Cutting Edge acts revealed for Edinburgh Jazz Festival

Cross The Tracks 2019 will host Ibibio Sound Machine, Sons of Kemet, Donny McCaslin, Nubiyan Twist, Moses Boyd Exodus, London Afrobeat Collective and Soweto Kinch and many more.

Cross The Tracks will feature cutting edge music that crosses the boundaries between jazz, contemporary urban music and other genres, whilst staying true to the progressive and revolutionary nature of the art form.

From the young and exciting London jazz scene where convention is brushed aside and creativity sets the tone, Nubiyan Twist, are raising the bar with their soul-soaked Afrobeat and Hip Hop collective.

Making their Festival debut, Sons of Kemet bear a name that nods to ancient Egyptian culture, and a line-up that comprises some of the most progressive 21st-century talents in British jazz and beyond.

Famously chosen by David Bowie to collaborate on his last album Black Star, jazz saxophonist, Donny McCaslin, steps boldly into hybrid, tough-to-classify musical terrain, grafting his trademark sleek, emotive electrojazz onto lush, proggy art rock.

Ibibio Sound Machine’s trademark sound, meanwhile, is a groove-driven melange of gospel, funk, post-and electro-punk and contemporary R&B, alongside African polyrhythms, horns and guitar fronted by the London-born Nigerian singer Eno Williams.

With two MOBO awards under his belt and regular slot as a resident on BBC Radio 1xtra, Moses Boyd Exodus flys the flag for the UK jazz scene more than anyone else and counts Gilles Peterson, Four Tet and Floating Points among his biggest fans.

Inspired by the great Fela Kuti, London Afrobeat Collective’s broiling, brass-driven Afrobeat has featured at Festival’s all over the country. the band were invited by Michael Eavis personally to open the Jazz World stage at Glastonbury.

This year’s Festival cover star, Soweto Kinch, explores the border between jazz and hip-hop, switching fluently between styles winning an unprecedented array of accolades including two MOBO awards, three BBC awards (Rising Star, Best Jazz Instrumentalist, and Best Jazz Band) and a Montreux Jazz Festival Award.

Closer to home, Cross The Tracks’s Scottish flavour comes from Graeme Costello’s band Strata who push boundaries between the jazz, rock, minimalism, n noise and meditative play.

Also on the programme, Corto Alto, Mezcla, AKU! and Orion All Stars all bridge the gap between jazz and electronic music.

And for the first time Cross The Tracks goes European with Esinam from Brussels who fuses African music, jazz and progressive electronic genre, General Post Office from Oslo, splicing free improvisation and contemporary hard edge jazz with rough-as-guts blues, and Gianni Denitto from Piemonte who mixes live saxophone and electronics to cross different musical cultures and traditions.

Cross The Tracks, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, 12-21 July, www.edinburghjazzfestival.com,