Jazz Cafe Festival 2025

Nearly a year on from our glowing endorsement of the Jazz Cafe’s first edition, we returned to see what 2025 would hold. With a perhaps less recognisable line up than the year before, it was set to be a day of delightful discovery.

For us, this year’s musical offerings began on The Parkway with Nectar Woode; a fresh faced, punchy soul singer from Milton Keynes. Backed by her gorgeously jazzy all female band, the quartet amplified sunny vibes through the early rain. Keen to connect the crowd to her Ghanaian roots, her soothing vocals were a welcome start to the day’s proceedings.

Next up was a local. Filling the newly extended Plant Room with effortless flows and humble messages, Lex Amore had the crowd hooked on her highly intriguing lyrical journey. The Londoner’s words resonated to all who would listen, calling out community heroes within the crowd and celebrating a fan in the front row for matching her word for word. A law graduate, a poet, a producer, an artist, a rapper. A raw talent. This performance was a timely reminder of what a delightful stage The Plant Room is; feeling both intimate and open, it has been re-situated to compliment a natural slope in the site and this, combined with flanking platforms, means there isn’t a bad view in the house. 

A spot of stage hopping followed these two full sets, taking advantage of everything the festival had to offer for the next hour or so. Following Amore in The Plant Room was The Brighter Days Family, presenting their eclectic mix of genre-crossing, high energy, positivity-driven musical offerings. Fusing Salsa and Jazz, African rhythms and grime, they are impossible to pin down and you never know where the set will head next. They’re certainly ones to keep an eye on. Don West on The Parkway brought a sprinkling of sultry Australian soul to proceedings. Swooning many in the front row with his crystal clear vocals and film star persona, he’s certainly a fresh take on the blues. All the while his fellow countryman Young Franco was serving up a plethora of bass-infused crowd pleasers over on Four Corners. A producer who clearly understands the importance of a hook within a song, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Umbrellas enthusiastically bounced to every beat within theirs, no one deterred by the heavy showers passing over at the time. 

The break in the weather returned us to The Parkway. Given top-line billing, Westside Gunn’s first ever UK performance was quite a coup for the festival. Large portions of the crowd had clearly booked on for him alone, and this was undoubtedly being considered the main event by plenty in attendance. There would probably not have been any other act on the billing for whom a highly expectant crowd would have stood and waited 40 minutes past the scheduled start time. Whilst not knowing the full story, later acts humorously implied this was not down to technical issues and that in-fact the Americans needed to be forgiven for their ‘jet lag’. 

Perhaps it was all part of the East Coast bravado, but it was a stunt that felt off kilter with the rest of the event and ethos of Jazz Cafe itself. We wrote last year about the historic institutional foundations of which this event is built upon: a place where artistry respects artistry. With Gunn proclaiming he didn’t “give a ****” about who was playing the stage next, apologising only that he had to perform a shorter set rather than for turning up late, this did not feel like a man aligned with those sentiments. Once performing, the New Yorker fluctuated wildly between charismatic and chaotic, but in all honesty much was left to be desired. Vocals were all over the place, out of time and not loud enough, and ultimately he had to be cut off before he would leave the stage. Promising a later appearance with compatriot and Griselda Record co-founder Benny The Butcher later that evening, the performance fizzled out rather than being the occasion it should have been.

Someone who did sadly fall victim, at least partially, to Gunn’s antics was Elemiene. A clearly rushed sound check trying to get the billings back on time meant the start of this set was not quite what it should have been. Brit nominee for Rising Star in 2025, the charming and powerful British-Sudanese vocalist was projecting such an energy that it barely mattered. A generous crowd saw him through the early moments where he laughed off the behaviour of those before to deliver a sumptuous and captivating hour of soul which carried across the site. A rare moment where The Parkway was the loudest. 

To finish it was a first visit to The Dome, where South Asian inspired party bringers and art collective Daytimers had been raising a packed out party all day long. Every time you walked past you’d be tempted in by the downright funk that was flowing from this little wooden structure. Heading it all up was the forever loveable Nabihah Iqbal. A producer and music maker in her own right, she’s garnered quite the following on both sides of the Atlantic for her selector abilities alone. A regular on The Lot and NTS alike, her cheeky charisma, sensitive soul and ability to choose beats whatever the occasion has gained her a loyal fan base. This evening was no different with a solid crowd both inside and outside, despite the big name offerings elsewhere. Disco, Funk, Afrobeat, Soul Jazz and everything between, all delivered with a smile, it was the perfect send off into the steamy summer’s eve.

As already touched upon, a new year brought a new layout for the site and the results were mixed. Overall the changes were largely positive, The Plant Room extended and aided by the slope, Four Corners (sadly without its brutalist set dressing this year) had a huge bowl to itself and The Dome had been brought closer to the action. Overall, things felt more compact, however perhaps overly so with there being noticeable pinch points for the crowds this time out. The new proximity was also perhaps at the detriment to the main stage, The Parkway, which felt as though it had been given less space than in 2024, almost tagged on the side of everything else. Often suffering from heavy sound bleeds from both The Dome and Plant Room, it had also lost its charming placing of trees within the crowd. Sharing the site with Boiler Room perhaps adds to the odd arrangement here as a second outpost stage which doubled as the sound tower is in the midst of the crowd. These are very minor things which are hard to get right without trial and error. It’s encouraging enough that the festival is attentive enough to action the other beneficial changes between editions and we look forward to seeing the developments in 2026. 

A huge shout out to the festival for the draught pints, a very cheeky addendum to our review from 2024. Once the secret was out the queues at the Four Corners bar far exceeded all the others, but the reward was well worth the wait. A handful more food vendors may well help ease queues at peak times, but nothing felt unachievable. 

If the score on our review feels slightly low then it is only because of the incredible success and level of anticipation following year one. A change of date meant this was taking place in the fast paced churn of summer with many festivals still on the horizon. Previously, when in September, it felt like the last of the summer wine, leaving a yearning for more. Perhaps that also played into thinking. As a day festival it still offers something that nothing else in London does: a genuinely genre-bending line up. You can flow between musical worlds throughout the day and every act feels carefully considered and specifically chosen for the event. There are very few who simply feel ‘part of the festival circuit’. You’ll struggle to find more attentive crowds than at Jazz Cafe, with the usual brand of London talkers seemingly staying far away. It’s no surprise this event sold out and kudos to the organisers. Keep doing as they’re doing and music fans alike will keep coming back.