Take Yo' Praise
Jazz Re:freshed Presents: Ezra Collective - 10 Years of Chapter 7 at Colour Factory, London: Saturday April 19th, 2026
The theme of the night, Ezra Collective’s drummer, leader and spokesperson Femi Koleoso told us, was gratitude. He was talking about what he and his bandmates feel they owe those who have helped them, stood with them, supported them or even just listened to them during the decade since the release of their first EP - the youth organisations, the teachers, the parents, the friends and the fans: the entire community and ecosystem that nurtures and enables talent to thrive. And yet, by the end of a euphoric evening - 90 minutes of music; but so much more than that - the gratitude was all flowing the other way, from those of us lucky enough to have had our emails picked out of the online ballot and be given a free ticket, to the group whose most potent among many superpowers may well be their generosity.
That was evident from long before the show began, when Ezra decided to hold this intimate fan event in collaboration with Jazz Re:freshed. The band surely didn’t need to do that, but the fact that they chose to spoke volumes - and those successful in the ballot were invited to donate, given we weren’t being asked to pay for their ticket, hopefully bringing a much-needed injection of funds as Jazz Re:freshed continue the search for a new venue for the weekly residency they were forced to put on hiatus last November. The role that Tomorrow’s Warriors played in Ezra’s existence is well known; but without Jazz Re:freshed, the story would have been very different. Where TW work with children and young musicians, helping them grow and thrive and learn their craft, JRF provide those young musicians with, often, their first headline gigs, their first opportunity to make and release records, and in some cases, their first chance to tour overseas. That, of course, is a huge oversimplification, with both organisations’ work blurring over that already fuzzy boundary line - but that work is vital nonetheless.
In a short introduction, JRF co-founder Adam “Rockers” Moses recalled a recent conversation with Femi in which he had spoken of how great an achievement it was for the whole UK jazz community when Ezra played Sydney Opera House last May: only for Femi to point out that, by Ezra’s current standards, that was a pretty small gig. Colour Factory’s capacity only tops 1,000 when including its outdoor areas, so is the smallest venue the band have played for years: Black-owned, prioritising cultural diversity and inclusivity, it has become an important part of the London jazz scene, hosting regular jams run by the Orii Community and giving organisations like Queer Jazz a platform to showcase the talent they exist to support. Like the promoter, the venue would have benefitted from Ezra’s determination to honour and celebrate the grass-roots organisations that are essential to keep this music alive. In every regard, the night was all about giving back.
When speaking about their gratitude, Femi had talked of the “bulletproof confidence” Ezra’s members routinely display, and said he believes they only have this because of the help and support they’ve been given throughout their career by the people and organisations that have helped them, and the community they have grown up within. And while it’s certainly true to say that this is a group that never plays as if constrained by any kind of fear or anxiety, they seemed even more relaxed and emboldened than ever. James Mollison spent the whole night grinning, even in the middle of several outstanding saxophone solos; TJ Koleoso probably clocked nearly as many on-stage minutes with as wide a smile, clearly loving every teasing second of a mid-set slap-bass solo; based on the several times this writer has seen him with his own band over the past two years, trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi may never have played better, the inevitable Miles Davis and Hugh Masekela comparisons ones he now bears with no apparent effort to carry such substantial weight; and Joe Armon-Jones, refusing to be constrained behind his keyboards, managed to dance even while seated, the explorations of dub production he has conducted on his excellent solo albums feeling perhaps a more forceful presence in the ever-deepening and -broadening Ezra sound palette.
It almost goes without saying that, throughout, the music was beyond wonderful. That debut EP was played in full, Zara McFarlane joining to sing her part on the ecstatic ‘I Have a God’, turning the former garage into a cathedral for the duration. In lieu of the original rap by the late and much-missed Ty, title track ‘Chapter 7’ was allowed to morph into an Afro-funk reading of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Footprints’, several steps further along from the swinging hip-hop reading the band gave it when recording it in 2020 as part of the Blue Note Re:imagined compilation album. But as the EP’s songs gave way to a Fela Kuti celebration, and Kokoroko guitarist Tobi Adenaike - a “secret” contributor to every Ezra record, according to Femi - joined the rest of the band on stage, little did we know that the night was barely getting started.
Bringing all the themes together in a deft one-liner, Femi said that, to mark this notable anniversary, Ezra had decided to ask “some of our friends from the youth club to come and play with us”. The youth club he was referring to, of course, was Tomorrow’s Warriors; and those friends are now British jazz superstars. And out they came, one after another:
Nubya Garcia.
Theon Cross.
Moses Boyd.
Shabaka Hutchings.
- each making unmistakable, trademark contributions, all involved in an unrepeatable reworking of Boyd’s ‘Rye Lane Shuffle’, a dizzying, life-affirming high during a night packed with a surfeit of them. Incidentally, any thoughts Hutchings’ return to the tenor sax on his new Of the Earth album might be reluctant or limited would have been banished within the opening bars of an extended solo that took every ounce of the power contained in a Sons of Kemet or Comet Is Coming album and furiously channelled it into an extended cloudburst of ideas and energy transfers.
Following his acceptance speech at the Jazz FM awards a few days earlier, and a couple of years on from the Mercury Prize win that - as Adam Moses noted during his introductory remarks - has seen the band become the figureheads for a drive to renew, restore and increase funding and provision for youth work, the sentiment, and Femi’s deliberately understated expression, landed particularly sharply. Here’s what we risk losing if we don’t back up those parents and teachers and volunteers properly, Ezra Collective were saying. Take that away, and what might we be left with? But also: to those who continue to give, whether it’s their time and their hard work and their dedication, or their money and their attention and their willingness to listen and to be inspired, please: take this gift and cherish it.
What a night. What a band. What a wonderful and inspirational community.
Thank you.
