Last year saw the successful debut of ‘Jazz on Wick’, a cross-genre festival in Hackney Wick which celebrates the new waves of British jazz. The festival made its return last weekend, and I was pleased to see that it still embodies a celebration of fusion and cross-cultural music.

Colour Factory, Orii Community, and Voices Radio, the triumvirate behind the day- event, remain committed to captivating audiences with unconventional line-ups and converging styles.

Violins met with 808s, sitars with saxophones; it was rarer to see a traditional jazz band on stage than it was to see a cutting-edge arrangement. The appearance of a swing band playing Django Reinhardt standards seemed not traditional, but rather a lively ingredient of the melting pot.

There were certainly eyebrows raised this year at the inclusion of grime and UK hip-hop artists, particularly D Double E, one of the architects of grime. Would this be pushing the jazz identity of the festival too far?

When Mancunian hip-hop collective The Mouse Outfit took to the Hackney Bridge Garden stage for the afternoon slot, they quickly made it clear how well hip-hop and jazz co-exist.

Their flawless, lucid rhymes melded easily with jazz chord patterns and improvised solos. Even when they branched off into a reggae sound, the rap was energising in its own right, and as comfortable over relaxed grooves as it was over harder, faster speeds.

D Double E’s collaboration with jazz group Zeñel on the Colour Factory stage provided the climax of the day, and many were keen to see how this headline act would fair in this intriguing grime/jazz mashup. But grime has been a core influence for many in this wave of UK jazz, and so it is unsurprising that this ambitious show proved to be a hit.

D Double E was visibly appreciative of how well the band used fierce, punching saxophone figures and skittering drum beats to not just recreate the grime sound but enliven it. And judging by the way the audience bit into this energy, this largely untapped configuration has an exciting future.

But it was the tried and tested fusion of Latin jazz which brought the biggest cheers. Eliane Correa and her big band were fabulous, and kept jazz at the forefront. The horn section were particularly impressive with their rapid harmonic lines, muscular Latin melodies, and skilful solos.

Correa was a crucial part of the ‘Women in Jazz’ element of this year’s event. Her compositions mostly revolving around ‘how we are fed up with the patriarchy.’

‘Static’, a tune about mansplaining and the white noise that follows, showed just how versatile jazz can be in presenting a message. The jagged, electric phrasing sharply reflecting the static noise, and proving again Correa’s excellence in orchestration.

South London pianist and composer Tara Lily was also given room to showcase her arranging. Not least in her creative reinterpretation of the Miles Davis classic ‘Blue in Green’, planting it with a measured groove and enchanting lyrics.

As a bandleader Lily has a superb sense of dynamics, building each colour of her soundscape carefully, and not allowing any instrument – especially the sitar – to overpower. The players were careful to maintain this, the saxophone solos particularly sensitive to Lily’s whirling, high register vocals.

At Number 90 there was Ego Ella May, one of London’s finest jazz vocalists, who exhibited this same cohesion and sensitivity with her band, overcoming issues with the sound engineering to perform her new album ‘Good Intentions’.

Ego can let her voice emerge so delicately and deftly when given the chance – something I witnessed firsthand when she shared the stage with Theo Croker at Southbank earlier this year – and has such an expressive, full-bodied approach to each word and line of the music.

It was, again, a joy to see ‘Jazz on Wick’ play host to so many elements of the UK’s enviable jazz scene, and prove that the music can morph and flourish among change more than any other.

More info for 2027 at jazzonwick.co.uk