Ezra Collective
Where I'm Meant To Be
Like a hot flash in a pan the London jazz quintet return with a shimmering collection of tracks compelling you to revisit the grooves at their roots.
Who
Femi Koleoso (drummer/bandleader), TJ Koleoso (bassist), Joe Armon-Jones (keyboardist), Ife Ogunjobi (trumpeter) and James Mollison (tenor saxophonist). Five instrumentalists with a strong dance sensibility, a sense for complex rhythms and an appreciation for the lessons of the past. The ever-eclectic image of what British jazz should be has been nurtured in the capable hands of Ezra Collective, whose freewheeling sonics render them far more than just revivalists, but indeed real jazz trailblazers leaving heated flames in their wake.
What
A band who always lay it all on the line, Ezra Collective return with fresh new avenues for their energetic joy. A masterful blending of genres, the band combine the vintage afrobeat sounds of Tony Allen with Kojey Radical's UK hip-hop flow on No Confusion and pays homage to the group’s mutual love of Soundsystem culture on Ego Killah. A natural product of years spent improvising together on-stage, Where I'm Meant To Be is full of call-and-response conversations between their ensemble parts, polished, melodic and reactionary. Their appreciation for a diverse range of sounds is bolstered by the friends and features enlisted along the way, with the likes of Sampa The Great, Kojey Radical, Emile Sandé, Steve McQueen and Nao all featuring on tracks.
With
Moses Boyd, Oscar Jerome, Kokoroko