Ezra Collective
An Extraordinary Journey
by Howard Lawes
The evening of the 18th April saw a gig at the Colour Factory in Hackney Wick, London. On the face of it this is nothing unusual, but this gig was an emotional and joyous celebration of the10th anniversary of the release of a debut recording, Chapter 7, by a remarkable band called Ezra Collective.
The journey started when the Koleoso brothers, Femi on drums and TJ on bass participated in the services at their local Jubilee Church in north London where music was an important and integral part of worship. Music was also part of their education at both primary and secondary schools. Femi’s talent for drumming was obvious, and he received further tuition from Tim Giles while at Enfield Grammar School. His early influences included the Nigerian musician, Fela Kuti, the Jamaican singer, Bob Marley and the American gospel singer Kirk Franklin.
While still at school Femi joined the youth music charity, Kinetico Bloco and the talent development organisation, Tomorrow’s Warriors . Both these organisations have been hugely supportive of Femi Koleoso and the other members of Ezra Collective and Femi paid tribute to them and others with a speech at the Colour Factory gig.
The PRS Foundation, the UK’s leading charitable funder of new music and talent development published a case study celebrating their own 25th anniversary that highlights both the awards that Ezra Collective have won and the various organisations and funding that has helped them on their journey (here).
Ezra Collective started life with Femi Koleoso (drums) and TJ Koleoso (electric bass), together with James Mollison (tenor saxophone), Joe Armon-Jones (keyboards) and Dylan Jones (trumpet). Jones has since been replaced by Ife Ogunjobi. The members of Ezra Collective met at the Tomorrow’s Warriors jazz programme run by Gary Crosby and Janine Irons. Their name is a reference to the Biblical prophet Ezra and his practice of studying the works of those who came before him, which translates very well into jazz, an artform in which its practitioners have always shown great respect for their predecessors.
In 2012 Ezra Collective won a competition to support trumpeter Terence Blanchard at Ronnie Scott’s legendary jazz club, then, In 2013, after winning the prize for Best Jazz Ensemble at the Music for Youth National Festival, they made their Royal Albert Hall debut at the Music for Youth School Proms in November playing 'Shade of Scarlet' by Femi Koleoso.
By 2014 the band were supporting Jazz Jamaica at the Imperial Wharf Jazz Festival and later the same year they featured in a Tomorrow’s Warriors Showcase at the Watermill Jazz Club and played a set at the Queen Elizabeth Hall during the London Jazz Festival. Another organisation that has played a large part in Ezra Collective’s success is Jazz Refreshed and in 2015 the band featured in their Jazz ReFest festival at London’s Southbank Centre. It seemed like suddenly, young people in London were into jazz and alongside Ezra Collective other artists from Tomorrow’s Warriors like Nérija, Binker and Moses, Zara McFarlane, Camilla George, Shabaka Hutchings were clamouring for attention.
In 2016 Ezra Collective debuted at the Love Supreme Festival which is considered by many as a breakthrough moment in their career, then in 2017 they were nominated for 'Newcomers of the Year' at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards but lost out to Nérija. However, their new album, Juan Pablo: The Philosopher (2017) won 'Best Jazz Album' at Giles Petersen’s Worldwide Awards. In an interview with Thomas Rees published in Jazzwise magazine (June 2018) Femi Koleoso talked about the album challenging perceptions, age and experience versus youth and innovation.
Here they are playing The Philosopher from the album live in Utrecht with Femi Koleoso (drums); TJ Koleoso (bass);
Joe Armon Jones (keys); Dylan Jones (trumpet) and James Mollison (saxophone):
In 2018 Gilles Petersen produced a landmark compilation album called We Out Here (2018), directed by Shabaka Hutchings, which showcased the wealth of young talent blending jazz with Afrobeat, grime and hip-hop and fuelling a vibrant London jazz scene. Apart from Ezra Collective, the album featured Maisha, Moses Boyd, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, Triforce, Joe Armon-Jones and Kokoroko. The success of the album spawned Petersen’s first UK festival in 2019 using the same name - 'We Out Here'. With funding from the PRS Foundation Fund, Jazz ReFreshed featured Ezra Collective in their Outernational Showcase at the 2018 SWSX Conference in Austin, Texas, and in 2019 they paid a return visit. At the Jazz FM Awards the band were worthy winners of both the Best Jazz Act and Best Live Experience awards.
Early 2019 saw Ezra Collective in New York for the Winter Jazz Fest. The 'British Jazz Introducing' showcase, part funded by BBC Music and the PRS Foundation, was hosted by Gilles Petersen. The Collective released their first full album called You Can't Steal My Joy in 2019. It was described by Ammar Kalia in the Guardian as “a joyous listen, which will only be enhanced on their forthcoming tour, and a confident assertion of Ezra Collective breaking out of the once-restrictive jazz enclave”. This prediction was amply justified by Ezra Collective’s performance on the West Holts Stage at the Glastonbury Festival that was hosting jazz for the first time. Despite their busy lives, members of Ezra Collective continued to support friends from Tomorrow’s Warriors with Joe Armon-Jones appearing with Cassie Kinoshi’s SEED Ensemble and Femi Koleoso drumming with pianist Sarah Tandy’s band and featuring on her album Infection In The Sentence (2019). Sarah Tandy, who is a classically trained pianist later paid tribute to Femi for teaching her about rhythm and dance.
Here is Ezra Collective at Glastonbury in 2019:
The band won 'Ensemble of the Year' at the 2020 Jazz FM Awards and during the year Dylan Jones was replaced by another trumpeter, Ife Ogunjobi. Despite the ravages of Covid there were more festivals both in the UK and abroad although a planned international tour for the band was eventually shelved. Legendary record labels Decca Records and Blue Note joined forces to release Blue Note Re: imagined (2020); a brand-new collection of classic Blue Note tracks, reworked and newly recorded by a selection of the UK scene’s most exciting young talents. Ezra Collective took the opportunity to record the Wayne Shorter classic, Footprints, which was the first ever tune the band played together back in 2012.
During the pandemic years there was understandably somewhat less live music but in 2022 there were some notable appearances at The Cheltenham Festival, Love Supreme, the Crystal Palace Bowl supporting Kamasi Washington and then a remarkable set of three shows on the same evening at Ronnie Scott’s club launching their new album, Where I'm Meant To Be (2022). As reported in the Guardian, all three shows were different, all were packed out and the normal grey-haired audience was replaced by healthy fine heads of hair and an energy that swirled like a vortex. In November they won the MOBO award for 'Best Jazz Act'.
In 2023 Ezra Collective were finally allowed to take their unique brand of music fusing afrobeat, calypso, reggae, hip-hop, soul and jazz on a world tour, playing to sold out stadiums on five continents and as if to emphasise their huge popularity they became the first jazz band to win the Mercury Music Prize for Where I'm Meant To Be.
Here they are playing Victory Dance from the album at the Mercury Awards:
During the Swing Era, big bands played great music to dance to in massive ballrooms, and it is only in more recent times that jazz moved into smaller venues and night clubs where virtuoso musicians perform to audiences who are seated. One of Ezra Collective’s major achievements is to make dancing to jazz cool again and to celebrate this their next album was called Dance No One’s Watching (2024) which included the standout track, God Gave Me Feet for Dancing, featuring Yazmin Lacey. 2024 also saw the band again win the MOBO award for Best Jazz Act and they also become the first jazz act to headline at the OVO Wembley Arena, a long-held ambition for Femi and TJ. At the end of the year Ife Ogunjobi won the Best Newcomer Award at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.
Ezra Collective with Yazmin and God Gave Me Feet For Dancing was also featured on the BBC's popular Strictly Come Dancing programme:
2025 brought even more awards with Ezra Collective winning the prestigious Group of the Year Award at the Brit Awards, the first ever jazz act to do so. Their album, Dance No One’s Watching was also nominated for Best Album. Femi Koleoso delivered a passionate, acceptance speech in which he highlighted the transformative power of music education for young people and the role that so many teachers, mentors, funders, friends and relatives have played in Ezra Collective’s success. The band went on to deliver a standout performance, that featured R&B singer Jorja Smith with who Femi Koleoso collaborated for several years and thirty young musicians from Kinetico Bloco, the youth and music organisation that Femi joined in 2011. The Jazz FM Awards brought another win for Best Album.
Their most recent awards are for the band’s Outstanding Contribution to Jazz at the 2026 Jazz FM Awards and Best Jazz Act at the 30th Anniversary MOBO awards in Manchester. Many more fans will have the opportunity to confirm that the band is worthy of these accolades at festivals in the UK and Europe in the coming months, which will include a triumphant return to the Love Supreme Jazz Festival where they are topping the bill. Later in the year they are appearing at the Los Angeles Jazz Festival and then travelling to Australia.
One endearing characteristic of the members of Ezra Collective is their relaxed and obvious enjoyment of everything they do. Another is their gratitude, exemplified by Femi Koleoso’s speeches in which he pays tribute to all the many people and organisations that the band have been, and continue to be involved with. And, as if to emphasise the contribution organisations like Tomorrow’s Warriors have made to the UK jazz scene the band were joined on stage at the Chapter 7 anniversary concert by Zara McFarlane, Tobi Adenaike, Nubya Garcia, Theon Cross, Moses Boyd and Shabaka Hutchings; a glittering array of today's young stars of jazz.
In addition to these expressions of gratitude the band have also involved themselves in charitable work. The Ezra Collective Foundation has been formed to aid young people, specifically young, black women, who are looking to make a career in the music industry. Band members also work directly with young people, Femi Koleoso volunteers at the Jubilee Youth Club in Enfield, North London and has also become co-chair and a board member of Kinetico Bloco. He said on his appointment “Beyond playing on big stages and releasing records, I think my deepest passion lies in seeing young people have the opportunities that I’ve had in the world of music”.
It is not an overstatement to measure Ezra Collective’s achievements as truly phenomenal. In a Jazzwise article by Thomas Rees (July 2025) Gary Crosby says “Ezra Collective have possibly influenced more young people to take up instruments than anybody else at the present moment”. It is no surprise that Ezra Collective look pleased with themselves, they have every right to be, and long may their journey continue.
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2026.6