Match&Fuse festival comes to London this weekend with new and experimental jazz from across Europe. In a genre in which women are still few and far between, almost 50% of the festival’s acts are female. Dave Morecroft, the musician, promoter and the festival’s founder picks five of his favourite current female acts.
Lauren Kinsella
Irish-born Lauren Kinsella is a leading light of the improvised music scene in London, Dublin and further afield. Her band Snowpoet released their debut album earlier this year and are garnering great attention. She won the vocalist of the year gong at the 2016 Jazz FM awards, and is very much on an upward trajectory.
Ellen Andrea Wang
Ellen Andrea Wang first came to my attention leading Pixel, her Norwegian pop-jazz quartet. A commanding presence in any ensemble she plays in, her soft tone and vocal precision are always counterbalanced with heavy and assertive grooves from her double-bass, interlocking with drummers, jazz, pop and groove alike.
Cath Roberts
Fresh from a stint as artist-in-residence at the Lancaster jazz festival, Cath Roberts is one of the founding partners of LUME with saxophonist Dee Byrne, an improvised music collective and festival. Her duo Ripsaw Catfish (with guitarist Anton Hunter) on the Saturday night at this year’s Match&Fuse festival will be intense, gnarly and experimental.
Laura Jurd
Laura Jurd seems to be picking up more five-star reviews than anybody else at the moment, and thoroughly deserved they are; her skills as a trumpeter and composer are unsurpassable. She’s truly cemented herself as a leading figure of the UK jazz scene.
Isabel Sörling
Isabel Sörling is an absolute joy to watch on stage and her band Soil Collectors is the purest representation of her theatricality and intensity. Hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden, she’s a longstanding associate of Match&Fuse, she recently teamed up with Leafcutter John for the second time at the M&F Toulouse edition in September.
- Ripsaw Catfish play Café Oto, Dalston, on 29 October; Soil Collectors play the Vortex Jazz Club on the same date – both as part of Match&Fuse London festival 2016.
