Emma-Jean Thackray

Livestream from Total Refreshment Centre, part of EFG London Jazz Festival 2020

First streamed 13/11/2020

Emma-Jean Thackray- trumpet, vocals, electronics, Lyle Barton – keyboards, Matt Gedrych – electric bass, Dougal Taylor – drum kit, Crispin Robinson – congas, percussion

Trumpeter and vocalist Emma-Jean Thackray is one of those artists whose name I have heard a lot of, but whose actual music has thus far managed to slip under my radar.

This EFG London Jazz Festival livestream, first broadcast from the Total Refreshment Centre on 13th November 2020, afforded me the opportunity to find out what I had been missing out on.

There has been quite a critical buzz about Thackray, a multi-talented artist who is a trumpeter, vocalist, composer, arranger,  producer, DJ and radio presenter. She has written for the London Symphony Orchestra, hosts her own radio show on Worldwide FM and also performs DJ sets in London’s dance clubs. It’s an admirably diverse CV, and one befitting a young, genre fluid, 21st century artist. To date she has released a series of EPs, including “Rain Dance”, “Walrus”  Ley Lines” and “Um Yang”, all of which have been issued in 2020.

Thackray’s quintet represents the jazzier side of her musical output, but the group’s music also embraces elements of the dance and club culture that Thackray so clearly loves. This is an electric band, with Thackray augmenting her trumpet playing and vocalising with a sprinkling of electronics, while Barton plays electric keyboards exclusively. The combination of electric bass and both drums and percussion also ensures that it’s a highly rhythmic outfit, with plenty of interesting stuff going down in this department.

As Graham Spry observed in his review of this stream for London Jazz News North London’s highly influential Total Refreshment Centre venue is a highly intimate performance space that essentially looks like somebody’s front room. It’s a venue that I’ve yet to visit, although that’s something I’d like to remedy sometime, hopefully in 2021.

Thackray, her band, and a host of musical and electronic hardware shoe-horned themselves into the space and presented a near fifty minute show, performed as a single entity with no breaks between numbers and with no announcements whatsoever from Thackray. I was able to obtain details of the band line up from Graham Spry’s review, while some details of the material performed appeared on the EFG LJF website. Spry remarks that the performance was structured rather like a DJ set, which represents a highly valid comment.

The performance began with Thackray’s trumpet brooding gently above a backdrop of shimmering electric piano and the rustle of percussion, with the addition of electric bass and kit drums subsequently helping to create a rhythmic lattice around which Thackray and Barton created layers of colour and texture. Much has been written of the influence of electric era Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters and Weather Report on Thackray’s music. With Thackray also acting as a vocalist I was also reminded of the music of the American trumpeter/vocalist Jaimie Branch and her Fly or Die group, particularly in view of Latin percussion playing such an important role in the overall sound.

This opening passage passed through an unaccompanied drum and percussion episode before Barton’s keyboard motif provided the spark for a Thackray trumpet solo, her playing here sometimes reminiscent of the Vietnamese American Cuong Vu. Barton followed on electric piano, specifically Rhodes, and impressed in his role as an electric keyboard specialist. His playing was inventive and imaginative throughout, exhibiting a skilled control of sound, texture and dynamics. Meanwhile Thackray wielded a shaker, adding to the already complex rhythmic backdrop, before adding her singing voice, at first wordlessly and then adding words stressing the importance that “all must balance”. Based upon these sentiments I’d assume that this piece was probably sourced from the “Um Yang” EP, upon which the majority of these musicians had appeared. Thackray then took up her trumpet again to bring this opening section to a rousing conclusion.

An extended drum and percussion dialogue, subsequently joined by electric bass, introduced the next section, with Thackray again soloing powerfully on trumpet and engaging in a series of lively exchanges with drummer Taylor.

A solo electric bass episode marked the transition into the next instalment. Thackray was recently invited to contribute to the album “Blue Note Re-Imagined”, an updating of Blue Note classics by young, 21st century British jazz artists. Thackray’s transformation of Wayne Shorter’s “Speak No Evil”, combined with the same composer’s “Night Dreamer”, goes further than most and at first was almost unrecognisable here. Thackray isn’t an orthodox jazz singer, but her vocal contributions are both incisive and effective. Her words often acts as mantras, such as her chanting here of “See No, Hear, Speak No Evil”. Elsewhere we enjoyed instrumental solos from the leader on echoed trumpet and Barton on keyboards, combining both electric piano and synth sounds.

Gedrych’s bass again provided the bridge into the next piece, combining with Barton’s synth to introduce “Brighter Days”, Thackray’s adaptation of a song by the Chicago house music DJs Cajmere and Dajae. With Thackray singing and adding electronic manipulations the instrumental honours went to Gedrych with an agile electric bass solo that concentrated on the instrument’s upper registers, supported by Taylor and Robinson’s interlocking rhythms and Barton’s synth washes.

Taylor’s drums heralded the next item, subsequently joined by percussion, keys, bass and eventually trumpet. The leader then soloed on trumpet above a backdrop of trance like grooves and cushioning synth washes. Barton then took over on Rhodes, his inventions buoyed by percolating rhythms. Thackray then took up the chant “Move The Body, Move The Mind, Move The Soul”, so I’m fairly confident that this was the song “Movementt”, from the “Rain Dance” EP. Movementt is also the name of Thackray’s own record label.

Introduced by Barton’s keyboards the final item started out rather like a hip hop version of a jazz ballad, initially reminding me of Robert Glasper, surely another influence. Thackray’s vocals were followed by an instrumental solo from Barton on Rhodes, followed by an unexpected free jazz episode. Gedrych’s electric bass motif then helped to fuel a trumpet solo from Thackray, her elongated melody lines contrasting with the busy rhythms fermenting beneath, these eventually leading to a Taylor drum feature. Thackray then took over once more for a trumpet solo that became increasingly powerful as the music built to an inevitable climax.

Overall I rather enjoyed this performance from Thackray and her highly talented band. Occasionally her music strays a little too far into contemporary club culture for my personal tastes but this was still primarily a jazz performance with many aspects to enjoy about it. Thackray is an accomplished trumpet soloist who also deploys her voice effectively, and Barton, whose keyboard work is discussed in greater detail above, acts as a very able foil. The rhythmic trio of Gedrych, Taylor and the session veteran Robinson, here mainly specialising on congas, impressed both individually and collectively, the three almost seeming to function as a single entity and laying down a consistently fascinating array of rhythms and grooves. The instrumental line up of this quintet was relatively unusual, resulting in a distinctive group sound. Thackray’s recordings have also made use of the rhythmic heft of the sousaphone, an instrument normally associated with marching bands, making for a fascinating juxtaposition between the ancient and the very modern.

A full length album must represent the next step for Thackray, a cult artist whose diverse talents suggest that she is destined for a degree of wider recognition.