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Classic Recordings: Yussef Dayes- Black Classical Music (Debut)

A drummer from South East London titles his debut album Black Classical Music and then spends nineteen tracks proving the phrase is not a provocation but a description.

Yussef Dayes and the argument in the title

Yussef Dayes came up in London's extraordinary young jazz scene, first widely heard in the duo Yussef Kamaal with keyboardist Kamaal Williams, whose Black Focus (2016) was one of the records that announced the whole movement. He then made What Kinda Music with Tom Misch, and in 2023 delivered this — his first solo album, and the fullest statement of what he actually does.

The title is the thesis. "Classical music" as a term has always quietly meant European art music, with everything else filed as folk, popular or ethnic. Dayes' point is that jazz, and the wider Black musical tradition it belongs to, is classical music by every meaningful definition: formally sophisticated, technically demanding, built on a canon, and passed between generations of trained practitioners. He does not argue this in interviews so much as demonstrate it across nineteen tracks.

What to listen for

The drumming is the event. Dayes plays with a fluidity that comes from studying West African and Caribbean rhythm alongside jazz — the pulse is constantly shifting, but never loses its centre. "Chasing the Drum" and "Early Dayes" are the clearest showcases.

"Pon di Plaza" with Chronixx is the standout collaboration — one of reggae's finest modern voices over a drummer who understands Jamaican rhythm from the inside.

"Raisins Under the Sun" features Shabaka Hutchings, the saxophonist and clarinettist at the centre of the same London scene, and the title nods to Langston Hughes by way of Lorraine Hansberry.

"Marching Band" with Masego is the most immediately charming thing here; "Cowrie Charms" with Leon Thomas the most soulful. "Woman's Touch" with Jamilah Barry and "Magnolia Symphony" show the compositional ambition.

Go deeper

Yussef Kamaal's Black Focus is the essential prequel, and What Kinda Music with Tom Misch is the most accessible way in.

The wider London scene is one of the most important things happening in music: Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming), Nubya Garcia, Moses Boyd, Ezra Collective and Emma-Jean Thackray. Much of it traces back to Tomorrow's Warriors, the education programme that trained a remarkable number of these musicians.

And for the tradition Dayes is claiming: Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams and Art Blakey — four drummers who were composers in everything but title.

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