South London is spoilt for choice when it comes to day festivals. There’s Gala for techno heads, Project 6 for UK rap lovers, and Wide Awake for eccentric rockers. So when legendary Camden venue Jazz Cafe announced they would be curating their first-ever festival in Burgess Park this summer, you wondered where they’d slot into this landscape.
Feelgood, soul-satiating music from across the globe; at its core, you can boil down the Jazz Cafe 2024 offering to something along those lines. Forget the overcast skies and parched September grass. From Qendresa’s lounging bedroom R&B and Buena Vista All Stars’ infectious Afro-Cuban funk to Moonchild Sanelly’s beaming, up-tempo electro-rap experimentalism, each act seems intent on stretching summer out a little longer.
Across its four stages, the festival’s global outlook is clear. In the late afternoon, Buena Vista All Stars turn south London locals into salsa extraordinaires with their warm, groovy Latin jazz. As the sun threatens to poke through the early evening haze, Syrian singer Omar Souleyman, sporting dark shades and a keffiyeh headdress, gets a big reception for his modernised version of the traditional Arabic ‘dabke’ sound. Pacing across the Parkway stage and filming the crowd with a remarkably steady hand, he blends the calm authority of a school headteacher with the cheeky grin of a badly behaved uncle.
In The Dome, a small tent hosted by the collective Trippin which smells like a curious mix of fresh hops, damp clothes, and weed, a selection of high-energy DJs guide crowds through Brazilian favela funk, bass-first amapiano, scatty breaks and old-school pop remixes. Spotlighting a wide range of music from across the African diaspora and beyond, Jazz Cafe’s eclectic line-up reflects the curative approach the north London venue has cultivated over the last 35 years.
The four stages are roughly curated according to genre, with The Plant Room – a fully transparent greenhouse-style building with gaps in the ceiling for circulation – hosting an impressive bill of hip-hop heavyweights. Esteemed producer The Alchemist is followed by New York rapper Roc Marciano, with Californian ex-Odd Future star Earl Sweatshirt headlining.
The problem is, The Plant Room isn’t quite big enough. Placing these huge hip-hop artists in a small tent while Parkway, the festival’s largest stage, is headlined by classical-electronic pianist Nils Frahm, seems illogical. Large crowds spill out of The Plant Room throughout the evening as a result. That being said, slight hiccups in a festival’s first year are inevitable, and generally the day is well organised; it’s lively but not too busy, and queues for food and drink are never outrageous.
Eliza, the chart-storming pop artist-turned-mellow soul singer, lands on the Parkway stage as the night draws in. Wearing an oversized denim jacket and a strangely fascinating hat (think skatepark beanie meets Ebenezer Scrooge’s nightcap), she’s accompanied onstage by two backing singer/dancers who join her for choreographed hand movements, synchronised hip thrusts and general swaying. Her sultry vibe is reaffirmed by soft purple lighting, subtle mist and slightly hippy-ish statements like “by the time we finish, the moon will have come out!”
Sadly, Eliza’s promise isn’t fulfilled, and during the haunting harmonies of her closer ‘Abandon The Rule’, drops of rain start to fall from the dark clouds above. But nonetheless, the desire to eke out the summer and bring a healthy splash of feelgood music to south London – reinforced by countless other artists on the bill – is much appreciated.
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- 2024 Festival
- Buena Vista All Stars
- Earl Sweatshirt
- Eliza
- Global Music
- Hip-Hop
- Jazz Cafe Festival
- London Festivals
- Omar Souleyman
- South London Music
