With a Mercury nomination and BBC awards last
year, London collective F-ire is the new face of British jazz, writes
Stuart Nicholson.
If they've not already done so, then the musicians who make up London's
F-ire Collective can look back on 2005 and give themselves a pat on the
back. In terms of the UK jazz scene, it was their year. The British press
picked up on the popularity of their London concerts and began running
features about a "new movement in British jazz". Even the UK's
biggest circulation broadsheet, the conservative Daily Telegraph, ran
a feature on "how jazz got hot again", saluting the F-ire Collective
as "saviours of the British sound".
Two groups from the collective made the rock press - publications not
normally given to singing the praises of jazz - sit up and take notice.
Polar Bear was shortlisted for a Mercury Prize and Acoustic
Ladyland turned up on Jools Holland's BBC TV show, Later. "The F-ire
Collective became a media phenomenon," says singer and collective
member Julia Beal. "That's why it seemed to be a breakthrough year
for the 'brand' of F-ire Collective, linking everybody together and giving
everybody a context from which they can emerge."
At the 2005 BBC Jazz Awards, a key member of the collective, drummer Seb
Rochford, won the Rising Star Award and Acoustic Ladyland was voted Best
Band. There were F-ire Collective features on BBC Radio and BBC TV's prestigious
The Culture Show, and in the autumn, 14 members of the collective mounted
a seven-date UK tour. They were amazed at the thousands of fans who turned
out to see them.
"My young niece and her friends live in the north of England and
have heard of the F-ire Collective, and that really amazes me!" says
guitarist and collective member Jonny Phillips. "I said: 'You're
so
young, you're not meant to know about jazz!' But it's great, it's reaching
all kinds of people."
The music to be found under the F-ire umbrella is not confined to any
single style. The group's leader, alto saxophonist, percussionist and
educator, Barak Schmool, speaks of how the collective put their music
into the community and the community into their music. "You can go
to a gig by F-ire and it's going to be as varied as London itself. As
soon as I walk out of the door I'm interacting with all sorts of life,
and inevitably your art in a big city is going to be touched by all this."
Saxophonist Pete Wareham, for example, who leads Acoustic Ladyland, speaks
of how London life, "like listening to The Clash or Madness",
has helped shape how his band sounds.
The F-ire Collective has a fresh, open-minded approach to music that flagrantly
disregards jazz orthodoxy, forging alliances with classical music, world
sounds, electronics and punk rock. The
musicians may play under rock band names such as Polar Bear, Acoustic
Ladyland and Panacea, but they are united by their willingness to adopt
new ideas and they share an intent to move jazz
forward with the times.
Not many people had heard about the F-ire Collective until 2004's BBC
Jazz Awards, when some 15 of its members stepped into the spotlight at
London's Hammersmith Palais to receive the award for
innovation. After Barak Schmool had accepted the award on behalf of everyone,
he made a short speech where he emphasised the "collective effort".
It's something he has passionately believed in since New Year's Day 1995,
when the collective held its first meeting in his bedroom.
Schmool says the idea of the collective approach to music-making came
from his own direct experiences around the Loose Tubes generation of British
jazz musicians, centred around Django Bates. He was also inspired by European
collectives such as the scene in Brussels around AKA Moon and Octum and
the recently disbanded Hask in Paris.
However, the F-ire Collective was far from an overnight phenomenon. For
several years it did not even have a name, as pianist and collective member
Robert Mitchell points out: "It was a long time
before the conversations ended up turning into what F-ire has become and
where it wants to go. It wasn't until four years ago a pooling of information
was begun; it lead to the idea of a record label,
workshops, and websites. It seems ridiculous now how quickly things have
happened since then. We only decided to call ourselves F-ire Collective
about the same time!"
For collective member and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrook, this self-help
approach is vital in developing a different approach to writing and performing
music. "I think if you throw a bunch of creative
people together, they don't need massive resources to create because are
all willing to help each other out and rehearse together and try things
out." It's a view echoed by Julia Biel: "You can call upon people
in times of need - 'Do you fancy coming around to see what you can do
on this tune?' Or, 'Do you fancy trying a string arrangement on this?'
Or, 'So-and-so wants you to write a few words for their tune'. So there's
a kind of network like a family. . ."
In just 18 months, the impact of the F-ire Collective on the British jazz
scene has been enormous. "I think it has definitely affected it in
a good way," says Laubrook. "I think it creates a completely
different audience, I really think so - it has changed the scene massively.
The jazz scene, even the younger jazz scene, has been down on itself in
a way, and I think that is something F-ire has
changed. I went to an Acoustic Ladyland gig recently and it was packed
with young people. I don't mind if there's young or old people at a gig,
but it is good that there's a different scene emerging, a new crowd that
joins in, and in that sense it really has changed."
