Last night, the missus and I watched a film that had been languishing on the video recorder, waiting for us to find a free 2½ hour slot in our evening schedules. It was called Hidden Figures, and it was about three African-American women working as ‘computers’ assigned to NASA’s Mercury space program in the early sixties. That we watched the film just a couple of days after the winner of the Mercury Music Prize had been announced was just coincidence, I’m sure. Or was it a hint from the quicksilver messenger service that this year’s award would be a good topic for a blog post?

The 2023 Mercury Music Prize was won by a band of young London-based jazz musicians by the name of Ezra Collective. It was the first time the prize has been awarded to a jazz outfit, but don’t be misled by that. All sources of information say they are a jazz band but, in the Crotchety filing cabinet, they are also found under Afrobeat, funk, hip-hop and soul. In fact, it’s hard to decide what their primary genre should be. The Mercury Prize judges have uncovered something a little off the beat’n track to delight us once again.

Here’s a sampler of their work, with tracks from the debut album, Juan Pablo: Philosopher (2018) through to their most recent, Where I’m Meant to Be (2022).