PARTY SEASON
25-28 AUG
WE OUT HERE Taking place at the same site as Secret Garden Party in Abbots Ripton, We Out Here offers a genre-spanning, four-day celebration of jazz, soul, hip-hop, house, afro and electronica. Among this year’s acts is Emma-Jean Thackray – who has been lauded as one of the UK’s freshest jazz talents. Winner of multiple awards, a Mobo-nominee and hotly tipped by Jools Holland, her musical roots stretch far back. “Hearing my family singing along to stuff and seeing the joy that it brings people – that’s what captured my imagination,” she says. “My mum liked a lot of 80s soul, my dad is into pop-rock and my granddad is obsessed with Santana,” Emma-Jean continues. “He’s got 20 different Santana T-shirts that he wears every day.” Emma-Jean’s musical influences are multifarious. “Brass is such a ubiquitous sound in Yorkshire,” she explains. “The community feel that it brings has been something I’ve taken forward throughout my musical life.” Channelling John Coltrane and her Daoist beliefs, her music is spiritually slanted. “If you want to bring meaning to stuff that you’re doing, it has to be about something you believe in authentically. Tomorrow, I could make a techno record, the day after I could make free jazz. Both are just as much me.” The positivity of Daoism has seeped into her music. “I hope I can bring people along in a positive way. That would be the ideal world, if we were all aware of our universal oneness – but then again, on paper, I probably look like a bit of a hippie.” A multitalented performer, Emma-Jean leaps between playing instruments (among them cornet, trumpet and piano), producing and band-leading. “All these different hats are coming from the same place: I have an idea in my head of a song, the colours are there – I just need to make it happen,” she says. “If I ever have to do the same thing, my attention span starts to wane. “If you’re always waiting for a muse, that can be naive,” Emma-Jean adds. “You need to have the stuff in your toolkit to develop ideas. I can wake up in the night with a song in my head, like you see in films; sometimes it’s a lot of graft.” Looking forward to the full return of live performance, Emma-Jean has taken to the stage at all We Out Here festivals to date. “It’s got this intimate feeling. It’s very much about the music, which not a lot of festivals are.” Expect the unexpected: “Improvisation is where the jazz is: the language that you have, the way that you’re listening to each other, the way you’re responding – that’s jazz. It has to be in real time.”
10-12 JUNE
Cambridge Club Festival
For Corinne Bailey Rae, who performs at this year’s Cambridge Club, lockdown – returning home to Leeds after a spell touring the world – was strange to say the least. “Music is about being inspired in front of an audience, fed by the reaction of people. I’m not the sort of artist that will work on their own. I like to be around people and other musicians,” she says. Hopping across continents with her four- year-old daughter, she performed in Japan, South Africa, South America and the US. “It was weird to have a couple of years where that didn’t define me.” Taking a slice from psychedelia, she says: “As my career’s unfolded, I’ve felt more freedom to express the music that I love. I came from a background in indie guitars with the band Helen. Playing my first record, it was almost the opposite – I was used to shouting over guitars and it was amazing to play with a more conversational, gentle style.” On the comeback of 2000s music, the era when her single Put Your Records On became a smash hit, she says: “The vibe was emotional, all about deep feelings. Sometimes you go through phases where everything’s more cool, distant and even medicated. I can see why people want to go back to that era. I’m all about thinking about music in a non-linear way.” Performing at Cambridge Club Festival, she is expecting to be invigorated: “At a festival, you spin the wheel. I quite enjoy that energy, because I like to try and win people over.” She will be joined by iconic acts including Diana Ross, Nile Rodgers and Chic, The Jacksons and TLC, while other festival highlights are sure to include talks and stand-up in the Auditorium of Intrigue, as well as family fun ranging from den making to dodgeball! Both day tickets and weekend tickets are available for the event, which runs from 10 to 12 June at Childerley Orchard.
30 MAY 2022 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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