Northern Line – a thrilling journey into the unknown!

So, another great Jazz Festival over with lots of happy memories of great performers, but I really want to give a big brilliant thanks to the Northern Line bands – New York Brass Band, Unfurl, Dread Supreme and Zoe Gilby Quartet. What incredible talent we have living and working in the North and if you add the amazing 20-piece Abstract Orchestra, who played an absolute storming set at Fruit, plus Chiedu Oraka and Deez Kid, that will bring the total to 48 northern artists who graced our Hull Jazz Festival stage this summer! And all to sell-out audiences too!

Northern Line is the brain child of Jazz North, the development agency founded by J-Night, Jazz Yorkshire and Manchester Jazz Festival to give a platform to the hugely talented young performers that we have living in our region. We want to make sure that they do not have to leave the area to travel down to London, Paris or New York to be appreciated back in their own backyard. It was really rewarding to see our audiences lapping up such diverse and brilliant music – from the New Orleans sounds of a dirty brass band, through to the completely unique, only in Yorkshire Hip Hop Big Band – from Arabian influenced trance through the American songbook and original material of Zoe Gilby and finally the mighty dread ska jazz of Dread Supreme, led by Manchester’s finest Trevor Roots.

At J-Night we love to keep our influences broad and vital. Our audience lap it all up and we are committed to bringing more from Jazz North’s stable of incredibly talented artists. In November we welcome the amazing gypsy jazz violinist (and Hull born to boot!) Matt Holborn who will be joining a line-up that includes our youngest ever band Artephis, a forward-looking contemporary jazz quintet comprising musicians from the Royal Northern College of Music. Since its formation a year ago, Artephis has been distilling influences – including the Miles Davis and Christian Scott Quintets, Robert Glasper, Hiatus Kaiyote and Pat Metheny – refining an eclectic sound of its own that takes a jazz quintet line-up in innovative directions. They were recently announced as the Jazz North Introduces act for 2015-16.

Our Yellow Bus stage at Freedom Festival in September offers the chance to see the Bugalu Foundation, creating the fresh new sound of Barrio Funk and Latin Soul, plus another chance to see the amazing Trevor Roots with Dread Supreme.

We want audiences to be as brave as our artists. Don’t wait to be told by others who you should be watching – take an adventure trip to new musical areas that you may not have imagined existed. You won’t be disappointed!