We’ve said it before, here actually, that the label ‘experimental’ or even ‘contemporary’ shoved and stuck tight before the genre of jazz can be an instant turn off for those who like their music a little more straightforward.
In the case of Emma-Jean Thackray it has helped thrust her to the top of myriad must-see lists.
Yellow is not a record that sits still, as ideas and directions cannon of each other like marbles in a blender, which, if we are to be honest, may well be a sample on here somewhere. There’s hints of George Clinton and Brian Wilson to be discovered after many listens in the likes of ‘Green Funk’ and ‘Say Something’, while opening and closing with ‘Mercury’ and ‘Mercury (In Retrograde)’ hint at far more psychedelic adventures.
There are freak-outs, group chants, P-funk spits and mellowing R&B here and cosmic cues in titles such as Venus and Sun.
Nestling in, in a space not a million universes from 4Hero, Nuyorican Soul or Jazzanovaa, Thackray’s signature sound is hard to pin down. Yes, there are elements of the jazz classics. There are touches of Atlantic, Blue Note and Impulse, but Yellow comes from the now-times and would not glance back at the past; were it not for the fact that we (that’s reviewers) keep writing about it.
Thackray will not be for everyone, I know that. There’ll be more people tutting than stroking beards, but as far as young musicians (composers) branching out and expressing themselves, there are few better examples than this.
Yellow is out now on Movementt.
