Emma-Jean Thackray

When we asked Emma-Jean Thackray if she would come to Moldejazz this year—and perhaps create a program where, as the masterful trumpeter she is, she pays tribute to Miles Davis, who would have turned 100 this year—the answer was, of course, yes. She illustrates this through the letter below, written to Miles.

Emma-Jean Thackray is one of the most exciting and genre-defying voices of her generation—a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer with a truly distinctive artistic identity. With her latest release Weirdo, she blends jazz, soul, pop, and grunge into a personal and powerful musical universe, where virtuosity meets raw honesty and strong artistic integrity.

She writes, records, and produces all her music herself, and has established herself as an uncompromising artist with complete control over her own expression. With a background in both the British brass band tradition and renowned music education institutions in London, she moves seamlessly between clubs, concert halls, and festivals around the world—from BBC Radio 6 Music to Glastonbury Festival.

Emma-Jean Thackray (Trumpet, Vocal, Keys, Guitar), Dougal Taylor (Drums), Lyle Barton (Keys), Matt Gedrych (Bass)

Concerts in our main program typically last between 60 to 90 minutes.
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I discovered you by accident. As a naive thirteen year old I came across a track by mistake, not knowing your genius, not knowing how that one moment changed the trajectory of my life.

I was learning a brass band solo piece, Concerto de Aranjuez, and found your version on an illegal download site. “Who is this Miles Davis guy?” I asked. No-one in my provincial orbit knew your name, so I assumed you were just some guy, and that I discovered you. After that I looked for you in CD shops, piecing together bits of pocket money to buy your work and playing it on the Discman in my hoodie on the long walk home because I could no longer afford the bus.

I learnt the melody and solo of Four on my trumpet by ear because it stood out to me, not knowing it was an important part of the great American songbook, and not knowing I was already immersing myself in jazz training. I was already starting to write my own music, my own words, but you blew everything wide open and showed me a whole world of music that I hadn’t known. You made me want to play jazz. You made me realise I was an artist. I wasn’t just inspired by you, I studied you - and not just the notes but you. How you had one ear on the notes you played and your other ear on the whole thing, the aesthetic, the production, the vibe. This is how I work, too - splitting my brain to inhabit many roles at once. Not just a musician but a bandleader, a producer, an auteur.

You pushed boundaries, didn’t let anyone tell you what to do, but followed your own ear. Some people dug it, some people took a minute, some people never caught up. The most important thing was your own artistic integrity because that was everything to you, and I took that to heart. That’s the most important thing to me, too. I don’t care if everybody's into what I do or not; the right people will listen. What I do comes from deep within, maybe even from somewhere else, but it’s like air, it’s my purpose. I recognise that in both of us.

What would you be doing today if you were still here? I truly have no idea, but I know you wouldn’t be standing still, you’d be doing something groundbreaking and mixing things that people had previously thought shouldn’t be mixed to make something new. Would there be dance music textures? Drum and Bass, Jungle, or Techno underpinning improvisation? Blending modern groove with jazz harmony? Drum machines together with live instruments? Would you revisit your classic tunes and make them anew with the ear of a beat maker? Would you make the electric period actually electronic?

I don’t know what you’d be doing, but it doesn’t matter because I’m going to do that for you...