# One to watch: Emma-Jean Thackray: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2021/07/08/one-to-watch-emma-jean-thackray-video/
- Published: 2021-07-08T00:20:07+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The Yorkshire-born trumpeter, producer, singer, bandleader, DJ and more is a crossover
star in the making.**

In the ever-bright constellation of UK jazz players, Emma-Jean Thackray is a supernova.
She’s not only a trumpeter but a singer, bandleader, beat-maker, radio host, DJ 
and now a label head, with her own imprint via Warp Records. That she’s called it
Movementt is telling: Thackray’s compositions are of a spiritual and 70s jazz-fusion
persuasion, and yet they are often aimed at the dancefloor – nourishing late-night
heaters that bring the restless freneticism of broken beat and house into the fray.“
Everything I release is based around the mantra ‘music to move the mind, move the
body, move the soul’,” she has said.

Thackray is Yorkshire-born, and started off playing cornet in a brass band before
switching to jazz trumpet aged 14, which she eventually studied at the Royal Welsh
College of Music and Drama. Around this time she got into the hip-hop instrumentals
of Madlib and J Dilla, alongside hard-bop and classical, and then relocated to London
for a masters at Trinity Laban. She hasn’t lost her brass band roots, however: Thackray
tends to layer her trumpet with horns such as the flugel and trombone, while on 
new single Say Something, the tuba’s low parp has a starring role.

During her cool, assured performance of that track on a recent Later… With Jools
Holland, as Thackray laser-eyed the camera to deliver the chorus of “don’t just 
speak/ say something”, it’s clear that she has the makings of a crossover star such
as Kae Tempest. And she has an important message too. Debut album Yellow is a sunburst
of stoner jazz (“smells like biscuits and weed”, sings Thackray on Golden Green),
Roy Ayers soul, funk, serene strings, and even chanting and windchimes, as she encourages
unity (Our People), harmony (May There Be Peace) and hope (Sun). It burns bright–
just in time for summer 2021.

![‘Has the makings of a crossover star’: Emma-Jean Thackray.](https://i0.wp.com/
i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2ebd5b65c455c043289cedff3e20df9772a92d51/0_45_2160_1297/master/
2160.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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