EZRA COLLECTIVE
Dance, No-One’s Watching
Partisan Records
What a great album! Review over! OK, perhaps not - there’s so much to enjoy. Ezra memorably, joyously (and deservedly) captured the Mercury Music Prize in 2023 for their last album, ‘Where I’m Meant to Be’; I’d really love it if this superb follow-up gained them a second victory! Maybe Ezra’s “Dance…” can achieve a notable ‘double’, like Polly Harvey did?
‘Dance…’ was self-produced and recorded in several UK studios, including Abbey Road, Church Studios and Real World, and in Mexico via Africa Express and is ‘a snapshot’ of the band’s experiences during dance-floor dates all over the world, since their formation in 2012.
Through their three album releases, Ezra Collective have made their all-conquering statements for revitalising jazz. Their brash, joyous sound is filtered through their global heritage of Afrobeat, dub, roots reggae, funk, Hi-Life and Hip-Hop. It is vibrant modern music for our times.
Ezra’s talents were nurtured in London youth clubs, distilled through the wise and successful guidance of mentors like Gary Crosby in the performance school of Tomorrow’s Warriors, where future Ezra members met each other. What an incredible ‘production line’ of brilliant musical talent Mr. Crosby and others have produced over several decades!
I’m old enough to remember previous blossomings of British jazz talent that Gary and colleagues have brought to prominence, such as bass and drums siblings Mark and Mike Mondesir, in the 1990’s catchment that got labelled ‘The Brit Pack’ – and today, Ezra’s rhythm section, Femi and TJ Koleoso, have emerged from the latest Warriors’ generation.
It’s modern music but it’s true to their heritage, faith and deep musical passion, producing danceable, durable intelligent music on real instruments with no reliance on a producers’ electro bleeps and monotonous beats to win temporary and ephemeral attention.
Even their album covers pay tribute to soul and jazz history; look at the cover of ‘Dance, No-One’s Watching’ and put it side-by-side with Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Want You’. Ezra are surely referring back to that funky, sweaty dance club scene depicted on Marvin’s LP cover.
The cover pic on Ezra’s previous album, ‘Where I’m Meant to Be’ mimicked the artwork from the Thelonious Monk classic ‘Underground’. The legendary pianist is depicted holed up in a war-time Resistance bunker, playing his piano surrounded by weaponry, a Nazi general captive and bound in a corner. On Ezra’s album cover, the weapons are replaced with instruments and studio equipment in the altogether more serious business of putting down their jazz music sessions.
With the talent brimming in this band it is not surprising that they have graduated from the youth clubs to realise their ambitions, thrilling the UK club and venue circuits, then world dates - including an appearance at Fela Kuti’s revered Shrine in Lagos. There’s even been a Strictly Come Dancing TV spot but more significantly, Ezra will soon headline Wembley Arena.
They will turn the Arena into a wild, gyrating club - just as depicted on the LP jacket. The ethos and feel of this album were created by Ezra’s posse, who invaded the Abbey Road sessions to create a club atmosphere, creating an instant, warm dance vibe to carry the recording forwards.
Drummer Femi Koleoso and bassist brother TJ hold down the grooves, a symbiotic unit. When I first heard Ezra, on radio pre-plays from their debut LP ‘You Can’t Steal My Joy’, I didn’t know which band was playing, I mused: “Wow! There’s some new Tony Allen music coming out!” It wasn’t Tony - it was Femi’s funky Afro beat. He unsurprisingly had met (and was mentored by) the great Nigerian drum pioneer. It was a no-brainer for me to seek out any music they released.
Keyboard player Joe Armon-Jones is the hottest talent on the current vibrant British jazz scene, of course also gracing saxophonist Nubya Garcia’s group and her releases; Ezra also has James Mollison on tenor sax and Ife Ogunjobi on trumpet. What a tight, organic brass section that is!
There will be some serious dancing going on wherever they touch down. I wish I could be teleported there; I’ve never seen Ezra live - an unprecedented monsoon on the evening of their date at The Moseley Jazz Funk & Soul Festival (July 2023) robbed us all of the spectacle, when the night was cancelled amid a thunderous downpour and the festival site had to be evacuated.
Since then, my senior arthritic years have robbed me of mobility, at least for a while. I can’t walk, let alone dance. Sad - but I try not to be angry. A sampled voice announces early on in this album: “Dance is Life…. you can’t be angry when you dance - so keep dancing”. I will, in my mind!
Femi wants people to rediscover the ability to be themselves, to feel no-one is watching and to suspend the desire to find constant approval from others - to displace the constant distractions and demands of online opinions and influences, the invasion of social media. Releasing yourself to dance is a path to “true joy” - the dancefloor is somewhere we should “live in the moment that we have together” - and be who we want to be.
Enjoy moments of togetherness with his group - dance freely, immerse yourself in those rare heady and precious moments of abandon and revelry. He hopes this music “encapsulates the madness of the Ezra Collective show”. The hype sticker message is quite clear: the music was “Written for The Dance Floor”.
There are 19 tracks on the album, some are short instrumental passages, capturing a fleeting vibe; there are catchy, break-neck ensemble pieces; some are brief lush and soothing string interludes that precede the next vibrant blend of Afrobeat, Hi-Life, dub and solid funk – as well as strands of gospel and Salsa.
The Deluxe 2-CD hardback edition has a 4-track bonus disc containing instrumental versions of two of the album tracks (‘Streets Is Calling’ and ‘No-One’s Watching Me’) and two live renditions (‘Ajala’ and ‘Little Things’). Femi Koleoso presents copious notes on each track on this edition.
There are the ‘signature’ tracks, like the wonderful ‘God Gave Me Feet for Dancing’ featuring the beguiling vocals of Yazmin Lacey, and the equally splendid ‘No-One’s Watching Me’, featuring Olivia Dean.
There’s so much downright enjoyable, upbeat, powerful, well - danceable - music on this album that it’s equally perfect for playing at your own well-fuelled gatherings to recreate Ezra’s party scene - or to just listen in its entirety, to let the whole disc flow over you and shape a happy mood.
When I pick up this record, I don’t want to just play a five-minute blast of Ezra, I want to hear the whole organic entity, it’s a disservice to scroll a track here and there but then, I’m not a Gen X boy!
A friend commented that this album brought a realisation that, as an ‘old school’ music fan with a serious audio set-up and wall-to-wall LP shelves, that he must distance himself from the incipient modern 20-seconds’ Tik-Tok musical sampling habits that digital access points encourage; they negatively affect concentration for listening properly and getting fully ‘inside’ the music.
I immediately identified with his sentiments; not difficult as I’m 20 years older than him - and also steeped in the pleasure of owning records and listening to complete sides or LPs / CDs! Is it snobbery, maturity, or senility that directs us to fully absorb someone’s musical creation that way? I’d prefer to tag our attitude as ‘respect’ and ‘sustained attention’ - to spend however long it takes to understand, appreciate and enjoy what the artist or group intends, and wants to share with us.
The closing pieces, ‘Have Patience - Everybody’ unfold as a layered repetitive and celebratory motif, building organically. The crowd have been uplifted; they have danced their troubles away.
In the sleeve notes, Femi comments that the track was inspired by an episode from the Steve McQueen TV drama ‘Small Axe’, which catalogued racist London in the early 1980s. Femi recalled a memorable scene of a house party in New Cross, January 1981. The gathering of the black community was immersed in sound-system dub grooves to dance as one, to forget the repressive racial tensions apparent.
The claustrophobic darkened party room in McQueen’s drama generated a deep liberating vibe, as the bass-heavy music roared out. Femi wished to crystallise the memory of that revel, those fleeting moments of joy and togetherness.
The closing moments find the final track cascading into a reflective, piano-led conclusion, as if letting the crowd down gently now the show has come to an end…when silence descends, you can almost feel the crowd, still glowing from what Femi describes as a spiritual moment, after which they must filter out of the club, squinting at daylight’s bright dawn.
The party had finished, it’s back to the world. The music had portrayed a heavenly arrival in the realm of dance, that’s his meaning - members of the gathering being ‘lit up’ and re-energised by their experience.
Hear this whole album if you can, listen, enjoy, dance - and repeat. That’s what Ezra hope you will do; come along to the party, be yourself, realise that you’re free… because no-one’s watching.