With a Mercury nomination and BBC awards last year, London collective F-ire is the new face of British jazz, writes Stuart Nicholson.
If they've not already done so, then the musicians who make up London's F-ire Collective can look back on 2005 and give themselves a pat on the back. In terms of the UK jazz scene, it was their year. The British press picked up on the popularity of their London concerts and began running features about a "new movement in British jazz".
Even the UK's biggest circulation broadsheet, the conservative Daily Telegraph, ran a feature on "how jazz got hot again", saluting the F-ire Collective as "saviours of the British sound".
Two groups from the collective made the rock press - publications not normally given to singing the praises of jazz - sit up and take notice. Polar Bear was shortlisted for a Mercury Prize and Acoustic Ladyland turned up on Jools Holland's BBC TV show, Later.
"The F-ire Collective became a media phenomenon," says singer and collective member Julia Beal. "That's why it seemed to be a breakthrough year for the 'brand' of F-ire Collective, linking everybody together and giving everybody a context from which they can emerge."
At the 2005 BBC Jazz Awards, a key member of the collective, drummer Seb Rochford, won the Rising Star Award and Acoustic Ladyland was voted Best Band. There were F-ire Collective features on BBC Radio and BBC TV's prestigious The Culture Show, and in the autumn, 14 members of the collective mounted a seven-date UK tour. They were amazed at the thousands of fans who turned out to see them.
"My young niece and her friends live in the north of England and have heard of the F-ire Collective, and that really amazes me!" says guitarist and collective member Jonny Phillips. "I said: 'You're so young, you're not meant to know about jazz!' But it's great, it's reaching all kinds of people."
The music to be found under the F-ire umbrella is not confined to any single style. The group's leader, alto saxophonist, percussionist and educator, Barak Schmool, speaks of how the collective put their music into the community and the community into their music. "You can go to a gig by F-ire and it's going to be as varied as London itself. As soon as I walk out of the door I'm interacting with all sorts of life, and inevitably your art in a big city is going to be touched by all this."
Saxophonist Pete Wareham, for example, who leads Acoustic Ladyland, speaks of how London life, "like listening to The Clash or Madness", has helped shape how his band sounds.
The F-ire Collective has a fresh, open-minded approach to music that flagrantly disregards jazz orthodoxy, forging alliances with classical music, world sounds, electronics and punk rock. The musicians may play under rock band names such as Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland and Panacea, but they are united by their willingness to adopt new ideas and they share an intent to move jazz forward with the times.
Not many people had heard about the F-ire Collective until 2004's BBC Jazz Awards, when some 15 of its members stepped into the spotlight at London's Hammersmith Palais to receive the award for innovation. After Barak Schmool had accepted the award on behalf of everyone, he made a short speech where he emphasised the "collective effort". It's something he has passionately believed in since New Year's Day 1995, when the collective held its first meeting in his bedroom.
Schmool says the idea of the collective approach to music-making came from his own direct experiences around the Loose Tubes generation of British jazz musicians, centred around Django Bates. He was also inspired by European collectives such as the scene in Brussels around AKA Moon and Octum and the recently disbanded Hask in Paris.
However, the F-ire Collective was far from an overnight phenomenon. For several years it did not even have a name, as pianist and collective member Robert Mitchell points out: "It was a long time before the conversations ended up turning into what F-ire has become and where it wants to go. It wasn't until four years ago a pooling of information was begun; it lead to the idea of a record label, workshops, and websites. It seems ridiculous now how quickly things have happened since then. We only decided to call ourselves F-ire Collective about the same time!"
For collective member and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrook, this self-help approach is vital in developing a different approach to writing and performing music. "I think if you throw a bunch of creative people together, they don't need massive resources to create because are all willing to help each other out and rehearse together and try things out." It's a view echoed by Julia Beal: "You can call upon people in times of need - 'Do you fancy coming around to see what you can do on this tune?' Or, 'Do you fancy trying a string arrangement on this?' Or, 'So-and-so wants you to write a few words for their tune'. So there's a kind of network like a family. . ."
In just 18 months, the impact of the F-ire Collective on the British jazz scene has been enormous. "I think it has definitely affected it in a good way," says Laubrook. "I think it creates a completely different audience, I really think so - it has changed the scene massively. The jazz scene, even the younger jazz scene, has been down on itself in a way, and I think that is something F-ire has changed. I went to an Acoustic Ladyland gig recently and it was packed with young people. I don't mind if there's young or old people at a gig, but it is good that there's a different scene emerging, a new crowd that joins in, and in that sense it really has changed."
F-ire Works: Volume 2, a two-CD compilation, is available from www.f-ire.com