Ezra Collective will present live their exceptional album 'You Can't Steal My Joy'

Ezra Collective will present live their exceptional album “You Can’t Steal My Joy“. Jazz five-piece will play tomorrow at Concorde2 in Brighton one of the last shows this year in the UK, before heading to tour the United States of America. The band is touring with material from their debut album “You Can’t Steal My Joy”, which features Jorja Smith, KOKOROKO and Loyle Carner, and looks destined to cement the band’s status as one of the UK’s most exciting groups.

Listen to Ezra Collective at Glastonbury playing live songs from the album ‘You Can’t Steal My Joy’

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7w42A8h16c[/embedyt]

London 5-piece Ezra Collective are proving themselves as a harmonious tour de force. Their sound nods respectfully to a classic jazz footprint, celebrating the originators whilst also carving a path solely their own. They marry the delicate technicalities of jazz with afrobeat & hip hop, tied together by a sound that’s unmistakably London.

The members of Ezra Collective — Femi Koleoso on drums, TJ Koleoso on bass, Joe Armon-Jones on keys, Dylan Jones on trumpet and James Mollison on saxophone — met seven years ago at a jazz youth program called Tomorrow’s Warriors and formed the group soon after.

Ezra Collective’s incredible musicianship and spirited approach to music – which draws on afrobeat, Latin, hip-hop, grime and more – has seen them break out beyond the thriving UK jazz scene. The five friends have already completed a mosh pit-filled and totally sold out UK tour, played at Quincy Jones’ birthday party, and recently toured America for the first time.

Bandleader Femi Koleoso “For me, it’s reflecting the energy of the city. In London, things are changing all the time, and that’s how we feel about the jazz scene at the moment,” Koleoso says. “I realized really young I could never be as great as John Coltrane or Max Roach. I could never be another J Dilla. The only thing I could be was the best Femi Koleoso I could be. And that involves referencing everything I love. Whether it’s Fela Kuti or whether it’s Burna Boy. … Just trying to bring that out as naturally as possible, that’s how we’ve got this mix of genres. We’re kind of not letting the word ‘jazz’ be something that restricts us, but letting it be something that brings freedom.”