The Yorkshire-born trumpeter, producer,
Singer, bandleader, DJ and more is a crossover star in the making
In the ever-bright constellation of
UK jazz players, Emma-Jean Thackray is a supernova. She’s not only a trumpeter but a singer, bandleader, beat-maker, radio host, DJ and now a label head, with her own imprint via Warp Records. That she’s called it Movementt is telling: Thackray’s compositions are of a spiritual and 70s jazz-fusion persuasion, and yet they are often aimed at the dancefloor – nourishing late-night heaters that bring the restless freneticism of broken beat and house into the fray. “Everything I release is based around the mantra ‘music to move the mind, move the body, move the soul’,” she has said.
Thackray is Yorkshire-born, and started off playing cornet in a brass band before switching to jazz trumpet aged 14, which she eventually studied at the Royal Welsh College of
music and Drama. Around this time she got into the hip-hop instrumentals of Madlib and J Dilla, alongside hard-bop and classical, and then relocated to
London for a masters at Trinity Laban. She hasn’t lost her brass band roots, however: Thackray tends to layer her trumpet with horns such as the flugel and trombone, while on new single Say Something, the tuba’s low parp has a starring role.