Eight soloists, an orchestral tribute to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and a Prince medley – Jazz Voice is a busy night of music. But I never regret going to this gala, which inaugurates each iteration of the annual London Jazz Festival. What it may lack in cohesion, it certainly provides in stylistic variety. I always leave Jazz Voice with a few new discoveries, a few names to look-up on Spotify. This year’s concert was my first introduction to the booming baritone of Marvin Muoneké, sublime on ‘Blame It On My Youth’. I was impressed also with Emma Smith, a finalist in the 2024 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition (which unearthed Deelee Dube and Samara Joy), who gave the big band theatrics of the evening on ‘Great Day’ and the spectacularly chosen ‘The Curtain Falls’. Some of the line-up I was already familiar with, including Nigerian Scot soul singer James Emmanuel who roared through Bobby Bland’s ‘Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City’. I enjoyed Laura Mvula‘s first set performance of her original ‘Kiss My Feet’, but was underwhelmed by her second set closer, David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ – wrong song, wrong crowd. And then there was Lizz Wright, who gave nothing short of a masterclass on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and a piano-driven ‘The Nearness of You’.
