Bridging the gap: Re-rendering jazz practice in London's displaced diasporas

From Ken “Snakehips” Johnson’s West Indian Dance Orchestra trailblazing work in the 1940s through intersections between jazz and drum ‘n’ bass in the 1990s, to today’s intermingling with grime and UK rave, syncretism between the jazz tradition and a specifically London multiculture displays the localized ways in which jazz is re-rendered in the capital. This essay will explore jazz’s incubation within distinct spaces (both formal and informal). Through ethnographic interview, analysis of recordings, and investigation of municipal financing, it will show how cross-pollination across multiple genres has resulted in a fluid diasporic reinvention of jazz that is both locally signaling yet globally resonant.