While jazz undergoes a facelift thanks to a new generation of London-based musicians who are shunning the genre’s elitist stereotypes and opening it up to more diverse audiences, there is still a notable gender gap among its performers. In an interview with the Guardian in December, guitarist Shirley Tetteh said that, in jazz, “you had to play 10 times harder if you were a woman and wanted to be taken seriously”.
As part of the collective Nérija, Tetteh is joined here by some of the most inventive and prolific players of the new scene. They are also mostly women: Nubya Garcia on tenor saxophone, Sheila Maurice-Grey on trumpet, Cassie Kinoshi on alto sax, Rosie Turton on trombone, Lizy Exell on drums and bassist Rio Kai. Packed on to Oslo’s tiny, velvet-curtained stage the sextet charge through their debut self-titled EP.
Playing with a vitality that blows away any old-school cobwebs, Garcia channels Pharoah Sanders’ reed-breaking intensity on Redamancy, while Tetteh and Exell’s rhythmic interplay comes to the fore on the infectious Pinkham V. Highlights come, though, on the moments of measured intricacy: Kinoshi’s Coltrane-esque solo on The Fisherman, Tetteh’s surf rock solos and Kai’s concrete groove on the new tune Unbound.
Now signed to a major independent label, Domino, Nérija have the feel of a jazz supergroup, with each member leading their own formidable solo projects. Tetteh and her bandmates show that working 10 times harder has paid off; it’s a resilience that will open the door for jazz to finally become as inclusive as it is radical.
