Signed to Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings, favourable reviews and a super solid live reputation: of all the pearls produced by the bustling London jazz scene in recent years, Maisha is definitely one of the shiniest. The six-headed formation is playing BIRD on 22 February!

Like so many of the most exciting contemporary British jazz bands, Maisha was born from a series of jam sessions. Drummer and bandleader Jake Long brought together musicians he worked with in the past, until a completely new formation practically came together on its own. One of these musicians is tenor sax player Nubya Garcia, who is known as the jazz promise of today, and who already blew us away with her own live band in BIRD last November.

Spiritual jazz is the basis of Maisha’s sound. Influences of the greats of the genre – artists like John and Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders – are therefore never far away in the band’s repertoire. Yet their acclaimed debut record There Is A Place is everything but a repeat of what has been done before. As The Guardian summed it up: “This is above all a celebration of young, eclectic Britain.”

“This is above all a celebration of young, eclectic Britain.”