Tomorrow’s Warriors – Interview with Janine Irons and Gary Crosby
Straight No Chaser, Autumn 2019
An unassuming residential road in Harrow, North-West London, is an unlikely location for the headquarters of an organisation that’s served as a vital hub for the UK’s jazz community for nearly thirty years. But it's here that Janine Irons and Gary Crosby have forged a path for which the current rude health of the UK jazz scene and its blossoming of young talent owes an enormous debt. Together they run Tomorrow’s Warriors, a nonprofit music education organisation that grew out of a jam session that Gary, double-bassist in influential ensemble the Jazz Warriors, set up in 1991 following his departure from that group. Two years later, Gary met Janine, who was instrumental in building it up from those roots into the professional, structured organisation it is today. “When we started”, she tells me, “what was lacking was access to higher-profile gigs and a regular platform for people to play…we developed that platform, and had to keep putting in bits of infrastructure to the scene because it just wasn’t there”. It is thanks in large part to their work that today’s UK jazz scene is so thriving, though Janine also gives credit to organisations like Jazz Re:Freshed, Good Evening Arts, Church of Sound and Steam Down, who “have shored up the infrastructure…we’re not quite there yet, we’re in a good place at the moment, but it does remain to be seen how robust this resurgence in jazz is”.
Gary and Janine’s respective paths pre-Tomorrow’s Warriors illuminate the values that have informed their work ever since. The Jazz Warriors, which Gary helped found in the mid-1980s, influenced multiple generations of UK jazz, and was a launching pad for figures like Orphy Robinson, Courtney Pine and Cleveland Watkiss.Just as the current crop of Tomorrow’s Warriors alumni incorporate a mishmash of contemporary influences unique to modern London, the Jazz Warriors combined traditional jazz training with a more unorthodox approach, reflecting their backgrounds in reggae, funk and marching bands. Through this, they rejected stuffy traditionalism, instead connecting more broadly with music of the black diaspora, representing a heritage not necessarily reflected in the jazz establishment of the time. This radical approach continues to have a seismic impact on UK jazz, informing the values that Tomorrow’s Warriors have instilled in multiple generations of young musicians.
With influential Jamaican jazz guitarist Ernest Ranglin as his uncle, Gary knew a career in music beckoned but it wasn’t until his mid-20s that it led to regular work, when “Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson and those guys came on the scene…I met them when they were 18, and I could feel there was another energy I hadn’t felt before, especially in the black community.” He learnt early on of the importance of having a space in which a musical community can come together and collaborate, because “that’s how you learn music, you don’t learn music at college”. It’s clear how crucial this lesson has continued to be upon subsequent generations of jazz musicians searching, like Gary, for “a place to play”. For many, Tomorrow’s Warriors has been a fundamental provider of that much-needed space, and the sense of collaborative community that it provides.
But once you become aware of the need for a space for the community, you raise the question of how you provide that space. “There was something Art Blakey said to me one day - we were doing something at ITV, and he looked around and said “damn, who’s paying for all this?”” This led Gary to ask that question himself - how were scenes like the one he’d found his musical voice within kept afloat financially? “This was money filtering down from major record companies who’d invested in two or three people, and everyone else was trying to exploit that. And it made me think, “are there other ways to do this?””
Meeting Janine helped Gary with that side of things, as he freely admits he “never had the skills”. Her journey into the jazz world was less conventional - after early musical endeavours studying classical piano and dance, as well as singing in a funk band (“not one that you’d know or want to know”), she ended up in the City as a PA for an international bank. Despite climbing steadily through the ranks, she “hated the City. I thought they were all a bunch of philistines, only interested in money - for me there was no humanity - I needed something creative”. This urge led to a sideline in photography which led to her meeting Gary at one of his Jazz Jamaica gigs. Eventually she began helping with the admin of the still-nascent Tomorrow’s Warriors project, which then led to “driving the bus, booking the gigs, doing the photography, writing the press releases, doing all the marketing…and eventually moving into a management role”.
Her primary motivation came from seeing “all these young black musicians, who I knew absolutely nothing about, and I thought “how come I don’t see you in the press?” They were invisible and I thought we needed to make them visible.” This sense of injustice continues to inspire her. “I’ve always had that in me, that’s why I always got thrown out of school, because I was the one to say “this isn’t fair” - and it’s not fair that everyone doesn’t have access to arts and those opportunities. There was always that sense of civic duty, helping people and giving back. It was great having a proper salary in the city, but it’s a soulless place where the only focus is money and, really, Gary saved me from all that”.
Giving back has remained central to the organisation’s ethos, as it moved from a regular jam session at the Jazz Cafe to the Spice of Life in Soho, whilst also setting up Dune Records, another platform for talents associated with the organisation. Next came a weekend residency at the Southbank Centre, and it’s there that their free Young Artists Development Programme helped them impart their values onto multiple generations of musicians for whom their guidance was invaluable. “Everything’s changed since we went to the Southbank” Janine says, “whereas before, we could only really work with a small group at any one time, once we went to the Southbank, that meant more people could come…so they’d all descend on the Southbank at the weekend, and slowly this community started building up. That meant a lot more young people developing together, which is why you’ve now got Ezra (Collective), Nubya (Garcia), Binker and Moses, Kokoroko, and they’re all in each other’s bands”.
This free musical education programme, which nurtures the talents of aspiring jazz musicians aged 11 to 25, has provided the scene with a plethora of pioneering musicians who may not have been able to make such an impact without the programme’s support. Gary agrees that this residency marked a turning point - “at the Southbank, it was just an explosion…I think Binker and Moses’ success has been important to all of them, being taught by them and then seeing them reach that level…prior to that, people like Nubya and Sheila, you’d barely see them take their instrument out of the case, they were so shy”.
Key to this development of artistic confidence amongst young people who may otherwise struggle to find their place in the jazz world is, Janine points out, the fact that “they’ve all grown up together, they all have great respect for each other…they are happy for each other’s success”. Ultimately, Gary says, the current community represents a break from the past and “a different type of musician”, one for whom these ideas of mutual support and responsibility towards your fellow players is paramount. As for how they’ve been able to instil this attitude in their alumni, Gary sheepishly admits “I’m going to be totally left-wing and hippy about it, but it’s about love, which can’t be explained”. “It’s a really holistic approach”, Janine agrees, “it wasn’t just a place where you come and do a lesson and go home, you come and be part of something”. “It was like a community centre, we were playing football together, we were dancing together in that space”, Gary says, reinforcing the sense that this was something bigger than just free music lessons at the weekend.
For their focus to remain on community values over a more financially oriented model, the programme’s free model is vital, ensuring a focus on young people whose financial circumstances may have otherwise made a career in music untenable. For Gary, this is “the most important thing…that’s what makes it special and different…without that, you’re not going to get those kids off the council estates whose parents are worried about basic things like paying for the electricity - how are you going to involve those children if you put a cost on it?”
“Ultimately”, he continues, “we want to say to those in power that music is not just a recreational pastime, it’s an important part of society”. Clearly, the rewards of such an egalitarian approach are bountiful, resulting in a healthier and less homogenous jazz scene than there may have been otherwise. “We wouldn’t have that if it wasn’t for the programme”, agrees Janine, adding “if it wasn’t free, who would you get?”. “Those who can afford it”, answers Gary, saying a great deal with just four words about the wider inequalities of the music world. He is similarly unequivocal: “charging, for me, is a no-no, if you really want to create real diversity in music or art in general. But we’re not at that point yet where we can start beating our chests, saying “jazz can save the world”, because ain’t nobody going to listen to you.”
It is undeniable, however, that it remains urgently important to continue to make the case for programmes such as this within the current political climate, particularly when its benefits to culture at large are so clear. “In the context of music education”, says Janine, “it’s absolutely vital that programmes like this are free, because there’s a growing problem that by starving the schools of funding for arts, it means fewer schools can offer proper music lessons, and inspire students to go further with music. Removing the funding means you remove that teacher who can inspire that generation…especially when hard-pressed parents can’t see a career path in it that’s going to pay their child a living wage”. The success stories of Tomorrow’s Warriors provide a hopeful alternative to this dispiriting state of affairs. “It’s really important that we have the successes we’ve got” Janine asserts, “with the Nubyas, the Ezras, travelling the world, living their dream and earning a decent living - they are the beacons”.
Unfortunately, this success can also come at a cost. The programme is currently facing threat of closure due to a lack of funding, and they are now seeking urgent financial help. “We still don’t have a funder for our programme, so we’re still crowdfunding…the pressure’s on now”, says Janine. Despite the charity’s overt success, Janine is keen to stress “we’re a not-for-profit charity, any profit goes straight back to supporting the next activity. Nobody’s getting rich out of this”.
While Gary may have expressed doubts about the efficacy of chest-beating exhortations about the transformative power of jazz for society at large, Janine is unafraid to tell it how she sees it. “We’re good at what we do, there’s no two ways about it. We’ve shown that we can deliver, we’ve achieved an incredible level of success…we’re not very good at shouting about if from the rafters, and people always say there’s an institutional modesty, and that’s because both of us were brought up not to boast…but sometimes we have to step forward and say “you know what, we’ve actually done a bloody good job””.
Given their current situation, however, they are not yet ready to sit back and bask in their successes. “It remains to be seen”, says Janine, "how robust this resurgence in jazz is…hopefully it will solidify and we’ll be able to build from there, I just hope it’s not a bubble that’s going to burst in the next year or two”. Either way, whatever the future holds, one thing is clear for Janine. “We can’t franchise this” she says, "that’s where the love comes in…you don’t want just anybody teaching these young people…they need to understand where they’re coming from, the legacy, the tradition, and feel part of it”.
“And have some social service values”, says Gary, “I believe the music has to take on something wider than just the group”. It is evident from our conversation that they do indeed stand for something wider, something that teaches us all about the importance of instilling values of community and collaboration across society. It’s a sense of belonging it instills in its alumni that seems to resonate loudest. This is important to Janine, who reinforces that it’s “good for them to see where they fit in the family tree of jazz…to be able to say “I was part of this…this is where I come from”. On a personal level this is crucial for them because, as Janine points out, “as a black person, I can’t go that far back in terms of lineage, it’s virtually impossible to trace our roots that far back. That’s why we want to create that heritage and map it out, so a young person can look back and say, “I’ve come from that” - and it’s a rich heritage”.