At Sussex’s Love Supreme festival last weekend, Femi Koleoso and James Mollison of British jazz figureheads Ezra Collective joined me for a wide-ranging conversation on their artistry, the power of the dancefloor and hopes for the future of British music.
With Koleoso noting that “dancefloors are dancefloors, whether it’s people with instruments or people with turntables, there’s a synergy between all those spaces”, the pair reminisced about some of their own favourite dancefloor memories. Mollison mentioned east London’s now-shuttered Passing Clouds, while Koleoso remembered north London’s University of Dub night at the Scala, as well as Sunday sessions at the Haggerston pub, where a jazz jam would take place at the same time as a disco night: “I was so conflicted on which room to go to!”
The Haggerston proved to be a pivotal space, not only to experience a good time: it was also where drummer Koleoso was first put in touch with his future mentor, Afrobeat innovator and Fela Kuti collaborator, Tony Allen. “I was playing at the jazz jam one night and someone came up to me afterwards and said they liked how I was playing and asked who my favourite drummer was,” he said. “I told them Tony Allen and he just laughed. Later that night, he came up to me with a phone and there was Tony on the other end of the line. I asked him if he could teach me how to play drums and he told me to be at his house the following Friday.”
Not realising that Allen lived in Paris, Koleoso spent the following months taking overnight Megabus journeys from London to the French capital for his weekly sessions of practice. “He focused on teaching me how to take things away in my playing rather than adding them,” Koleoso said. “I recorded some of those lessons on my phone and I still listen back to them now and think about how I can add more space. Sometimes you have to play music rather than drums.”
Taking several questions from Guardian readers, the duo reflected on some of their favourite locations to perform, from homecoming shows in London to gigs at Fela Kuti’s infamous Shrine venue in Lagos, Nigeria – where “it’s total mayhem, playing a night there ages you about a decade,” Koleoso said – to a recent gig at Fuji Rock festival in Tokyo. “That’s the only time we’ve ever felt we might have to take down the energy to calm the crowd,” Mollison said. “Before we went on stage it was so peaceful and beautiful but as soon as we started they were crowd surfing. We unleashed chaos!”
Fierce advocates of youth clubs and grassroots support for the arts in the UK, the duo took an impassioned tone when answering a reader’s question about what people can do in the face of budget cuts to help youngsters looking for musical outlets. “We each need to see ourselves as pillars of the community, so if you have access to an instrument and can play it, teach someone who can’t and invite them to be part of it,” Koleoso said. “Where we go wrong is the dependence on local authorities, governments and institutions, when we can take it upon ourselves to be that change, rather than wait for it to happen. It’s that mindset shift that’s most important.”
They first came to Love Supreme as teenagers during its early years in 2013. “It’s a space that’s all about understanding how jazz is a big word,” Koleoso said. “It’s a music that can mean Ella Fitzgerald as much as [pianist] Robert Glasper or even Earth Wind & Fire, who headlined one of the nights I was at. We want to bring that diversity to everyone.”
Itching to head back into the festival fields and discover new talent, Koleoso and Mollison closed with details about their forthcoming fourth album, Here Because of Hope, which will be released in September. “It’s been a wonderful blessing as a band to be associated with joy and happiness, but the approach to this record was being honest about when you feel pain,” Koleoso said. “There have been moments of devastating pain felt across the band in recent years, from things happening in the world to losing a child at a youth club, which I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The record was born from trying to bring joy while suffering and it’s an important reminder to enjoy each other’s company – to always love each other rather than hate.”
