what's on @ Karamel This Week And The Next?

The Maydan Ensemble of the North London Jazz Collective is a quintet that blends modern jazz with Arabic, Anatolian and Persian folk music. Having formed at the start of 2025, they have wowed audiences, selling out multiple venues across London, including Palestine House and the Green Note, as well as recently headlining Zeman Festival in Serbia. They are a fully international group comprising some of London’s busiest jazz musicians in a unique setting: - rising star Amena El Adb, the Egyptian singer - acclaimed Irish-Iranian jazz guitarist Kourosh Kanani - one the finest Iranian folk musicians in London, Parham Bahadoran on reeds (zurna, duduk and clarinet) - Italian-English bassist and stalwart of the London jazz scene Lorenzo Morabito (Giacomo Smith, Peter Horsfall, Mark Kavuma etc); - Londoner Robbie Ellison (Steve Fishwick, Frank Basile, etc) on drums.

The group explores the intersection of jazz and a bricolage of Middle Eastern musical traditions from two perspectives: that of material from the jazz canon inspired by West Asia; and that of the group's own jazz-flavoured arrangements and renditions of Arabic, Anatolian and Persian folk tunes.

’Maydan’ means ‘town square’ or ‘public meeting-place’. Originating in Farsi, the word now finds usage in Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Georgian and Ukrainian. In taking this name, the group recognises first and foremost that diverse musical traditions find commonality by their grounding in communal life and social practice, while embracing the subversive political potential of music as a collective, convivial act.

About the North London Jazz Collective: The NLJC is a community of the UK’s finest jazz musicians who’s collective output explores all things from trad and gypsy jazz, swing and bebop to more contemporary and experimental stylings. Our members play regularly at the UK's top venues such as Ronnie Scotts, Soho Pizza, 606, Vortex etc; at major festivals both in UK (eg. London Jazz Festival and Love Supreme Festival) as well as touring extensively in Europe and elsewhere. Members have received recognition such as BBC Young Jazz musician of the Year, Arts Council Grants, and other awards for performances and recordings. The Collective meets every Wednesday for the Brewhouse Session in Highbury, where a different house band each week plays a set of curated material which is followed by, what has become over the last year, one of the most talked-about jam sessions in London. While guest artists, international and UK-based, have included Gabrielle Stravelli, Pete Horsfall, Mark Taylor, Pat O’Leary, Neil Saidi, Noe Codjia, Olli Soikelli, Bjorn Ingelstamt and Paulo Morello, the house band regularly features star names of UK jazz, such as Alex Garnett, Steve Fishwick, Deschanel Gordon, Allison Neale, Honey Boulton, Harry Diplock, Matyas Gayer, Rob Barron, Kourosh Kanani, Gabriel Latchin, Sam Braysher, Nat Steele, Fraser Smith, Alex Bryson and Sean Fyfe, along with rising talents Donovan Haffner, Klara Devlin, Guilia Marro, Olivia Cuttill, Jacob Wilson and Zak Sholapurkar. The list of musicians, dancers and aficionados who have attended the jam sessions is a who’s who of British Jazz and beyond, including Fred Again, Georgia Cecile, the former Sudanese Ambassador, Steve Brown, Ruben Fox, Artie Zaitz, Miranda Radford, Louise Messenger and many more.

Karamel - 4 Coburg Road, London N22 6UJ. The Karamel vegan kitchen will be serving food until 9.30pm. Email karamel8775@gmail.com to book a table for groups of 3+.

See u there :)