musical programme. The Black Peril sheds light on the race riots that erupted in the West after the First World War, through archived film footage, dance and, of course, music. Classical music by black composers of the period, ragtime, proto-jazz and West Indian folk are among the styles to be explored by a specially assembled 14-piece jazz ensemble in this thought-provoking meditation on the dangers of racial conflict.

WHEN: Friday 22 November, 8pm

WHERE: EartH, Hackney Arts Centre

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Jean Toussaint

Since moving to London in 1987, Grammy-winning saxophonist Jean Toussaint has released 11 critically acclaimed CDs as a leader, including 2018's Brother Raymond, nominated for Album of the Year in the Jazz FM Awards. The upcoming Cadogan Hall concert will see Toussaint present the release of his 12th album, Live at the Jazz Cafe, recorded at the end of the Brother Raymond tour.

Gold Culture Whisper members can redeem a free pair of tickets

WHEN: Saturday 23 November, 5PM

WHERE: Cadogan Hall

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The Art Ensemble of Chicago – 50th Anniversary

The Art Ensemble of Chicago doesn’t deal in half measures when it comes to live performance. For 50 years, they’ve been pioneering free jazz, harnessing instruments and inflections from the West, Africa, South America and Asia to curate auditory and visual musical feasts. Unfamiliar listeners should seize the chance to hear the ‘creative juggernaut’ that recorded with Fontella Bass back in the 70s, founded and led to this day by saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell.

WHEN: Saturday 23 November, 7:30pm

WHERE: Barbican Centre

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Bitches Brew

Named in playful homage to Miles Davis’ famed 1970 album, Bitches Brew was set up by bassist Emma Smith in 2015 to address the under-appreciation of women in jazz. For this year’s festival, the project lands at the Barbican’s FreeStage with a varied line-up of four improvisatory virtuosas: harpist Ailie Robertson, saxophonist Rachael Cohen, singer-violinist Hannah Read and percussionist Signy Jakobsdottir. Drawing on traditional and contemporary jazz styles – and, naturally, making it all up on the spot – Bitches Brew offers up a shining light for the future of jazz as an evolving artistic enterprise.

WHEN: Sunday 24 November, 2pm

WHERE: Barbican Centre, FreeStage (Level G)

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Chrissie Hynde

Head to the Southbank Centre on the last night of the festival for something a little unexpected, as The Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde turns her singing talents to jazz. Performing tracks from her new album, Valve Bone Woe, she showcases her inventive takes on a host of classic tunes from the world of jazz (Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane) and beyond (Nick Drake, The Kinks). What Hynde lacks in hard-earned, jazz vocal refinement she more than makes up for with creative intuition, attitude and magnetic cool. This is a woman who knows how to sell a song.

WHEN: Sunday 24 November, 7:30pm

WHERE: Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall

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Cleveland Watkiss

Cleveland Watkiss turned 60 this year and in recognition of this, the award-winning vocalist is using his London Jazz Festival performance to delve into a vast retrospective of music from his back catalogue, along with his celebrated album The Great Jamaican Songbook. The Southbank Centre concert is a chance to see Watkiss joined by a number of British-Caribbean musical legends: Orphy Robinson, Jason Yarde and Ayanna Witter-Johnson among them.

Gold Culture Whisper members can redeem a free pair of tickets

WHEN: Sunday 24 November, 7:30PM

WHERE: Southbank Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall

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