Pick from the UK
Five windows light the cavern’d Man; thro’ one he breathes the air;
Thro’ one, hears music of the spheres; thro’ one, the eternal vine
Flourishes, that he may receive the grapes; thro’ one can look.
And see small portions of the eternal world that ever groweth;
Thro’ one, himself pass out what time he please, but he will not;
For stolen joys are sweet, and bread eaten in secret pleasant.
William Blake from Europe: A Prophecy (1794)I chose this poem because William Blake is the greatest poet of London, past and eternally present, and many of the acts in the list below operate on the London scene. Some even pay overt tribute to the heaving metropolis. For instance in the list below Trish Clowes on Try Me has celebrated a walk along the river in one of the albums selected.
Finchley brewpub the Bohemia, pictured, puts on jazz gigs regularly – one of a range of fine venues who choose to put on well curated jazz month in month out.
English jazz dominates so far in 2026. In the list below I pick out the best recordings I have come across so far and reviewed. It’s mainly jazz out of England this year.
What about Wales and Scotland…
I haven’t come across any jazz from Wales or Scotland that I have really liked enough to be in the top 10 although I would suggest bubbling under and definitely high calibre too dear reader you investigate Neath Beat by the never understridingly phenomenal Welshman Joe Webb and Stramash II liltingly modal by trumpet wiz the flying Scot, Colin Steele.
… And Northern Ireland?
But even more interestingly and a brand new name, I am very much taken by the EP Before Dusk and Dawn from newcomer pianist Zak Irvine. Let’s hope there’s a full album in the future from him before too long. BD&D is clearly the best recording to come out of not just this part of the UK but from the whole island of Ireland so far this year even though it is too slim to be counted as a full album. I’d pick the first 3 tracks as the key portions of the EP to zone in on.
The young County Down pianist is clearly going places fast. Hear him on tour this autumn. His Robert Glasper-esque approach shadowed closely by tightly arranged horns soaked in close harmony and injecting a fleshed out sound that scales up reflects a tradition in transition mindful of the “Blue Note” heritage of this great music but an attitude that is intent not to preserve it in aspic.
So to the list at this halfway point of the year. All the albums selected are studio albums.
Hopefully a top live album will come along to add to the list next time I update it – possibly Zoe Rahman’s “to Hull and back” paean recorded in Dalston will be that one. Let’s see. It’s tasty and best candidate.
Rules of engagement to prevent cavilling and confusion: includes albums with at least one leader who hails from the UK.
As any fule kno jazz is hugely international and so often bands are international.
Past perfect – it’s not like UK jazz has suddenly wakened up and become good: I genuflect to Blake too in ‘The Garden of Love’ a fabulously experimental prog & free-jazz flavoured setting of William Blake’s poem, composed by David Bedford and performed in 1970.
The “cavern’d Man” represents a person trapped inside the physical body and the material world and uses sensory perception to catch only brief, limited glimpses of a larger, infinite reality. To make a link and explain my thinking then in this case one of these senses music specifically jazz is a means to see the world in a better, more perceptive way inspired by its rites and rituals.
It’s not an escape from the world, more a vision and insight into both its joys and its sadnesses instead.
TOP JAZZ IN 26: HOME PRODUCT – AND THE THEME SO FAR IS LONDON PRIDE
London Pride is a flower that’s free – Noël Coward
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