World Heart Beat and Julian Joseph Jazz Academies: Live at 606 Club

I know from personal experience that the 606 Club has a fine history of helping aspiring young musicians. Working alongside local schools and teachers is important to them all and as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival they welcomed two such institutions: World Heart Beat Music Academy and the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy.

With tutors, organisers and even Julian Joseph himself in attendance, students from both organisations presented their programme ‘Together We Go Forward’.

With a long-standing and deep-seated belief that the best way to learn jazz is to listen and play it, without written music getting in the way, playing by ear is clearly vital to these youngsters.

A variety of young musicians opened the afternoon with tunes including Chet Baker’s Not For Me and renditions of After You’ve Gone, the sublime Moonlight on the Ganges and Nobody Else But Me, as performed by Sarah Vaughan. These musicians took to the prestigious 606 stage with some nervousness but equally some of the confidence of youth.

World Heart Beat’s jazz curriculum has brilliant working musicians at its heart, including Tony Kofi and Byron Wallen. The work done in preparing for performing at the 606 was also largely thanks to some outstanding up and coming jazz musicians including Ayo Vincent, Wilf Diamond, and Ava Joseph, who were all on hand to help the set run smoothly.

After a brief interval, students from the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy performed and there is clearly a strong relationship between the two organisations - all helping prepare young people to play music to the best of their abilities. Julian introduced the musicians, alluding to that strong partnership and the benefits it brings to the youngsters.

Slightly older than the musicians from the first set, there was a maturity about the way they all owned the stage and collaborated on tunes like Caravan, Black Jack, If I Should Lose You and Nature Boy.

The entire afternoon was a tribute to the great work going on around London to nurture new musical talent. It is thanks to organisations like World Heat Beat Academy, the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy, venues like the 606 Club and to the EFG London Jazz Festival that young people are being given opportunities to play and learn together.

There is real evidence here that ‘Together We Go Forward’.

You can listen to my Harmonious World episode with 606 Club’s Steve Rubie here and read my review of the Nicole Brancato/Jeremy Weiss performance at World Heart Beat in Battersea here.