Emma-Jean Thackray continues her precocious streak

A lover of God’s Own County’s brass band culture, she learnt trumpet and became part of an unlikely new-golden age of jazz which has blossomed in London and Chicago, incorporating the Windy City’s storied history of house and hip-hop into a new direction for jazz. She was part of the expansive Where We Come From mixtape orchestrated by Chi-town legend Makaya McCraven which brought together key voices from both cities, alongside Kamaal Williams and Sons of Kemet’s tuba pioneer Theon Cross.

This makes Thackray one of those lesser-known names with a track-record to die for; a prodigious talent who plays sublime trumpet, makes beats, DJs and composes; with this year’s Rain Dance EP widening the reach of Thackray’s blend of jazz traditionalism with loose house sampling and dub reggae. Um Yang 음 양 leans into the former style, recorded directly to vinyl with a full band in Haarlem, Holland. There are no edits or overdubs, and six other players make this a long way from her 2018 debut Ley Lines where she played every instrument alone.

The result is a far weightier recording, filled with the crackling energy of live playing. Borne of the same world as Alice Coltrane’s bright and spiritual compositions, A-side “UM 음” starts with shimmering piano keys, lightly pressed drums and Thackray’s own winding trumpet notes. The looseness of this introductory passage is soon shattered by the chiming of a cowbell and the pattering of bongos, and Ben Kelly’s deep sousaphone begins to lay down circular notes, the basis for a groove which comes to define the track, Thackray intoning “all must balance / all must balance” among a hypnotic groove.

The directness of this music is fitting of it’s concept: Thackray inherited Taoism from her father, and Um Yang 음 양 (the Korean for Ying & Yang) possess the philosophy’s interest in balance between melody and rhythm; groove and free improvisation; cacophony and quiet. Indeed the A-side ends in chaos, and B-side “Yang 양” begins in it, but the former opens in spiritual bliss and that’s precisely the destination Thackray leads the second cut, ending as it does with melancholic interplay between Thackray’s brass and Soweto Kinch’s sax. This balance lends the music a completeness, a sign of Thackray’s trademark assuredness which makes it feel like this future star of UK jazz is only warming up.