For more than 50 years London has benefited enormously from immigration.
A truly global city with an international reach, the city's streets have become a formidable mesh of languages, cultures, and styles.
It's no coincidence, then, that London's music scene is world beating. Take it's jazz community - using different voices to reinterpret jazz tropes, there's currently a golden wave of musicians coming of age.
Composer Michael Janisch salutes this on his fantastic new piece 'Another London'. It's a tip of the cap to the countless immigrants who came and offered up a piece of their lives to the city, helping change it in the process.
Taken from incoming album 'Worlds Collide', it's a fantastic group piece, led by that intoxicating bassline. Michael explains...
"After meeting with a friend - a fellow musician who moved to London about the same time as myself from Russia - for drinks near Borough Market one afternoon, we started talking about this very issue, and after our meeting I went walking through the streets with this on my mind and noticed a myriad of people from seemingly endless backgrounds, just getting on with their day, going about their business in what felt like perfect harmony."
"This is the story I personally don't think we're told enough when we think of London (especially in the era of Brexit), and as an immigrant myself of over 15 years in the UK, I decided to use that as inspiration for a new song."
He finishes: "This song is also a tribute to my fellow immigrant musicians who have made an enormous impact here, but whose contributions are not always recognised."
Tune in now.
New album 'World's Collide' will be released on September 6th through Whirlwind Recordings (pre-order LINK) - catch Michael performing at King's Place, London on September 27th.
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