The man who made London swing again

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Dalston dynamo: One-time choirboy Will Gresford took over at the Vortex jazz club after a spell in the pop industry

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How did a boxy little room in a concrete square in London's least desirable postcode become the most innovative jazz club in the world? The Vortex, housed in the Dalston Culture House, has proved not only that "Dalston Culture House" is no oxymoron, but that London is capable of out-jazzing New York and Chicago. This year's London Jazz Festival is an anomaly: as usual, the grandest international names have descended on the capital - but this time the most exciting events are those involving a dynamic new generation of bands bred on our doorstep.

"What's going on right now in London is almost unprecedented," says Will Gresford, the dynamic, 27-year-old manager of the Vortex, when I meet him in Hackney. "The audience is growing, changing, getting younger all the time. Bands are wising up. People are taking us seriously. I don't think there's ever been a better time for jazz in London."

In 2004, the emergence of the thrilling Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland served notice that something funny was afoot in British jazz - but the continued appearance of new artists such as Led Bib, Fraud and Ingrid Laubrock is testament to a new spirit of enterprise epitomised by Gresford's Vortex.

An eccentric, anorak-y fixture of Stoke Newington Church Street for nearly two decades, the Vortex lost its old home to rising rents in 2003 - but after a heartfelt campaign by local supporters, found new accommodation in Gillett Square up the road in Dalston (which was voted the worst place to live in Britain in a recent Channel 4 property programme).

Premises that initially looked unpromising have, thanks to Gresford, who took over in 2005, and co-owner Oliver Weindling, become the kind of place you might drop by even when you don't know who's on the bill. It is leading the cultural regeneration of the area and nurturing the kind of scene that rock music can only really fake.

The night before our meeting, Gresford had attended a party in Whitehall thrown by the "All Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Society" to celebrate the launch of the Jazz Festival. When he's finished speculating what the honorable member John Prescott (a Billie Holiday nut, apparently) would make of the brutal squawking of Vortex favourites Led Bib, he admits the invitation was a sign of the respect the Vortex now commands.

More significantly, he has successfully negotiated a £25,000 Arts Council grant, which has allowed him and Oliver finally to buy the Steinway piano that adorns the stage.

"The grant was a major step forward," he says. "It proves that we have become a proper arts venue. We have education programmes, an international reputation and strong links with the community as a partner in the Gillett Square regeneration scheme." He speaks proudly of Dalston - "regenerated, not gentrified" - as everything Hoxton was 10 years ago. Tomorrow, he meets representatives from the nearby Arcola Theatre and Rio Cinema to try to capitalise on what he calls the "Dalston Arts hub".

Suave, in a scruffy sort of way, Gresford credits his youth spent as a choral scholar at New College, Oxford - singing Evensong six nights a week, at 6.30pm on the dot, for nigh on 18 years - for providing his near-religious reverence for music. It may seem a strange step from devotional singing to running a venue where you can challenge a grandmaster to a game of chess to an avant-blues soundtrack or watch a man called Leafcutter John playing a child's balloon but respect for the creative process is key. "It's vital that the musicians see this as their venue; that's what provides the sense of there being a scene," he explains.

But it's clear that a brief spell in the pop industry, promoting bands and working as assistant to Radio 2 DJ Paul Gambaccini, has instilled a sense of go-getting that is frequently lacking in the jazz world. "At the end of the day we're a business like any other" is his pragmatic assertion. To this end, he is currently "creating new revenue streams", setting up a Vortex podcast and wi-fi-enabling the whole venue. Central to his ambitions has been launching his own record label, Vortex Babel, an offshoot of Weindling's respected Babel stable, from which Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear sprang.

"I don't think there's any other music venue that has actually done that," he beams. His first signings already look a shrewd move: The Portico Quartet, spotted busking on the South Bank, are a mellower proposition than the punk jazz with which the Vortex has become synonymous, but their widescreen melodies have won an army of young fans. Gresford reckons the average age at their recent album launch was 23. They grace the Vortex stage tonight.

Gresford puts the youth of his audiences down to a new attitude among the jazz players themselves. "Jazz is not known for being accessible," he says.

"But what's so impressive about the new wave - and please don't spell that 'nu' by the way - is that while the bands are getting more popular, the music isn't getting any easier. It's not dumbing down. So it shows that the audience is getting more adventurous and bands are learning how to promote themselves, use MySpace, have confidence in their own identity."

Tom Cawley, who plays keyboards in Acoustic Ladyland and leads his own trio, Curios, is one musician who has felt the change. "When I started playing about 10 years ago, most of the stuff we were doing was derived from the American model, whereas now, all the bands coming through in London have their own concept," he says.

Mark Holub, lead agitator of Led Bib, is a New Jersey-born drummer who has taken up residence in Hackney, relishing the lack of strictures in London.

"You don't have the same weight of tradition in the UK as we do in America. In the States, you have people like Wynton Marsalis who are really hung up on preserving black American culture - whereas over here, you're coming from a different angle, you can play around with it."

Amid all the excitement Gresford is realistic. You have to admit that the music industry is having problems. The Spitz - the only other venue that would have programmed someone like Led Bib - has closed and V2 [Acoustic Ladyland's label] has just been bought out. But then again, our scene is vibrant enough as it is. It's not like jazz players are angling for million-dollar record deals. That's not what we're about."

I suggest Gresford's capacity in bringing this difficult but immensely rewarding music to a larger audience may soon have him snapped up by a larger venue but he insists he wants to see the Vortex through, at least until the new East London Line links Dalston to the wider world in 2010.

"It is the musicians who have built the scene," he says. "But being part of it, helping it to grow is immensely gratifying. I have a pile of CDs of wonderful music. It is a joy and a privilege to be able to bring it to people's attention."

Drop by at any time to hear why.

 

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