Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:30 | Award-winning saxophonist, conductor, and composer Josephine Davies brings her magnificent 17-piece big band back to the Vortex Jazz Club for an exclusive sneak peek into her next major project.
The fourth series of our Whirlpool series commences tonight. Six recently graduated musicians selected by the heads of the courses at our main conservatoires in London.
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:30 | Rob Luft, recently crowned ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ at the 2025 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, is undeniably one of the most exciting jazz guitarists in Europe of his generation.
Drummer/composer drunkard Jeff “Tain” Watts presents his group “4-Tex”, with Jason Rebello, Paul Bollenback and Orlando le Fleming.
Celebrate the release of the new album from drummer/composer drunkard Jeff “Tain” Watts, inspired by results of the pandemic, from sociopolitical conditions to salutes to the fallen, it should be released by this special Halloween date. Masks encouraged. DJ set will be led by Chris Philips – an award-winning radio presenter, sharing jazz and other musics for 40 years on London radio.
Directed by Scott Stroman, the London Jazz Orchestra is a unique big band of top soloists and writers that create new music
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:15 | TA weekly session on Sunday evenings, hosted by four of London’s finest: guitarist Nick Costley-White, Trumpeter Sean Gibbs, pianist Rick Simpson and tenor saxophonists and Riley Stone-Lonergan, each one hosting one session on rotation.
Improvised music from a trio of three leading voices from the US and the UK.
The London Ambient Orchestra is a community of artists and individuals of diverse musical backgrounds. From conservatoire trained classical musicians to self taught avant-garde street performers, brought together by a love of sound and exploration in stillness and expression
Doors Open 18:45, Music Starts 19:15 | London-based accordionist and composer Mark Lasis presents his quintet at the Vortex for the first time for a set of original compositions inspired by the sounds of 70s fusion paired with his roots as a classical musician.
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:30 | Edlund’s upcoming debut album, Virgin Forest, features the extraordinary musical minds of Laura Jurd, Ruth Goller and Elliot Galvin. The album is a collection of letters to our younger and older selves, reflecting upon the synergy between how we treat the home we have in nature and the one we carry within.
Doors Open 18:45, Music Starts 19:15 | SPACE TRIO lives in the open territory between Jazz and Free, with improvisation framed by some strong tunes written for this kind of playing.
Doors Open 19:30, Music Starts 20:00 | Guitarist and composer Jean de Talhouët leads ONMO, bringing original music which is dynamic and broad ranging, inspired by jazz greats such as Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson
Doors Open 22:30, Music Starts 23:15 | Drummer Jochen Rueckert presents his new New York City Quartet – a band of standout young musicians, decades his junior, challenging him to keep up while championing the next generation.
Doors Open 18:45, Music Starts 19:15 | Brand new quartet of highly regarded British and European improvisors. Saxophonist Colin Webster and bassist Caius Williams are two of London’s most prolific improvisors, working many key figures in experimental music.
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:30 | Drummer Jochen Rueckert presents his new New York City Quartet – a band of standout young musicians, challenging him to keep up while championing the next generation.
Looking to join a jazz band, meet other musicians and play more jazz? This new workshop at the Vortex is a relaxed, welcoming community for musicians who want to play, learn and develop together.
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:30 | London-based saxophonist Leo Richardson returns to The Vortex to present his high-octane quartet performing entirely original music, firmly grounded in contemporary hard bop.
Two shows: Doors Open 19:00 OR 21:30 | A very welcomed return to the Vortex for the exciting electric guitar and drums collaboration between Thurston Moore and Mark Wastell.
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:30 | ONe_Orchestra New work in large-group improvisation to free themselves and their listeners from the default assumptions built up through the centuries-long predominance of cis men in music… This improvising orchestra’s work opens up novel, important, and fascinating new forms, relations, AND sounds.
A top-flight quartet of UK improvisers blow their way through legendary free jazz repertoire from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Albert Ayler & Paul Motian
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:30 | Comprising four long-term collaborators and friends (thus the ‘family’ tag), the band takes as its starting point the freewheeling music of those musicians who, back in the 1960s, were at the forefront of the free jazz revolution.
Doors 7:45 PM, Music 8:30 PM This performance will start promptly at 8:30pm Line-up: Stephanie Burrell – dance Finn Carter – piano About: This month, Finn Carter experiments with form and what the idea of improvisation and communication look like between music and dance. Part of Finn Carter’s monthly residency at the Vortex, showcasing a […]
Our monthly series brings together some of the most prominent voices in contemporary songwriting, hosted by Matthew Herd. The incredible Lily Lyons joins us this month for a London Jazz Festival special.
Award-winning duo Alina Bzhezhinska (harp) and Tony Kofi (saxophone), joined by tabla virtuoso Yousuf Ali Khan, present After John, a celebration of the visionary music Alice Coltrane created following the passing of her husband and greatest musical collaborator, John Coltrane.
Following his sold-out appearances at the Vortex in 2022, legendary New York drummer Ari Hoenig returns with his acclaimed trio featuring Tom Ollendorff and Viktor Nyberg.
The LJO’s residency at the Vortex is a London jazz institution, producing great up-close-and-personal gigs since the club’s opening. Directed by Scott Stroman, today’s band is as vital as ever, featuring legendary soloists as well as exciting new talent. Their new Primetime album on Analogue/October records received rave reviews, and it will be follow by Between Earth and Sky later this season.
A wonderful evening of freely improvised music from Croatia, USA, Germany, New Zealand, UK
Crow Culture are a trio made up of guitarists James Kitchman and Tara Cunningham, and drummer Will Glaser.
Emilia Märtensson & Matt Robinson bring together lyrical songwriting, improvisation, and contemporary European jazz in music that is both intimate and expansive. Their long-standing musical partnership centres on a shared love of space, clarity, and expressive storytelling, creating performances that are immersive, spontaneous, and deeply connected.
For one night only, saxophonist and bandleader Reiss Ellis Beckles presents a live performance of Oliver Nelson’s iconic The Blues and the Abstract Truth.
Córas Trio reinvent the spontaneous. Deconstructed Irish traditional melodies emerge from blissful, otherworldly textures that foreground fiddle, guitar and percussion with transcendental electronics.
For the 2026 London Jazz Festival, the curators of The Downstairs Living Room warmly invite you to an evening of Joni Mitchell classics, paired with their own original songs.
Marking the 20th anniversary of avant-garde master György Ligeti’s passing, pianist Bruno Heinen—described by The Guardian as “eclectic, eccentric, and unobtrusively erudite”—brings a thrilling rhythmic experiment to The Vortex Jazz Club.
For this performance we will be playing music from our forthcoming album “The Forest Speaks” set for release on London based Batov records in 2027.
A weekly session on Sunday evenings, hosted by four of London’s finest: guitarist Nick Costley-White, Trumpeter Sean Gibbs, pianist Rick Simpson and tenor saxophonists and Riley Stone-Lonergan, each one hosting one session on rotation.
French-Italian pianist and composer Milena Granci presents her debut album, “To Some Place New”. Blending jazz with folk and cinematic influences, she creates an immersive and emotionally rich sound world.
Doors 6:45 PM, Music 7:15 PM – 1 set of music Line-up: Steve Noble – Drums Tom Challenger – Tenor saxophone Caius Williams – Double bass About Steve Noble is London’s leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael […]
Guitarist Hannes Riepler leads a quartet of distinctive voices from the contemporary London jazz scene, bringing together original music that is lyrical, searching, and rhythmically alive. The band moves fluidly between composed material and open improvisation, balancing melodic clarity with moments of raw intensity and play.
A fantastic double bill featuring two of the most innovative and most distinctive groups in UK creative music. Both have been touring debut albums this year and feature superb line-ups of heavy weight improvisers
This performance marks the debut of a brand-new quintet, presenting new compositions and a new musical direction, born from Mark Kavuma’s record label Banger Factory records.
What do modernist poetry and music have to say to each other? How far away is the late 20th century? Why stage modernist music and opera? What happens to making art when people give up on social democracy?
Doors Open 19:45, Music Starts 20:15 | TA weekly session on Sunday evenings, hosted by four of London’s finest: guitarist Nick Costley-White, Trumpeter Sean Gibbs, pianist Rick Simpson and tenor saxophonists and Riley Stone-Lonergan, each one hosting one session on rotation.
Fabienne Ambuehl is a pianist and composer known for her vibrant contemporary jazz, weaving together elements of poetry and storytelling.
Joe Boyle’s Union present “Welcome to the New World”, the debut album from British Double Bassist Joe Boyle.
A trio that re-weaves many strands. The three initially performed together as part of the Chris Burn Ensemble in the late 1990s. In 1984 Butcher and Durrant began an influential trio with guitarist John Russell which performed for 15 years.
Guitarist and composer Karim Saber brings together a group of acclaimed London based musicians for a night of original music.
Pianist and composer Basil Hodge has been a mainstay of the British Jazz scene since the early nineties. The band will play Basil’s compositions from his critically acclaimed album ‘A Point of Reference’.
Join a collective of musicians who met through the Vortex jazz club in imagining future standards.
Phil Robson, an incredibly versatile and creative guitar player as well as composer, named Musician of the Year at 2009 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, plus winning Album of the Year in 2015