Ezra Collective have spent the better part of a decade turning the London jazz scene into a moving target. The quintet — drummer and bandleader Femi Koleoso, bassist TJ Koleoso, keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, and tenor saxophonist James Mollison — met through Tomorrow's Warriors, the youth programme that has quietly become the most important institution in British jazz since the turn of the decade. What they built from that foundation isn't a revivalist project. It's a band that treats jazz as a passport rather than a border, folding afrobeat, calypso, reggae, hip-hop, and soul into a sound that belongs to London as much as it belongs to any tradition.

The receipts are there. A Mercury Music Prize in 2023. A Brit Award for Group of the Year in 2025 — the first jazz band ever to take that accolade, a fact that still feels like a glitch in the matrix when you say it out loud. And then there's the stranger, sweeter detail: Barack Obama putting "God Gave Me Feet for Dancing" on his year-end list of favourite songs. A jazz quintet from North London, landing in a former president's headphones. That's not luck. That's a band operating at the exact frequency the culture is tuned to.

A Thesis Written in Groove

Here Because of Hope arrives with a title that could read as naive if the band hadn't earned it. Hope, in Ezra Collective's hands, isn't passive optimism. It's a discipline — the decision to keep building when the industry tells you jazz is a niche, to keep dancing when the news is grim, to keep the door open for the community that raised you. The album functions as a kind of thesis statement for everything the group has been circling since their earliest releases: that groove and sophistication aren't opposites, that spiritual jazz can share a bill with Afrobeats, that a horn section can hit like a drum machine.

What's striking about this record is how unbothered it is by genre policing. Ezra Collective have never been interested in proving their jazz bona fides to purists, and here they double down on that indifference. The compositions breathe with the improvisational freedom you'd expect from players steeped in the tradition, but the arrangements are pop-facing in the best sense — hooks that land, basslines that move your hips before your brain catches up, structures that respect a listener's attention span.

Low End with Gravity, Horns with History

Production-wise, Here Because of Hope favours a rich, live-sounding palette. The low end is physical — TJ Koleoso's bass sits deep and round in the mix, giving even the gentler moments a sense of gravity. Armon-Jones's keys provide the harmonic architecture, shifting between Rhodes warmth, synth shimmer, and percussive stabs depending on what the moment demands. The horns — Ogunjobi's trumpet and Mollison's tenor — trade lines with the kind of intuitive ease that only comes from years of shared stages, and Femi Koleoso's drumming remains the band's engine and its conscience, pushing and pulling, never content to simply keep time.

The album's emotional range is broader than its title might suggest. There are moments of full-tilt celebration, tracks built for festival fields and basement parties alike, and there are passages of genuine introspection — the kind of reflective, minor-key beauty that reminds you these musicians came up studying the canon as seriously as they studied the dancefloor. The sequencing matters here; the record ebbs and flows rather than front-loading its bangers, trusting the listener to stay for the whole journey.

The Ecosystem Behind the Trophy

There's a version of this story where Ezra Collective are a novelty — a jazz band that got lucky, a Mercury Prize anomaly, a feel-good headline. That version is wrong. What the group represents is bigger than any single trophy: a London scene that has, over the past decade, produced a generation of musicians who refuse to choose between artistic ambition and popular reach. The collaborators they came up alongside — Nubya Garcia, Moses Boyd, and the wider Tomorrow's Warriors network — are part of the same ecosystem, and Ezra Collective have become its most visible ambassadors.

Here Because of Hope lands at a moment when that visibility carries weight. Jazz is having one of its periodic resurgences, but this one feels different — less nostalgic, more integrated, more reflective of a city where Caribbean, West African, and British cultures have been fusing for generations. Ezra Collective don't just play that fusion; they embody it. The album's title isn't a slogan. It's a description of how they got here, and a promise about where they're going next.

Body:

Ezra Collective 花了接近十年，將倫敦爵士場景變成一個不斷移動的靶心。這支五人組合——鼓手兼領隊 Femi Koleoso、低音結他手 TJ Koleoso、鍵琴手 Joe Armon-Jones、小號手 Ife Ogunjobi，以及次中音薩克斯手 James Mollison——透過 Tomorrow's Warriors 相識，這個青年計劃自十年之交以來，已悄然成為英國爵士界最重要的搖籃。他們從這個根基建立起來的，並非復古工程，而是一支把爵士當作通行證、而非邊界的樂隊，將 afrobeat、calypso、reggae、hip-hop 與 soul 統統摺疊進一種聲音裡——那聲音既屬於倫敦，也屬於任何傳統。

成績表早已寫得清清楚楚。2023 年奪得 Mercury Music Prize；2025 年拿下 Brit Award 最佳組合，成為史上第一支獲此殊榮的爵士樂隊——這件事說出口的時候，仍然像系統出現了 bug 一樣不真實。然後還有一個更奇妙、更甜美的細節：Barack Obama 把〈God Gave Me Feet for Dancing〉放進他的年度最愛歌曲名單。一支來自北倫敦的爵士五重奏，走進了前總統的耳機裡。這不是運氣，這是一支剛剛好調校到文化共振頻率的樂隊。

以律動寫成的宣言

《Here Because of Hope》這個專輯名，如果樂隊沒有先證明自己，大概會讀成一種天真。但在 Ezra Collective 手中，希望從來不是被動的樂觀主義，而是一種紀律——在整個行業告訴你爵士只是小眾的時候，仍然選擇繼續建造；在新聞一片灰暗的時候，仍然選擇繼續跳舞；在成功之後，仍然為養育自己的社群敞開大門。這張唱片像是一份宣言，總結了他們從最早期的作品以來一直在圍繞的主題：律動與精緻並非對立；靈性爵士可以與 Afrobeats 同台；一支銅管組可以像鼓機一樣重擊。

這張專輯最引人注目的地方，是它對類型警察完全不屑一顧。Ezra Collective 從來無意向純粹主義者證明自己的爵士血統，而在這裡，他們更是加倍強調這份不在乎。作曲上，樂手們浸淫傳統多年，即興的自由度自然呼吸其中；但編排上，卻是最好意義下的流行面向——hook 到肉，低音結他在你腦袋反應過來之前已經先移動了你的腰，曲式結構尊重聽眾的專注力。

有重量的低頻，有歷史的銅管

製作方面，《Here Because of Hope》偏好一種飽滿、現場感強烈的音色。低頻是有肉身的——TJ Koleoso 的低音結他在混音中坐得又深又圓，連最柔和的段落都帶著一股重力。Armon-Jones 的鍵盤提供和聲建築，時而 Rhodes 的溫暖、時而合成器的微光、時而敲擊式的短促刺入，視乎當下需要。銅管組——Ogunjobi 的小號與 Mollison 的次中音——彼此交鋒時帶著一種只有多年同台才能養成的直覺從容，而 Femi Koleoso 的鼓擊始終是樂隊的引擎與良知，推拉之間，從不甘於單純地數拍子。

專輯的情感幅度比標題所暗示的更寬。有些時刻是全力以赴的慶典，那些歌既為音樂節草地而設，也為地下室派對而生；也有些段落是真正的內省——那種反思性的、小調的美，提醒你這些音樂人鑽研經典的認真程度，跟他們鑽研舞池的程度一模一樣。曲序在這裡至關重要；唱片起落有致，而非把炸場的歌全部堆在前面，它信任聽眾會留下來走完整趟旅程。

獎座背後的生態系統

這個故事有一個版本，會把 Ezra Collective 寫成奇觀——一支走運的爵士樂隊、一個 Mercury Prize 的異數、一則振奮人心的新聞標題。那個版本是錯的。這支樂隊所代表的，比任何單一獎座都更大：一個在過去十年間，孕育出一整代拒絕在藝術野心與大眾觸及之間二選其一的音樂人的倫敦場景。跟他們一起成長的合作伙伴——Nubya Garcia、Moses Boyd，以及更廣闊的 Tomorrow's Warriors 網絡——都是同一個生態系統的一部分，而 Ezra Collective 已成為它最顯眼的大使。

《Here Because of Hope》降落的時刻，正正是這種可見度帶著重量的時刻。爵士樂正經歷其中一次週期性的復興，但這一次感覺不同——少了懷舊，多了融合，更反映一座加勒比、西非與英國文化已交融了好幾代人的城市。Ezra Collective 不只是演奏那種融合，他們就是融合本身。專輯的標題不是口號，而是一句描述——描述他們如何走到這裡，也是一個承諾，關於他們下一步要去哪裡。