The buzz of live music in the capital shifts up a few gears in mid-November with the advent of the EFG London Jazz Festival. Now in its 33rd year, the event is one of a select group of festivals that not only champion the more familiar aspects of jazz but the cutting edge of experimental music in general from across the world. With more than 2,000 artists making up around 350 performances, this autumn jazz party is at heart a celebration of cultural diversity and artistic freedom. Read our EFG London Jazz Festival 2025 Preview.
EFG London Jazz Festival 2025 Preview
The festival runs from 14 to 23 November and it all takes place over 10 days in numerous venues across the capital, from the halls of the South Bank and Barbican to London’s famous jazz clubs and hidden basements and bars. There are also film screenings and workshops as well as much to enjoy that is free. Headline names this year include vocalists Tanita Tikaram (main image) and Dee Dee Bridgewater, Chicago post-rockers Tortoise, the Bill Frisell Trio, Tune-Yards, Joan as Police Woman and festival favourite Mulatu Astatke.
Some of the world’s most accomplished jazz musicians play the festival and this time they include: the Julian Joseph Trio, Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Hamilton de Holanda, Kayhan Kahlor & Rembrandt Trio, Eddie Henderson, vocalist Stella Cole, drummer Nate Smith, vibraphonist Anthony Kerr, Nigel Kennedy, and pianist Gwilym Simcock.
EFG London Jazz Festival 2025 : Featured concerts and events
Other highlights include some much-anticipated orchestral performance including a staging of TS Elliot’s The Waste Land, conceived of by actor Adrian Dunbar and composer Nick Roth with the Guildhall Session Orchestra, Mali’s charismatic Oumou Sangare with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset alongside London Sinfonietta.
And during the festival’s Global Music Weekender is the presence of the Aga Khan Music Awards, a four-day journey into music from West Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and South Asia hosted by winners of the award on the South Bank. Opening proceedings is Music From the Great East with Vincent Peirani, the Warsi Brothers and guests; a tribute to tabla legend Ustad Zakir Hussain and an evening with Tunisian singer Ghalia Benali.
While for Blues Party, the South Bank’s Clore Ballroom revives the spirit of Britain’s Caribbean house parties of the 1950s to the 80s, with DJs and live acts playing ska, rocksteady and reggae tunes, in an event is curated entirely by young producers for the Milestone programme. And the close ties between British jazz and Nigerian music are explored at the ballroom in Lagos to London, with contributions from the Olatunde Ensemble, saxophonist Camilla George’s big band Isang and Tony Allen prodigy Bukky Leo and his band Black Egypt.
Joyous gala night Jazz Voice on 14 November opens the festival at the Royal Festival Hall where many of the festival’s star singers can be heard in one place. This year Tanita Tikaram, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Natalie Williams, Caleb Kunle, Tyreek McDole and guests are backed by a 44-piece orchestra conducted by Guy Barker.
For more featured events, visit: https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/
Travel Begins at 40 recommends…
The big names sell themselves, so Travel Begins at 40 have selected some lesser-known and left-field acts of note to look out for at this year’s festival.
On 14 November Tomoki Sanders, son of Pharaoh Sanders, carries the torch at Soho’s Ronnie Scott’s, mixing electronic and urban music with great wails from his sax, and whetting appetites for a 2026 debut album. Over in east London on talked-about young pianist Yvonne Rogers from New York plays at sYp , while in the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room, oud maestro Joseph Tawadros takes the fretless instrument far beyond its Arabic homelands to the realms of jazz, folk and rock. MOBO-nominated guitarist Femi Temowo, whose working partners include Amy Winehouse and Soweto Kinch, mashes it up with a five-piece band at Ladbroke Hall, and festival artist-in-residence, Grammy-nominated “surrealist blues poet” aja monet, explores themes of black resistance and joy with guest performers at the Barbican.
On 15 November at Soho’s PizzaExpress Jazz Club The Harper Trio defy the ears with their harp-driven sonic innovations and a few streets away at Ronnie Scott’s, Thai drummer and composer Salin and her band marry sounds from North Thailand with 70s West African psyche. Over at Hampstead’s Heath Street Baptist Church, the Harry Christelis Quartet make ethereal, oceanic jazz, dubbed “distressingly beautiful”, that brings to mind electric-period Miles Davis and the ambiences of John Hassell, while young blades Evil Evil lay down nasty jazz-rock grooves at Highams Park Jazz Club. At Drayton Court Hotel British-Nigerian singer EyiTemi is joined by an eight-piece band to express her raw, often difficult emotion in songs that fuse soul, jazz and gospel but in essence refuse categorisation.
Treyja are vocalists Clare Wheeler, Sara Colman and Tara Minton who test the limits of the vocal trio with rich harmonies and original songs, and they play Piccadilly’s Crazy Coqs on 16 November. At Islington’s Union Chapel, the Idrisi Ensemble “sing” the Mediterranean as a living history using old Roman chant and ancient song forms, while over at The Welsh Centre in King’s Cross, Welsh jazzer Huw Williams leads Di-Cysgodion in a blend of influences that include Ornette Coleman, Ravel and the Super Furry Animals.
World jazz vocalist Vimala Rowe (and her quartet) explores an upbringing of “multiple mothers” with new material mixing her familiar interests in jazz, blues, Indian folk and UK indie and at King’s Place Iranian multi-instrumentalist Faarjam Saidi draws inspiration from contemporary Iranian poetry using an emotive blend of Middle Eastern music and pop.
Ashley Henry is a pianist and vocalist whose visceral compositions draw upon a deep understanding of radical black music from soul and jazz to hip hop. Presenting his 2024 album Who We Are, catch Henry at Ronnie Scott’s on 17 November. Harvard jazz and anthropology graduate and double bassist Devon Gates leads her acoustic group on latest project Water Dancers, while over at the Hampstead Jazz Club top notch trumpeter Quentin Collins and saxophonist Leo Richardson play no-nonsense hard bop straight from the Blue Note playbook.
At Hackney’s Vortex Jazz Club, saxophonist Alice Leggett leads her quintet on rhythmically and harmonically bold works that draw from a love of Parker, Coltrane and Rollins, and at Milton Court poet and musician Anthony Joseph and producer David Okumu present Rowing Upriver To Get Our Names Back; an Afrofuturististic journey of funk, dub, jazz and soul to discover forgotten black names.
On 18 November at Ignition Brewery, double bassist Myra Brownbridge is accompanied by a cellist and saxophonist in a blurring of jazz and chamber music while across the river at Ronnie Scott’s, Gilles Peterson-tipped flautist Erica Tucceri gives the club a taste of Melbourne’s cutting edge jazz scene. At the ICA on this night, acclaimed London record label New Soil brings together its first two signings – tuba master Theon Cross and jazz fusion trio Ill Considered for a night of improvised music, while visual artist Vincent De Boer creates a live artwork as the music unfolds.
Alto saxophonist Sam Braysher and group is joined by rising vocalist star Annie Majin for a jazz recasting of the Kurt Weill songbook and in the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room you’ll find British-Bengali artist Tara Lily playing her debut album Speak In The Dark, a potent brew of jazz, electronica and South Asian sounds, fearlessly exploring the highs and lows of living with ADHD. “She’s something else,” says Iggy Pop.
At Crazy Coqs on 19 November clarinet, saxophonist and composer Giacomo Smith and guitarist Mozes Rosenberg celebrate Smith’s new album Manouche, a tribute to Django Reinhardt. At Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club, the Ilario Ferrari Trio play their critically applauded Above The Clouds album, a soaring affair of rock and Latin energy, while the PizzaExpress Jazz Club is treated to the great UK saxophonist Dave O’Higgins’ tribute to John Coltrane in Take The Coltrane. The amazing voice of Jazzmeia Horn takes over Ronnie Scott’s, one that points to Sarah Vaughn and Nancy Wilson but is still defiantly original, and on this night Catalan trombonist prodigy and singer Rita Payes combines bossa nova, jazz and folk to glorious effect at the Union Chapel.
On 20 November singer, trumpeter and beatmaker Emma-Jean Thackray, described by the Observer as “a supernova”, plays KOKO in Camden Town. Jazz-funk group Resolution 88 cite Head Hunters-era Herbie Hancock and Mizell Brothers’ Blue Note productions as influences and play Hoxton’s Courtyard Theatre and the tight-knit friends that make up Queen Colobus bring their remarkable, mood-shifting songs to Jazzlive at The Crypt.
Catch Ant Law and Brigitte Baraha’s Ensconced project at Camden Town’s Green Note club, where guitarist Law and British-Turkish vocalist Baraha conjure up a spellbinding vibe through deeply affecting original compositions and standards, while at the Camden Arts Centre, Cleveland Watkiss, bassist Neil Charles and drummer Mark Sanders, present Dark Days, a musical response to the fierce clarity of writer James Baldwin’s reflections on racial injustice.
Down at The Ministry on 21 November is the David Mrakpor Trio, driven by Mrakpor’s dazzling versatility as he jumps between guitar, drums and vibraphone in genre-mashing ecstasy. Over at the 606 Club, ace bassist Shez Raja is joined by guitarist John Etheridge and trombonist Dennis Rollins for a scorching Indo-jazz jam of the very highest calibre, while classically trained jazz pianist Julieta Iglesias delights the Hampstead Jazz Club with her own piano arrangements and works by Gershwin, Piazzolla and others.
Brixton-born saxophone virtuoso Ruben Fox demonstrates his great skill and soul in two sessions at the PizzaExpress Jazz Club and powerhouse vocalist Acantha Lang delivers with a visceral urgency akin to Aretha Franklin or Gladys Knight at East London’s Soul Mama.
22 November offers a wealth of music. At the Courtyard Theatre, compelling singer-songwriter guitarist Rosie Frater-Taylor weaves together alt-pop, neo-soul, folk and jazz licks on new album Featherweight, and counts Jimmy Page as a fan. In the afternoon, the exquisite voice of Zara McFarlane fills the chapel of Stoke Newington’s Abney Park cemetery in a tribute to Sarah Vaughn.
Nikki Yeoh’s Infinitum sees the pianist joined by her brothers on bass and drums in a display of dazzling familial chemistry that blends jazz, classical and electronica and at the 606 Club Alec Harper and his quintet pay homage to Duke Ellington their way. While lauded UK bassist and composer Daniel Casimir makes Ronnie Scott’s swing with an unmissable big band show.
On the last day, 23 November, acclaimed Vienna-born saxophonist Guido Spannocchi forms a quartet to bring a delicate classical sensibility to a range of jazz-based music in an afternoon session at Stoke Newington’s Old Church. Crucial reggae meet the Deptford Dub Club lets in a little Sun Ra, funk and the spacier side of jazz with Tessa Pollitt (The Slits) and DJ Riot Girl on the decks and MC Doc Murdoch on chat duties, while at East London’s Jazz Social, rising neo-jazz wonder Ni Maxine performs her moody, often bruised songs.
At Crazy Coqs, acclaimed vocalist and pianist Sam Jewison performs the music of Jerome Kern, while at World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens Iranian pianist Peyman Yazdanian plays compositions that fuse Persian and western traditions, from his weighty discography.
London Jazz Festival 2025 Preview
If our EFG London Jazz Festival 2025 preview has piqued your interest, tune in for more festival news and information at: https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/.
Main image: Tanita Tikaram by Natacha Horn.
