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London's Contemporary Jazz Scene Shines On 'We Out Here'

<em>We Out Here </em>pulls together the cream of the crop from London's contemporary jazz world.
Brownswood Recordings
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Courtesy of the artist
We Out Here pulls together the cream of the crop from London's contemporary jazz world.

The U.K.'s jazz scene is flourishing these days thanks, in part, to the young artists pumping it with new life. We Out Here, the latest compilation project from DJ and producer Gilles Peterson's indie label Brownswood Recordings, is a fitting proclamation of ownership from the contemporaries who are adding color to the landscape.

The project's nine tracks were recorded in August 2017 over a three day period. Smooth and concise, this compilation is spearheaded by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who is credited as musical director, and features sounds from Hutchings, Maisha, Ezra Collective, Moses Boyd, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, and more. Each song has a story of its own, but they all manage to flow together as if one surmounting jam session. "Pure Shade" by Ezra Collective seems to finds its foundation in Afrobeat, and there are accents of bossa nova in "Abusey Junction" by Kokoroko. Shabaka Hutchings' "Black Skin, Black Mask" rides a rhythm defined only by an untamable clarinet.

We Out Here is a window into a world of London's ripe jazz renaissance, one that will only spread to new shores as the year goes on.

We Out Here is available now via Brownswood Recordings.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Sidney Madden is a reporter and editor for NPR Music. As someone who always gravitated towards the artforms of music, prose and dance to communicate, Madden entered the world of music journalism as a means to authentically marry her passions and platform marginalized voices who do the same.