London’s Jazz Scene Is Burning: Theon Cross’s Fyah
Theon Cross’s new album, Fyah, on Gearbox Records, is a monument to the importance of the London Jazz Scene, and by proxy, that scene’s reliance on Tomorrow’s Warriors. Tomorrow’s Warriors is a musical education program Cross took part in that primarily focuses on youth of the city’s African Diaspora community, bringing them into music instrument by instrument, note by note. On Fyah, Cross delivers a hybrid of jazz influenced by electronic music, funk and reggae. The music is driven by the tuba, an oft over looked instrument, which Cross has mastered and which gives the songs within a fresh coat of innovation.
This is not Cross’s first recording, but it is his first full length as a leader. Counted among London’s ascendant musicians, Cross and his brother Noah both work as sidemen in a host of bands, as do most of Tomorrow’s Warriors graduates. Because of this connective tissue, the sounds of these musicians shifts from genre to genre, often in one song, without losing intent or form. That idiomatic transference is a direct byproduct of the program that supported these players in their youth, as they learned tablature, scales and improvisation.
On Fyah, Cross and company shift from Grime to Brass Band Bounce to Éthiopiques style funk in the space of three quarters of an hour and 8 songs. The vibrancy of these shifts is rarely out of sync with the collection that contains them. That’s primarily because of the collective role that imprinted the players as they collaborated on recordings and live shows, much like New York City’s cooperative jazz scene of the 40s 50s and 60s.
Cross leads the session, with Nubya Garcia on saxophone and Moses Boyd on drums. On several tracks the trio is augmented by a guitarist, another saxophonist, a percussionist and a trombonist. But of the music presented here, it is the dynamism of the original nucleus that best expands the notion of what jazz can be. It sounds easier than it should. Cross’s roots reach deep into the Caribbean. His father is Jamaican and his mother from the island of Saint Lucia. The rhythmic polyphony of that region finds its way organically into his music. Often enough, musical fusion breeds too colloquial a setting to remain fervent, and the weld of genres breaks down. On Fyah, that is…
