Unapologetic Expression The Inside Story of the UK Jazz Explosionby André Marmot

Drawing upon 80+ interviews – from Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia and Moses Boyd to Gilles Peterson, Courtney Pine and Cleveland Watkiss – Unapologetic Expression captures the radical spirit of new British jazz.

A lively, subversive history of the new UK jazz wave, encapsulating its revolutionary spirit and tracing its foundations to the birth of the genre itself.

For many in the nineties, jazz was viewed as an obsolete, uncool music, a genre loved by out of touch white men with deeply questionable taste. And yet, by 2019, a new generation of UK jazz musicians were selling out major venues and appearing on festivals line ups around the world. How has UK jazz regenerated its image so totally in twenty-five years? And how did it ever become uncool in the first place?

Reaching back to the roots of jazz as the ‘unapologetic expression’ of oppressed peoples, shaped by the forces of slavery, imperialism and globalisation, Andre ́ Marmot places this new wave within the wider context of a divided, postcolonial Britain navigating its identity in a new world order. These artists have crafted a sound which reflects the nation as it is today – a sound connected to the very origins of jazz itself.